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[A/N: This is a flashback. Flashbacks will be written in present tense. Read with caution.]

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A G E : Twelve

Mom is hardly breathing when I come home from school. Jared is sprawled out in the couch beside her, facing the ceiling with his eyes shut. A bag of all my fears are left on the coffee table, bundled up in transparent plastic.

She's done it again.

I've seen her like this before. She was worse after dad left, doing it nearly every other week. But she's been clean for so long now. I could see the life coming back to her eyes and the color coming back to her face, seeing the women that my father had fallen in love with and had birthed his children. The women who was my mother. This carcass of a mess, lying on our couch and half alive, isn't my mother. She's a hollowed out casket of skin and bones. Too fragile and thin to be considered a human. Too broken and heartless to be my mother.

I check her pulse and feel her face. Her skin is still warm to the touch. Grabbing the house phone, I call for an ambulance like I've done before in the past.

I take the seat beside my mother and push her hair back. It's wet and smells like cigarettes and loneliness. "It's okay. You'll be okay. I'm here for you." It's what she should be saying to me. Not the other way around. "They're coming. They said they'd be here in any minute." I rush to wipe my tear, racing down my cheek. As many times as I have seen this, I still find myself upset at the sight. She always says the last time will be the last. But it never is.

I should be upstairs, doing my homework. I should be outside, playing with the other kids. I shouldn't be in here, hoping my mother is still alive.

Jared is awaken from his sleep at the sound of the sirens, he's infuriated. He hides something under the couch and stumbles his way down the hall into mom's room. He stays there until the ambulance takes mom.

Why aren't they taking me with them? I wish they didn't leave me behind.

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Mom bought me three long sweaters today. When I ask her why, she frowns at me. Like she always does. "It's for your birthday." Is all she says, nothing more. I know she's lying.

It's March. My birthday passed, along with the cold weather. I'm not stupid and I know she thinks I am. She got me these dingy, bulky sweaters to cover up my bruises. They look a lot better than how they were last week. Lenard only ever sighs when he sees them, darting a quick look at Jared and then over to my mom. He doesn't like Jared. I don't like Jared. Mom likes him though, that's why she keeps him around.

"You can tell me how you got those," Lenard says, so soft that mom can't hear us. I'm more worried that Jared will. "You can tell me, Silvie."

"I did it on accident," I spit out the words mom has engraved into me. She says that if I tell anyone what happened that they will take her away from me. And I don't want anyone to take away my mom. "Honestly, " I insist. "It's nothing."

Lenard was at school when it happened. He wasn't here when it happened the time before. Mom was. But she didn't stop him and I knew Lenard wouldn't either if he had been there.

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Song R.I.P. 2 my Youth by Neighbourhood [Song Above]

Lyrics:

❝Sweet little baby in a world full of pain.

....

When I can't breath, don't call for a cop.❞

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