There are 6,840,507,000 people in the world. Right now someone somewhere is laughing. And someone is crying. Someone has just been brought into the world, and another has just left. Someone is screaming in excitement, and someone else is screaming in fear. There is someone hiding from the truth and someone just now facing it. Some people love. Some people hate. But everyone hurts. Everyone feels pain. No matter how big or small, everyone suffers. But, of those 6,840,507,000 people, 6,840,507,000 souls, sometimes, all you need is one, to take all the pain away.
April 19th. That was the day. The day everything changed. The A's on my report card started to turn to D's. The sparkle in my eyes started to turn to tears. The smile on my face started to turn to a frown. The love that held parents together…broke.
2am every morning, when most eleven year old girls would be asleep, I'd be awoken by the sound of my dad stumbling down the hallway, and crashing into walls. As my mom would try to help him up he'd scream and yell, utter a few cuss words and some nights, even throw a few punches. And then, he'd fall. Mom would drag him into bed and the next morning he'd complain about his terrible head ache. I, meanwhile, would lay in my bed, still, motionless, and after realizing everyone has gone to bed, I'd cry.
This went on for two years. My dad came home drunk every night. My mom would tend to him every night. I cried every night. Until April 19th. My mom became strong that day. After my dad came home from the bar and passed out on the couch, she carried him into her car. She drove two hours to the nearest rehab facility, left him a note she had written, and drove away. That was the last time I saw her happy. The last time she saw me happy. The last time anything was… happy.
The next eight months were the longest eight months in my life. I went to several court trials and talked to a countless number of lawyers, child care advisors, and other people with the state. They asked a lot of questions, there were a few I was unable to answer, some I was not sure how to answer, but most of them I wasn’t comfortable answering. When you're thirteen and your life is as messed up as mine was, when complete strangers ask you question after question to reveal things of your personal life, it can get to be very intimidating. But some of them were sympathetic, they would tell me everything is going to be ok. Others were cold hearted, they would tell me that life's not fair and you can't always get what you want. I'm honest. I told myself that they're lying. That nothings going to be ok, and that though life isn't fair, this family wasn't something I wanted, it was something I needed.
December 21st was the date of our last trial. That was the day everything became legal. My parents were no longer married, and I was to live in my house with my mother. Dad was being sent back to rehab and I wasn’t allowed to have any interaction with him until the age of eighteen. That was the day everything became final. I couldn’t go back and give our family another chance in hopes that things would turn out better. That was the day everything became real.
I like to run. I always have. It gives me an excuse to get out of the house, and time to think. I can go for as long as I have thoughts to carry me through. Sometimes I run a block, and others I run four miles. But the distance has never bothered me. Sometimes I would begin to breathe more and more heavily and drops of sweat run down my face, but I have never gotten too tired to stop. Stopping is giving up, and giving up is a sign of weakness. I am not weak.
I'm the kind of girl that walks through the hallways by myself. I'm the kind of girl who sits at a table alone during lunch. I'm the kind of girl who doesn’t get invited to parties or sleepovers. I'm the kind of girl that sits at home alone without anything to do. I'm the kind of girl that’s okay with it.
Some state that they wouldn’t be able to live without their friends, I disagree. I've been doing it just fine. My lack of friends isn't because people don't like me, actually in sixth grade I was voted class president by almost a unanimous vote. And I sat at the table with all the pretty and popular girls, but that was sixth grade. Since my parents’ divorce, I've practically isolated myself from the whole rest of the world. I didn’t sit with the other girls anymore, I didn’t raise my hand when my teacher asked for volunteers, I didn’t open up…to anyone.
One time, my mom made me go to a therapist. She said I was socially unstable and this lady was supposed to help me "break out of my shell". But there was no need. I could make friends if I wanted to. Have a party if I wanted to. Smile if I wanted to. The whole point was that I didn’t want to. And why was she to care? It's my life and I'm the one living it. But I knew it would kill her to see me reject this opportunity back to normal life, so I went.
The lady was tall. She had tan skin and short, brown hair. Her smile was white and her voice calm and quiet. I heard it the moment I stepped into her office and the moment I stepped out. The whole hour I was there I sat, listening to her voice float around the room. I didn’t speak. I didn’t see the point. I didn’t have to tell this lady, one that I had never met before, stories about my personal life. She tried hard to get me to talk, she really did, but I was so appalled my mom sent me to this place that I didn’t budge, not once.
When my mom came to pick me up, she spoke with my therapist. I heard them use words like hopeless and impossible. It was then I realized a few things; I would never again come back here, my mom would never again force me to change, and I would never again be normal.
So this was my life. One some may call broken or dispirited. I was too absorbed in what I didn’t want, that I couldn’t bring myself to recognize what I longed for the most. What would dig me out of this hole I've buried myself in. What could turn my life around. That was, until I met Lucas.
December 21. That was the day. The fifth anniversary of my parents divorce. When I went to school, I looked around. I thought how one day could be so symbolic, such a major concern to someone but to someone else, it’s just another day. They didn’t know what that day meant, what had happened exactly five years ago. And quite frankly, they didn’t care. But I knew. I cared. And for that, I ran.
I ran down a path, through the woods, along the streets. I ran everywhere my legs would take me. And after about an hour of running I began to sweat more and more. More than I had ever before. But soon I realized that it wasn’t sweat soaking my face, it was rain. And just as I started on my way home the light shower turned immediately into a downpour. But I kept running, and kept pushing, that is, up until I fell.
There was a small ditch, right up near the curb. I stepped in it and my ankle twisted. As my momentum carried my forward I began to fall. My head came in contact with a rock and… that’s all I can remember.
I woke up laying in a hospital bed. I could see my mom outside the door talking to three doctors and sitting in a chair behind them was a boy. Tall, and buff with big brown eyes. I assumed he was about seventeen as I am. His head was down and hands were clasped, almost as though he were praying. I saw my mom’s head turn towards me and suddenly her eye caught mine. She let out a sudden sigh of relief before running into the room greeting me back to consciousness with a hug and kiss on the forehead.
After talking to her for a while she had mentioned that there was someone she wanted me to meet. It was then when the boy, Lucas, got up and joined us in the room. He told how he was driving when he came across me laying on the road side. He had picked me up, put me in his car, and drove me to the hospital. There, the doctors identified me, found my records and called my mom.
As he spoke, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if he wouldn’t have seen me, or ignored me when he did. Would someone else, someone as gracious as he, have come along. Or would someone despicable have found me. Pick me up and take me away. Away to somewhere that I'll never get out of. I wouldn’t e see my mom again. I wouldn’t see my house again. I wouldn’t see anything again. I began to miss what I had, though I never believed I’d actually had anything. But then, that moment, I realized what I did have.
I thought that was the purpose. To understand that through everything that has happened, I still have a lot. A roof over my head, clothes on my back, and a mother in my heart. I though that was why fait had made it that I fell, and that Lucas found me. But I soon found out, that wasn’t exactly it’s intention.
I was grateful of Lucas. He practically saved my life. And once I got out of the hospital my mom thought it'd be a good idea to meet him somewhere. So that’s what I did. I called him up and we planned to meet at the little diner in town. That day I put on makeup, I wore jeans instead of sweats and instead of my normal pony tail, I let my hair hang in loose curls. And for the first time in five years, I looked at myself and felt beautiful.
When I arrived at the dinner Lucas was already there, seated at a booth in the back. He looked nice. His clothes weren't ratty and his hair was combed. When he spotted me his eyes lit up and a smile began to grow on his face. I sat down in the booth at 6:03. I got back up at 10:30, when the diner closed.
Lucas walked me home that night; the night after that and the night after that. We were always together. He made me feel good about myself. He made me feel like I was important. He made me feel happy. That was when I told him about my parents.
I told him about getting woken up in the middle of the night by my intoxicated father. I told him about when he'd hit my mom. And I told him about April 19th and December 21st. I told him of everything and he listened. He gave me feedback every once in a while but I could tell he wasn’t all too sure what to say. I didn’t blame him, though, he doesn’t know what it’s like to go through this. That was when I told him something, something I had never told anyone before.
About two weeks after my parents’ divorce my mom went into a deep depression. I didn’t see her for almost a month. She had locked herself in her room refusing to come out. I could hear her cry at night. Have you ever heard your mom cry? It's different than anyone else crying. Moms are supposed to hold you and tell you everything's going to be alright. But when they’re constantly weeping, you feel hopeless. That's exactly when I changed; when I realized that I was the one who had to be strong. If she couldn’t, I had to be.
He listened very intently to this. When I finished he spoke. He told me that you don’t have to be strong all the time. Sometimes people fall apart and become weak, that's what living's all about. It’s okay to hurt, to feel pain; it’s okay to cry. It's okay to give up sometimes. With every word I began to cry a little more and more until finally, I broke down.
It was my eighteenth birthday. Mom had gone to therapy and Lucas sat right beside me. We spent the day lounging around the house watching movies and discussing our plans for the future; where we would go after high school. What we’d do after collage. Lucas composed a master plan of how he would spend his next few years, where he's going to collage, his major, his house, car, everything. He seemed to have it all figured out. I, on the other hand, hadn’t have thought too deeply about that.
As he finished his complete description of the lake side house he's planning on buying straight out of college, the door swung open. I figured it was just my mother and continued the conversation. Until I found out that the person who walked into my house, was my father.
It took two hours for the police to finally get to my house. They had been able to get my dad in handcuffs and force him into their car. They had been able to contact and alert my mother of the situation. But what they hadn't been able to do, was save Lucas. And now I stand there, staring down at my dead boyfriend. He's covered in blood and bruises from my father’s beating. I don’t know what to think. For the second time, this boy had saved me, but this time, it was different. This time he risked his life, and all of his dreams he had told me about, for me. Just two hours previous to this he was talking of what he wants to do may years into the future unaware that he wasn’t even going to be given a chance at tomorrow.
I thought about how I will never get to see him smile again, or hear his voice. I thought about the day he saved me when I had gotten knocked out after falling onto the sidewalk. And I thought about what he told me one night while walking me home. He said that everyone hurts, feels pain and has to give up sometimes. But most importantly, he told me that it’s okay to cry… so I did.
