Yes, I'm bitter, but damn I have every right to be. The neighbors tried several times to get Children's Service's involved on my behalf, but my mother was a great actress and always made it seem like they were making things up. So eventually they began to look out for me, giving me bag lunches before school and giving me odd jobs on the weekend so I didn't feel like I was mooching. It turned out to be pretty nice as one of our neighbors was a gymnastics instructor and I'd get to watch as he coached both young girls and boys alike. I ended up learning a lot just from watching.
Coach Killen ended up giving me some private lessons after school when he caught me practicing some of the tumbling moves on my own. He always commented that I was really good at it, but because my mother didn't like me associating with the neighbors to begin with, he couldn't do more. Still, it was fun for the few hours that I could get away from my house and my mother and I always looked forward to it.
That was my life for fourteen years. Living off the goodwill of my neighbors while my mother fed me scraps, beat me simply because I was alive, and when she was drunk, touching parts of my body that I didn't think she should. Then it all changed one afternoon when I got home from school. She was angry, so angry her normally perfect makeup was smeared across her face from her tears. I froze in the foyer of the house, petrified of the woman who had given birth to me.
"It's all your fault!" she cried, obviously in hysterics, but what caught my eye was the large knife in her hand. "Of course, it has to be your fault. Everything's your fault! I found out today, he's been married for five years to a woman who already had a child! But he wouldn't marry me! I had his child! And he wouldn't marry me..." I blinked in surprise, trying to skirt around her so I could make a mad dash to my room. However, she must have realized my intentions as she suddenly lunged at me, swinging the knife wildly.
I fell to the floor, trying my best to fend off the wild swings of the knife. Part of my brain tried to tell me to stop trying, to simply let her kill me and end this miserable life. But I just couldn't kill the part of me that was still hoping that there was something better waiting for me once I was free of her and this house. I could feel the blood running down my arms from where the knife had cut and briefly wondered how deep they were. Then suddenly everything stopped, her face frozen in that mask of hatred, eyes wide and wild before she collapsed, crushing me under her.
I had no idea how long I laid there, waiting for her to get up and start all over again, but by the time I realized she wasn't going to, my breathing had returned to normal, albeit laboured as she was nearly twice my size. I struggled to weasel my way out from under her bulk sliding across the kitchen floor because of the blood that had pooled there. I was cold and my movements felt jerky as I crawled over to the cordless phone she had dropped at some point before I got home. I picked it up, dialing in the numbers as if I'd done it a thousand times before.
"Hello, nine one one, what is your emergency?" a masculine voice asked.
"I think I killed my mother," I replied before letting the phone slip from my fingers. My eyes were locked on the lifeless ones that still seemed to hold nothing but hatred for me. She never blinked, her chest didn't rise, she didn't even flinch. The bitch was dead. And it was all my fault.