Page 393 of Eternal
Except I didn’t gohome.
I bought a bottle and laughed.
Look at me.
Me being a mother? In another life. Stupid me could’ve grown up thinking about this. But the real me could never even think about it. I’m too fucked. I would never risk it on a kid. I’dnever make any innocent child go through what I went through because my mom was broken too.
And so I went there.
Cemetery.
I don’t know what I expected, she was never the kind of mother who left signs. I sat in front of that stupid crooked stone, half-drunk from the bottle of Vodka in my bag. Popov, her favorite, then I stared at her name. Two graves were next to hers, Alexei and my baby brother.
“You told me I’d scare happiness away if I kept being kind.” I said it out loud.
“You were right, mama. You fucked me up. And then they fucked me up. I let someone in and now I want things I can’t have. And I hate you for making that feel like a curse.”
Stupid. Stupid. Always so stupid.
The bottle got empty real quickly. I stayed there and talked to Eren. Told him that I missed him and I still take the same breakfast as I took when he was a baby. Yogurt and cereals.
Didn’t say anything to Alexei. Maybe I never stopped being mad at him for leaving me to take care of someone who didn’t want to be taken care of.
I cried. I cried again. And walked back home.
My fingers were cold when I got inside, heart louder than my footsteps. I didn’t even take off my coat, I dropped onto the couch, after pulling a bottle from under the sink, one I swore to Damir I’d poured out, and drank it nonetheless. Fast.Hard.
Until the room blurred, my stomach flipped and my mind stopped racing.
Until I didn’t feel the heaviness of the truth.
Until I didn’t feel like that little girl again, the one they passed around like a problem no one wanted to solve.
The one her foster father drugged so she’d “stay still.”
The one who bled and bled and bled, and still thought maybe she could be loved someday.
I drank, took the pills I kept hiding in the bathroom ‘just in case’ because I knew I’d face this kind of situation.
Alcohol and pills aren’t a good mix. Mom taught me that first.
I took them, until I passed out.
Didn’t even hear the door break.
Didn’t hear my name until he was right in front of me, shaking me awake like I was something worth saving.
I think I whisperedI’m sorrybefore I even opened my eyes.
Because I knew this would break him too.
One second I was on the couch with the taste of vodka and blood in my mouth, I must’ve bitten my lip again, and the next, there was light. Noise. Wood splitting, someone yelling my name louder each time.
I didn’t move. My body felt too heavy, sunk into the cushions, bones too tired to give a fuck. I just wanted to disappear, to sink so far into that couch he wouldn’t find me.
But he did.
I heard him curse.Broken. Then his hands were on my face.
