Liam

“Liam wake up honey. It’s time for school. C’mon, it’s your last day, you don’t want to be late, do you?”

I hate when she knocks on the door that loudly. “I’m getting up, mom. Just give me a bit.” I don’t care if I’m late to be honest. This school year has been harder than any year before. My parents—well my dad, hasn’t made things easy at home. It’s hard to concentrate on school whenever he’s here. My parents are supposed to be separated but he’s here all the time and it’s constant fighting between the two of them. It’s gotten so bad sometimes that I’ve had to intervene. I know he hates us.

“Well, Liam, you’re graduating this year. Aren’t you the least bit excited? Oh! I also have a nice surprise for you—“

“Mom, stop. I hate surprises. Don’t say that.”

“Oh...I know but please, this time I promise you’ll love it. Trust me.”

“Whatever. Fine.”

“Come downstairs, your breakfast is almost ready.”

It’s hard for me to say “No” to mom in a lot of situations. Surprises make me feel anxious and a lot of times I end up not liking the surprise that the person has for me. But I usually take her promises with a grain of salt because she usually ends up breaking them. But I go along with it because at times I feel like I’m all she has in this world. If she didn’t have me, she would lose herself. In a sense, I feel the exact the same way about her. She’s the only person who’s ever accepted me for me.

As I begin to make my way downstairs, I hear my dad moving around in his room. I have a feeling already that this isn’t going to be a good morning. The past couple days, I don’t know what’s been going on between mom and him as to why the fights start but lately I’ve been seeing bruises on her. Real obvious ones too. I never saw him hit her before, but the bruises are enough proof to know. Whenever I try to speak to her about it, she brushes it off and tells me not to worry about anything or tells me that it was an accident. All that does is piss me off because she shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of stuff and I get even more worked up because I can’t do anything. I tried to fight Dad once and he ended up breaking my arm. Mom covered for him whenever anyone asked. She said, “You know Liam’s clumsy.” If you know me, I’m not clumsy at all. I didn’t talk to her for a couple months.

As I get to the kitchen, it smells like heaven and I hear mom humming to herself looking out the kitchen window drinking a cup of tea. I’m surprised she’s in such a good mood after what I heard from last night. Okay, maybe this’ll make waking up feel like it’s worth it. I find it weird at times that her mood dictates my own. It takes just one glance at her for me to know what she’s feeling. There’re times when I know she’s masking her own problems so that I won’t worry but that only makes it worse for me.

“Liam, I’m going to need you home early after school. Okay?”

“For what?” It’s not like I had plans anyways to be honest.

“Well, if I tell you for what you’ll be upset. I already hinted at it earlier. Or did you forget?”

“I barely remember what you said.” She’s speaking to me but to be honest, I’m focusing on the fact that she hasn’t faced me this whole time to have this conversation. Nor have I seen her face the whole morning. This isn’t like her. I see her lips moving but I’ve spaced out to the point where my mind is running wild. Did he hit her that hard last night? What does she not want me to see?

“Liam?”

“Huh? What?” She finally looks towards me and I see that her face is untouched, and a huge weight is lifted off my chest. I spaced out a bit too long because I don’t remember what we were talking about.

“Fine. Since you never want to be surprised, I’ll just tell you. The Asher family invited us to Cuba to join them! Aren’t you excited?!”

“Is Dad coming too?” Hearing that we’re going with the Asher family makes my heart skip a beat. They’re a family that lives not too far down the street from us. I’ve had a crush on their daughter for years and we go to school together. Our moms’ talk to each other all the time, but I’ve never gotten the courage to speak to her. But there’s no need for excitement if he’s going to be there as well. It’s just going to end up being the worst vacation ever.

“Well, he—“

And here comes my dad down the stairs. The elephant of the whole damn house.

“Hey, you better come home early after school. You got packing to do and your mom isn’t going to help you.” Well, looks as if I got my answer.

“Yeah, I will.” My dad doesn’t really speak to me. We’ve never had an actual conversation before. He more or less just speaks, and I listen. We have a really distant relationship and at times it bothers me because other kids get along with their dad’s, but it feels like there’s nothing I can do, so I just leave it alone. The only thing I get out of him really is whenever him and my mom are arguing, and he goes on his “this is how you handle women” speech afterwards. It makes me feel uncomfortable sometimes because some of what I hear and see from others on tv. Usually, the man in the relationship is supposed to be loving and caring, giving the woman hugs and kisses and stuff like that. You don’t treat women the way Dad does. But with mom saying over and over how much she loves him, it leads me to believe that in reality, something like this might actually be what she says it is. It’s “Love”.

“What are you still doing here?” He looks at the clock and then looks back at me.

“Mom usually drives me to school.”

“Lauren, what did I tell you last night?”. He turns towards mom and I know that look on his face. He’s going to start yelling at her now.

“Dad forget it. I’ll just take my bike. It’s fine.” I’m a bit anxious to leave her but I hope that if I leave, he’ll calm down.

As I’m riding my bike, I can’t help but feel frustrated. I’m not mad because I’m not getting a ride to school, I don’t mind actually. I wanted to be late. I’m mad because of the way mom allows him to control her like that. I’m mad because she always chooses him over me no matter the circumstance. It’s hard to trust her anymore. There was a time when it was just me and her living together. Things were really good back then and I wasn’t always on edge at home. I don’t know how he did it; I don’t know what he said to her, to let him back into our lives. She was finally free from his grasp and she ended up right back in it. The first day I saw him back, the only thing I could ask her was; “Why?” What she said to me after that was “Liam, I love him. You’ll understand when you’re older.” I’m 17, so how much longer is it going to take for me to understand what love is?