I have yet to decide if this will be a short story or not.

It'll depend on how I'm going to continue the story after this. Although, there is a definite part two to this, and in that part two you'll understand why this story is titled My Friend, The Shrink. Enjoy.

“You need to get help Eric. You can’t live the rest of your life like this!”

“Like what?” I questioned coldly as I looked up at my sister. She was three years older than me, and I guess three years is enough for her to think she knows what’s best for me.

“You can’t keep destroying yourself!” She glared at me for a moment, before her eyes softened. “Drinking isn’t going to bring her back, Eric.” She placed her hand on mine.

I pulled my hand away.

Our mother just died. Her death had caused an irreparable hole in my heart. She was the best Mom I could ever ask for. She was always there for me, she always made sure I had my three meals, had my clothes washed and clean, packed my room knowing that within the next few hours it would revert to its original mess, and she was always worrying about me. School; Homework; Grades; Girls; It was weird sometimes when she’d overdo it, but my Mom was cool. She never really yelled at me, definitely never hit me, but there was one thing she couldn’t protect me against: My Dad.

He was the opposite of her. He was a drunk. A violent tyrannical oppressive drunk who never stopped short of a good fifteen-minute beating on what I termed as ‘good days’. On bad days, well they were worse. My Mom would cry in the background as I lay on the floor, unable to retaliate, receiving my Dad’s punches and kicks and verbal abuse silently. As if they were nothing.

She would cry even more, after he stopped. And helped me to bed before cleaning me up and disinfecting any cuts I got. She would sob so terribly that it broke my heart and made me hurt more on the inside than the out. She would apologise to me profusely, and blame herself. I’d tell her, “It’s alright Mom. It doesn’t hurt as bad as it looks.”

She was the one who held this dysfunctional family together. She was the one who made sure I still felt loved. She was the one who paid for the bills. She was the one who held onto three jobs, trying to make ends meet. She was the one who put food on the table while my father would take hold of every opportunity to visit the nearby liquor store. I curse the day they started business there. There were so many times, I’d found myself cursing and wishing that when he walked out that door for more alcohol, he would never come back. Be it getting run over by a car or better yet a truck, dying from alcohol poisoning, getting caught in a cross-fire between gang members, whatever. I don’t care. I just found myself wishing he wouldn’t come back. But he did, every single goddamn time. He’d come stumbling through that door, bellowing at the top of his drunken voice, slurring, waving his bottle around in the air before finishing up the rest of it and hurling it across the room.

My sister was lucky. She’d run away from home years ago. She’d run away from all this with a boy she was in love with. She really was lucky because he didn’t cheat on her and run away with the money she had saved up. I never saw her since I was eight. I don’t know if I really blamed her, for not taking all of us (my Mom and I) away from this life. I couldn’t, really. And when my Mom finally cracked; broke down, from all of this, she threw herself off the edge of a tall building across the street.

I was devastated. I was sixteen and I had lost the only person who mattered to me. By then, I couldn’t care less about how my father would react. I went home still in shock from the news I had received from the principal when he called me into the office, uncaring that my father had stood up and asked me something. Obviously my silence triggered his violent state to come forth and he’d started beating me. But I was immune. It didn’t matter. Let him kill me. He’s already pushed my mother over the edge. What have I got to lose now but one miserable life?

I could hear the sound of the bottle being broken, in a distance. It never occurred to me that he was about to stab me with it. Not until I heard a female voice scream at my father to put it the bottle down before she called the police. He let it fall beside him, murmured something, and walked away after he gave me one last kick to the stomach. The female figure walked towards me. I could only see her legs and I didn’t want to look up at her. I didn’t want to look at anyone.

“Jesus. Eric, get up.” She wrapped her fingers around my arms and tried to pull me up. I wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t move.

“Joe! Come in and help me, I can’t lift him up on my own.” She sounded familiar. ‘Joe’ sounded familiar. I saw a pair of branded leather shoes come into view, before I found myself half-lifted and half-dragged up the stairs and to my bedroom. They’d kicked the door open. There was a gift I’d kept hanging on the back of my door. It was a dress for my Mom. She never got to wear them, but I figured she’d like it anyway. It’s too late now.

I was plopped onto bed. She looked at my face, tears in her eyes and mine. She is my sister.

“Sis.” I croaked out.

“It’s okay, Eric. I’m here. I’m so sorry.” She said as she held me close to her. I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face between her neck and shoulders, and bawled like I was eight again.

“She’s gone.” I cried out. “Mom. She’s gone. She’s gone.”

“I’m gonna get you out of here, Eric. I’ll take you away from Dad. I’m so sorry I didn’t come earlier. I am so sorry.” She said as she held me tighter.