"YOU BITCH!"

I gasped for air and yelped when my mom yanked me by my hair. My face soaking wet from ice cold water in the kitchen sink.

She was mad at me because I didn't want to give her money for her alcohol again.

"COUGH UP THE TEN DOLLARS! OR YOUR PUNISHMENT IS GOING TO BE MUCH WORSE ASSWIPE!!"

"Go to...hell..."

With that she slammed my face hard into the kitchen sink and I immeadiately passed out.

~

I woke up on the kitchen floor and a small pool of blood forming on the floor from my face. Some of it dried up on my broken nose.

I was lucky I didn't have to stitch up my face like last time. If my mom caught me at the hospital she would make sure I didn't get any food for a week.

Whenever this happenned I spent my money on food at the diner I worked as a waitress. I didn't make much so this only fed me for a couple of days at least.

Mom refused to fund me to go to college, so I couldn't go. Since then I've been stuck living with my worthless, unemployed, pitiful, witch of mother ever since my father's suicide 2 years ago.

The note on his body said he killed himself because he couldn't stand being married to my drunk mother who couldn't keep a job more longer than a week. My mom blamed me for not being there in time to stop him from ending his life, and has been abusing me ever since.

My goal since it all started was to save up money so I could pack up and leave once and for all. But she always found where I kept the money hidden for the first few months even threatening to stab 'BITCH' onto my arm if I didn't tell her where I hid it in my room.

After that I stopped hiding it there, and started digging up a secret ditch about 20 yards away from the house to hide all my money. Ocassionally taking out a little bit whenever I was broke and needed it for groceries and clothes.

Not for my mom of course but I kept having to restock because she kept stashing away everything in her cave of a room.

I looked on over to her room to see her passed out on the floor. I shut the door quietly so I don't wake her and end up getting smacked in the face with a beer bottle.

I winced as my head throbbed and headed to the kitchen to grab a tylenol.

The water felt good on more sore throat after having shouted at mom...how many hours ago?

I look at the digital clock to see it say:

9:00pm

"Mom should be knocked out. I should go hide the 20 I made today in the ditch."

I finished up my glass of water and headed to my room. I opened the window behind my Madonna poster and slipped outside.

If my mom heard me going out through the front door at night she would think I was escaping. I usually lock my window and cover it when I leave the house so I have no choice but to go through the front door when I come back from work or the store.

Because if she doesn't at least see me every day she threatned to track me down and put me in the tool shed with no light or windows for an entire day.

It happenned once when I was in my room recovering from a fever from the stress of work. I didn't want that to happen again, and since the alchohol effects her brain some of the time she forgot I have a window.

I shivered when I was outside with my light sweater and blue jeans. It was October 11th, 2001 and winter was fast approaching in Canada.

I found the boulder next to an old boat and pushed it aside to reveal my little money stash.

I had about 8000 dollars. I needed 2000 more if I wanted to be financially stable enough to move away and find a better job. I would say about 6 more months before I was good enough to leave the she-devil.

"8020. We'll be long gone in the summer for sure. Just wait a little longer."

I wiped away an incoming tear and closed the hole with the boulder.

"Ouch my nose. I'll have to put it back in place and clean up the blood if I'm going to look 'normal' for work tommorrow."

To be fair I was a pretty young woman, what I meant by 'normal' was not bleeding. Dark brown curly hair and misty blue eyes did make guys give me a few glances.

Mom's jealous of me because she already has white streaks in her hair even though she's not even 50 yet. What man would find a woman who abuses her daughter because of alcohol and a dead husband, and has bloodshot eyes attractive is beyond me. Why bother be jealous of me if she's had five boyfriends the past year and a half who are just as awful and old as Christmas, when I haven't had a boyfriend in my entire life? Not that I needed any distractions when I wanted to escape anyways.

I sighed as I heard the falling leaves crunch under my blue tennis shoes and headed back inside.

I sang the song 'Girls just Wanna Have Fun' from my music recorder quietly as I cleaned up my nose to get ready for bed.

~

"Hey Maple, what happenned to your nose?"

I turned to Chrissy as I was helping her put the trash away.

"I tripped on a tree root and hit my nose on a rock as I was headed to work."

"Talk about unlucky. You poor thing do you need me to get medicine for it?"

"No I'm good I already took care of it."

"Okay if you say so."

I chuckled a bit as I headed back inside. How easy is it to lie about something? I feel bad having to cover up for my bitch of a mother. But if anyone would find out she was abusing me she could go to prison so she made me lie otherwise the punishments would be worse.

The worse was with a hot poker on my wrist a year ago. She isn't joking around. I still have a faint scar there and I lied to Chrissy about it saying I burned myself on the stove when I was making eggs.

I feel bad for lying to my best friend. She was 21 year old, a year older than me, with platinum blonde hair. She's had sex with so many guys she's practically an expert. The last time she did was when she slept with our math teacher 3 years ago, and then he fled when she told him she was pregnant.

She's raising 2 and a half year old Conan by herself and we've been friends ever since. I would move in with her, she actually offered once, but I would still be living in the same town as my mom. So if I ever going to be rid of her I'm going to have to leave town for good. I haven't told this to Chrissy yet of course but I will the day I'm ready to leave.

Until then I'm stuck here.

"Hello. How may I help you guys today? Drinks?"