Pure Addiction

I silently crept into the e apartment that I shared with Marco, Dylan, and most recently Paige. I was really hoping I could get some cover-up on the new dark blue bruise and stitched up cut that adorned my face before anyone noticed.

Marco was sitting on the couch watching Saved by the Bell re-runs, as I quietly and quickly snuck by him to the staircase.

"Hey El, what are you doing home so early, I thought you were staying with your parents till after New Year's?" asked Marco.

Crap.

I quickly faked a few coughs. "Yea about that …I got a cold, small migraine and my parents have friends over so I thought I would just come home and rest…" I said looking down with my hand over the cut and bruise above my left eye. I then added a few more coughs.

"Oh, well okay then, I hope you feel better." He then went back to staring at the TV. It's a good thing Marco is so gullible. I then ran up into the bathroom and took my jacket off and sat on the toilet seat with my head in my hands.

I had never had a worse Christmas, and that is saying something. My dad recently returned from being in Baghdad with a drinking problem. It was so bad there he had to find a way to deal with his friends dying right before his eyes every day. So he did what his wife did, drank and forgot. With my dad being able to drink himself to death my mom took this as in excuse for her to do the same.

They were both piss drunk when I got there. I was so mad at my parents, I started yelling at them asking them why they would do such a stupid thing. Then my dad started yelling saying that I didn't know what it was like to see a loved one die in front of you. I asked him what he thought I was looking at right now. He flung his arm into my stomach making me fly backwards into the end table. Then I felt his foot in my sides and stomach again and again. All my mother did to stop him was sit down on the couch and watch TV, totally ignoring what was going on around her. Then with one good kick in the head, it all went black.

When I woke it was 5:30 A.M. of the day after, Christmas, I had blacked out for ten hours! My parents were passed out on the two couches as I got up from the pile of glass and wood that had once been my grandmother's favorite piece of furniture. I painfully cleaned up the mess, and gathered my things and spent the rest of the week in a hospital getting the sprained wrist, broken rib, bruises and cuts above my eye and hips treated. They luckily fell for the story that I fell down some icy steps.

I sighed and rested my still sore back against the back of the toilet. My dad had always been the one person I could rely on, now I have no one. He had never hit me before, my mom had many times but when he was around I always felt safe. Now I was scared to death to ever return there.

Well, if they both had life threatening addictions that they could do why couldn't I? I went over to the shower, pulled out my purple razor, placed it on my left arm, and dragged it deeply down my upper arm feeling all bits of worry and anger dripped out of me with every bit of blood that dropped onto the linoleum tiles.

After the release subsided, I cleaned up the evidence. I covered up they cut and bruise with make up and put a bandage on the one on my arm that was still slightly bleeding. I then made my way to my room and collapsed on my bed.

Minutes later I heard the phone ring and then Paige opened the door to my room holding the pink wireless phone from her room.

"It's Craig he wants to talk to you."

Greaaat.