Rating: PG-13 maybe R
Pairing: eventually calleigh/tim, but there are undertones in this first chapter
Summery: AU; Calleigh's home life isn't ideal, and she is just really realizing it when a family tragedy occurs. She and her four younger brothers get uprooted and move to Miami to live with her aunt and uncle.
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All of my life I had wanted to be appreciated, told that I was loved, that I was beautiful. All of my life I wanted to be happy and to be everything to everyone, all at the same time. But as I got older I stopped feeling appreciated, and no one told me I was beautiful, or that they loved me .I wasn't able to make the people around me happy and I wasn't happy myself. The sad part was that I was only 17 and I felt so much older than that.
Unfortunately my parents had a lot of problems, and having children was not one of them. Since I was the oldest I was the one with that got to take care of the little ones. They would spend four or five months attached to my mothers breast and then once they were whined they were my respectability.
There were days were I asked God why I had to be the oldest. Why I had to be the one to raise my brothers and myself.
By the time I was 15,I was totally into the role of "mom". I took care of everything for my brothers. I cooked and cleaned, helped with homework and did the laundry, all the while trying to make it through school myself.
The only thing our parents ever did for us was put food on the table and cloths on our backs, but other than that I wouldn't consider them our parents.
They both worked hard, but would get caught up in their favorite substances afterward. They were always so caught up with the drugs and alcohol, and each other to really truly care about us. But the one thing I will say about our mother though; she always stopped her drinking and drugs when she was pregnant and nursing. She was the recreational user in our house.
My father on the other hand was nothing more than a junky and an alcoholic. I don't think I ever saw him sober or clean for more than a week my whole life.
The first 18 years of my life seemed like a bittersweet nightmare. I got to play house 24/7, and never got any consolation for it. For awhile I tried to be everything my mom wasn't and more, but I couldn't, and that devastated me to no end.
I was suppose to be the strong one, the one that took care of everyone else. And to this day I still have my moments where I think that I have to take care of everybody's needs, and forget about my own. Though, if my husband had his way I would have people waiting on my hand and foot. But thank god he didn't get his way, I don't think I could stand not doing anything, all day long.
You'll here more about my heaven sent husband later. I have to tell you my past before you can truly appreciate my present even half as much as I do.
When I was 17 I finally realized how horrible my life was. Not that I didn't love my brothers, but being a 17 year-old and mothering your siblings was so hard.
I had never thought of my life as anything other than a little unusual, until one day at school, I was listening to a conversation between a couple of popular girls. They were talking about trips to the mall and annoying little brothers that would interrupt their telephone calls, but they're parents would ground the little rats and give the girls more money for the mall.
And at that I realized that I was living in a complete hell whole. They were complaining about interrupted phone conversations, when I was the one that made sure my brothers didn't bother my parents.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. I had a completely opposite life then other people. And I also realized that I got nothing in return.
That's not true though, I did get the satisfaction that my brothers would grow up to be strong respectful young men. But that wasn't suppose to be my job. That was the day I started to resent my parents with a painful passion.
I started to notice how they never said that they loved me and that I wasn't their baby girl anymore, and I wondered when that had stopped.
I had spent so much of my time trying to make it through school, and take care of my family, that I never noticed how I was never loved anymore. I started to feel like a slave, and a nanny, and the person who took care of my parents when they were hung over and strung out.
It hadn't always been this way, had it?
That was the question that had kept running through my head. Had our family always been this dysfunctional and abusive. Had I really put up with this shit day after day for all those year? I had and I knew that I needed to get out of that house and away from my parents. But what was I going to do with my little brothers? Who was going to take care of them? And frankly where was I going to go?...
TBC
