All I Need

I

A Broken Girl

Allison woke up to the sound of muted chatter coming from downstairs, punctuated occasionally by a sudden shout or burst of laughter. She knew all too well what the source of those sounds were, and didn’t want to confront them at this time of the night, but something was poking her in the side, making it impossible for her to drift back into the comfort of sleep. She raised her head from her flattened pillow and saw her six year old sister Amy standing beside the bed. Her dirty blonde hair was matted and clumped together and even through her sticky, sleep-blurry eyes, Allison could clearly see the tears glazing her sister’s pale, baby-fat face.

“Ally?” She was whispering, her blue eyes wide with an unpleasant mixture of fear and alarm. “Ally, wake up.”

“What’s wrong?” Allison asked, sitting up quickly despite her sleepy state. She was already fearing for the worst.

Amy looked down, and Allison could almost feel the waves of shame radiating from her.

“I wet my bed.” She said, her voice very small.

Allison couldn’t help but smile a bit. She’d been expecting much, much worse.

“Oh, sweetie,” She said soothingly, brushing a stray lock or hair out of her sister’s face and tucking it behind her ear. “Don’t worry about it.”

She picked Amy up and carried her to the washroom. As they passed the stairwell, a loud, whooping cry split the air, chilling Allison’s blood. At the sound of it, Amy’s body gave a spastic jerk and she buried her face into Allison’s hair. She could feel her sister’s hot tears against the side of her neck.

“Shh,” She whispered into Amy’s ear. “Just relax, okay?”

In the bathroom, Allison stripped off Amy’s urine-soaked pyjamas and dropped them in the sink before putting her in the bathtub and rinsing her off. Amy remained prudently silent during the washing, but Allison knew she didn’t object. After all, Allison had changed her diapers, toilet trained her, bathed her, and basically been more of a mother to her than the stranger downstairs had ever been. She kept a brave face on and tried to cheer Amy up, but secretly she was a bit worried. This type of thing was happening more and more lately, and six was a bit old to be wetting the bed. But then again, Amy wasn’t like most typical six year old girls. And as far as worries went, this one was way at the bottom of the list.

Amy only had one pair of pyjamas, so Allison gave her a pair of white cotton panties and a t-shirt so big the hem reached her knees to wear and then tucked her into her own bed. She was pleased to see her little sister’s eyes clouding with fatigue as soon as her head hit the pillow.

“Go to sleep now, mei-mei, okay?” She said, then kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She heaved a heavy sigh and tore the soiled sheets off of Amy’s bed. She bundled them up along with the pyjamas and then tossed them into the overflowing dirty clothes hamper in the hallway. She would have do a load of laundry tomorrow, after school.

Her shirt was damp from carrying Amy, so she took it off and dropped it in the hamper, revealing her naked, vulnerable chest. She hurriedly grabbed one of her mother’s shirts from the hamper and pulled it on, not minding the smell of stale sweat and cigarette smoke that emanated from it. There was no one around to see her nudity, but she couldn’t stand the way she looked. Couldn’t stand her pale, thin body or her small, asymmetrical breasts.

She sat down on the top step and glanced at her watch, which had been a Christmas present from her father (Probably the last real present he’d given her, she reflected bitterly). It was just a cheap, worn out old Timex, but she supposed that was a good thing because if it was actually worth anything her mother would have taken it and flogged it off for junk a long time ago. It was almost three-thirty. Only three hours left before she would have to get up and get herself and Amy ready for school.

She sighed heavily and buried hr face in her hands. Most of the chatter had died down and now all she could hear was the distant hum of the Velvet Underground on the were probably all done shooting up and drifting through the magical land of the nod by now.

Allison never saw any of the faceless junkies who so often interrupted her sleep at night, unless some of them happened to be passed out in the living room the morning after. And that was just the way she liked it. Her mother had been a heroin addict for as long as she could remember. There were infrequent occasions in which she cleaned up, but she always ended up going back to the needle. Her father had put up with it as long as he could, but shortly after Amy was born (Thankfully without any deformities or problems), he’d finally decided he’d had enough and split, leaving his nine month and eleven year old daughters alone in the custody of a drug addict. He swore that he’d come back for them once he got settled in, found himself a nice place to live, but things just kept coming up. He used to send them money, but stopped when he’d realized their mother was only going to spend it on drugs. Now here she was, sixteen years old and she hadn’t even heard from him in almost two years.

Her mother’s heroin habit consumed everything. There was simply no room for anything else, not even her daughters. After their father left, she gave herself over to the dope completely and consequently had no time to raise Amy, so the mantle fell to Allison, only halfway through the fifth grade at time. Taking care of and essentially raising Amy didn’t really bother her that much. After all, she was the only person in the world to her. Her father had abandoned her, her mother was never there for he, the kids at school ostracized her, but she still had Amy.

Her mother supported her heroin addiction primarily through petty theft and welfare scams, occasionally venturing into the uneasy territory of prostitution and small time dealing when things got desperate. She bought food a few times a week, but almost every dollar she had went towards dope. Allison desperately wanted to get a job, but she couldn’t bear to leave Amy alone.

Allison had long grown indifferent to her mother’s addiction and knew that it was utterly pointless to try and talk her into getting clean. Now it was just another thing to deal with, another obstacle to surmount. She knew all to well that her mother was on the fast track to an early grave, and didn’t much care. The mother she’d known during her rare periods of sobriety was now long dead, and all she was concerned with was keeping herself and Amy alive until she turned eighteen and could finally get away. But still, many troublesome fears often nibbled away at the back of her mind. Fears that Amy would stick herself with one of the filthy needles that were always lying around the house or get into one of her mother’s drug stashes. Fears that one of the junkie lowlifes that hung around the house would freak out and hurt them. Fears that one day she’d walk into the house with Amy and find her mother’s pale blue corpse stretched out on the couch, a syringe still protruding from her arm. She knew she’d be able to handle it, but Amy...

She was jostled from her troubled thoughts by the sound of breaking glass from downstairs. She tensed up, expecting to hear screams and more breaking glass, a fight. But there was nothing. She relaxed. Someone had probably just knocked over an ashtray or something.

Not feeling better than she had before, Allison got to her feet, stepped back into the bedroom, and gently closed the door. Then she climbed into her bed, doing her best not to rouse Amy from her slumber. As soon as she’d pulled up the blankets, Amy snuggled in close to her, pushing her face into her chest. Allison held her close, trying to give her some kind of comfort since there was so little of it in her life. Then, burying her face into her little sister’s hair, she closed her eyes tightly to keep the tears from flowing and silently prayed for sleep that would not come.