A Day In My Shoes

A day; only twenty-four hours, which may seem like a lot or a little time, but it gets stretched out even longer as you live that day the way I do. The problem is the way I’ve had to live, the way my mental state has completely corrupted me, making me think things I would have never even thought a second time before my life took a sharp turn down the wrong path. My name is Abella. I’m twenty-one, and I wanted to share my story with anyone willing to listen. I never had much when I was younger, around sixteen in this story. Until I ended up here, telling my tale on the roof of the tallest building in my city. My father was a drunk and my mother constantly leaving work early to protect us, her three children, from him when he got particularly wasted. My younger sister, Nadya was seven at the time. My younger brother Jules was only five. I always did whatever I could to keep them away from my parents when they started fighting, not wanting them to get hurt. Most times, my father would leave late in the day and not return home until around that same time two to three days later. Whenever he’d return, both my parents would get into a fight that usually consisted of my mother screaming at him, questioning about where he’d been and that he needed to get over his alcoholic nature to help her raise their three kids. He would usually sit on the couch, torn and faded fabric with pieces of cotton sticking out from years of neglect, and let her yell. He wouldn’t do anything but continue to drink or smoke, ignoring her every word until she broke down and cried. That’s where we, her kids, would come over and comfort her while my father would get up and leave to whatever part of the house he wanted to go or he would leave the house completely.

The longest he’d gone without returning once was two and a half weeks. When he got home, my mother was livid. She did her usual round of screaming, but we on the sidelines sensed this was different. We felt she had gotten impossibly louder, and she was shaking a lot more than she usually did. Her deep brown eyes that almost always shown how tired and on edge she was, now glittered in onyx rage. I focused more and saw the glittering was the tears threatening to fall, and she was blinking furiously to keep them at bay. Her hands were balled into tighter fists, and her nails were undoubtedly digging four bloody crescents into her palms. I gathered my two younger siblings into my arms, and we all sat in the far corner of our small living space as they cried hard against my shoulders. All I wanted to do in that moment was protect my mother and my siblings. This was getting out of hand.

My mom continued glaring and screeching at my father, “You are always out, doing god knows what, or who for that matter! You are unemployed, wasting my hard earned money on beer and drugs! Would it be so hard to actually try and help raise these kids-” She threw her arm in our direction for emphasis- “and show some amount of care for them? Even a little? I always-” She cuts herself off seeing he started doing something on his phone.

She had clearly gotten enough of his ignorance, and unballed her right fist, slapping first the phone out of his hand then hard on his cheek. The sharp sound echoed through the house, until the silence engulfed us all, tension rising drastically. I knew my mother messed up, and looking back up to her eyes, tears now falling and soft sobs along with stuttered apologies escaping her lips, she knew too. The last time she had hit him had been bad, for all of us. Especially since he was drunk. It took weeks for those bruises and cuts to heal.

“I’m sorry, forgive me. It was impulsive of me to do, I’ll-” My mother got cut off once again, but this time it was my father with his fingers around her neck within a split second. She tried to release a scream to alert our neighbors, but his grip was far too tight too quick, I could see. So I did it for her. I screamed, screamed until my throat started to hurt from it and the loud tearful wails I released in between the shrieks. Without thinking, I ran up to the struggling pair, but my father saw me coming. He released his left hand grip and hit me hard over the head, and I fell back, black filling my vision.

Apparently I had blacked out for just a minute, because when I woke my mother was paling from oxygen loss and barely moving in my father’s grip on the floor. I, again, did something without thinking. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the first knife I found. I ran back to the living room, and my father didn’t see me because his back was turned to me over my mother. I stabbed him. I stabbed my father in the back, and he let go of my mother, howling in pain and anger. It was already too late, I could tell I wasn’t fast enough for my mother. Her hard dark brown eyes were open, mouth wide and frozen in the permanent state of a silent scream. The tears I had held back after waking fell at the sight of my dead mother, but not for long as my father grabbed my ankles and pulled them out from under me.

“You thought you’d get away with that, huh? Mommy’s little girl,” He said in the way you’d speak to a small child or pet. He reached behind himself and pulled the knife out with a pained grunt, pointing the tip at my throat.

“I guess it isn’t your lucky day. Mommy isn’t here to protect you anymore!” With that I closed my eyes, accepting my fate with regretful, helpless whimpers. But by my right ear, I heard a metallic clatter which I knew only meant one thing: he dropped the knife. I opened my eyes slightly, to see the light dimming from my father’s eyes above me. The weight and impact of his body falling onto mine forcefully pushed the air out of my lungs. I cried for my siblings to help me get him off me, and once he was, I pulled my siblings back away from the scene. My mother’s pale, thin body lay flat on her back by the front door, my father’s bloodied body lying with his left arm under himself and knees bent slightly back. From the sight of the blood still pouring out of his stab wound, I knew he died of blood loss. There was fresh vomit in the corner of the room, where I could guess my siblings had wretched at the sight of the blood and death that unfolded that day.

When I looked down at myself, I had bruises on my arms and around my wrists where my father had held them down. I was shaking hard, and there was blood soaked in my clothes. My father’s blood, that I forced to surface. Blood that, even though I scrubbed hard at the red stains right after I was away from the scene until my skin was raw, never left my body. I always feel dirty and bloody whenever I think of what I’d done that day.

About a half hour after the incident, all tears I could possibly cry were out and already dry. I went to my small room that I shared with my younger sister and got the biggest duffel bag I could find and fit everything I would possibly need into it. I got a backpack and stuffed what food would fit and made my siblings pack what they’d need for a trip. When they asked me what they needed it for, I didn’t answer. We had to leave; I killed my father. And I knew that one of our neighbors had to have heard my screaming and called the police.

“Just get your stuff. And hurry, we don’t have much time,” I said, hoping the urgency in my voice would make them do as I said and be quick. Then I pulled on my favorite pair of black and white Converse shoes, that I got for my latest birthday.

They got their stuff together, and we set off. To where, I didn’t know. But we left, never settling anywhere for too long in the fear of getting caught. I was stupid then, leaving and not waiting for the police. They could have helped us, the death of my father passed as self defense on my part. But in the heat of the moment, I was too terrified and shocked from what happened, from what I did, that I didn’t process that I wouldn’t go to jail from it. So we left, and after two months of skipping towns and not knowing where our next meals would come from, fall came. It was okay for the first week or so, when the nights weren’t too cold and we still had clothes to layer on. But as it progressively got colder, my sister fell ill. She refused to eat, though I knew she was hungry. I knew why she did it too; it was painful for her to eat or drink. Too painful for her to try and keep anything down. So I took some of my layers off and put them on her, cuddling her and my brother to keep warm. We made a makeshift home out of anything we could find around in a thin stretch of woods by a convenience store and gas station in the middle of a small town that I’d never heard of. I said we’d stay there until she got better. She didn’t, only got worse. Every night I’d wake multiple times by the sound and feeling of her small frame shuddering at the hard coughs and sneezes. I didn’t know what to do, so I went into the convenience store carrying my small sister and begged the owner to let us have something to make her better. The owner took one look at us, our dirty faces and clothes, and sneered at us.

“You think I would just give out my stock to a couple dirty, diseased street rats? Get out of here before you pass whatever you have on to someone!” He scowled at us and threatened to call the cops.

“I’m going, I’m going,” I said, defeated. Why is the world so cruel? What did I- what did my poor sister do to deserve this life? It’s not like we could help it, I thought.

My small baby sister took one last shuddering breath that night, and died with a quiet whimper in my arms.

To this day, I know I could have helped her. I could have saved her if I didn’t make them come with me, make them have to bear my burden with me. If only I had just stayed home and waited for the cops to come, she could have lived. I remember her telling me, long before my parent’s big fight, that she couldn’t wait to grow up. She wanted two kids of her own, a boy and a girl, and she would have a good job as a doctor and get them everything she couldn’t have. She said she couldn’t wait until the day she would have money to buy things that she couldn’t have now, like a bike. Nadya had never even ridden a bike. She always wondered what it was like, and wanted to get one of her own one day.

She never had those simple pleasures that other kids took advantage of. She never got to have a childhood. It always upset me whenever I went to school and saw people bragging about how great they and their lives were, and always bullied people who were less fortunate. Those people, like me, who were never fed with a silver spoon.

I cried and clutched my sister’s body in my arms all night, keeping my brother close too to keep him warm. We cried together. The next day, I buried her. My brother said he was sad there were no flowers to put over her grave. I held him close as we gazed down at the upturned earth, tears steadily streaming down our faces.

I haven’t seen her grave since that day, because me and my brother moved on from that spot.

After that day, I set a route back to my hometown. We made it back, and I went to the police station, where I explained everything. My brother and I were sent to a foster home after all the legal issues were done with, and after I turned eighteen I moved out. I moved to a bigger city, and now live on my own. I kept in contact with my brother, obviously, since he’s the only family I have left. And now we’re here. I’m on top of the tallest building in my city, my legs dangling over the edge and wearing my favorite black and white Converse shoes, now worn and broken from my years of keeping them. The last gift I got from my mother. I was surprised I could still fit them. I look down at the phone I clutch in my right hand, checking the time: 6:45. The sun can be seen on the horizon, flaming colors of red and orange lighting up the sky, yellows overpowering them both and warmly kissing my skin. I continue looking around, dark silhouettes of other buildings in the distance blocking my full view of the horizon.

I wonder what it’s like to fly, I thought as I see a pair of birds glide through the crisp morning air. I take a deep breath in as I think about my life. How hard it’s been, how easy it can be to just slide off the edge of this building.

Mother, sister, I miss you so much. I wonder where you are right now, and if you’re together. You got to fly, right? Why can’t I take my turn and join you?

Wherever you are, I add.

I pull my legs back over the edge and stand. I inch my feet closer to the edge, one foot slightly hovering in the air. I look down at my phone again, seeing a picture of my brother on the lock screen. A single tear rolls down my cheek, falling over the edge and out of sight. I know I should be afraid of the height, and how close I am to falling, but I’m not. I find this height oddly comforting, encouraging…

I’m ready to fly, too.