Chain

When I was little, I used to have this dream. I used to have this dream about my parents, leaving me behind on the side of the road as they waved goodbye from inside a bus that was taking them God knows where. And in that dream, I didn't cry. I would just stare at them as they were being driven away. I'd stare and stare until the bus turned on a corner and out of sight.

Then the me in my dream would tell myself to wake up.

When my eyes were finally open, I'd be thinking how it was funny that in movies people always wake up from a nightmare all sweating and panting as if their lives were being taken away from them – and they were fighting for it – and yet, I barely broke a sweat at all. Just surrounded by this haze of... I didn't even know what. I want to say confusion, but it seemed like the word is just a cop out for something more permanent and stronger.

I was a little bit older when my dad passed away in an accident. Okay, that was a lie. Yes, I was a little bit older, but my dad didn't die. Like in that dream, I stared at his back through the car window until the car turned to a corner and out of sight. His accident was just some story my mom wanted me to tell people so they would take pity on us. So they wouldn't ask questions. So they wouldn't find out that my dad actually left us for some secretary that he decided to fuck during some company retreat. But most importantly, so they wouldn't bother my mom when she spent all her money on booze at the only bar in town. And men and weed, too. But mostly booze.

She's grieving, they'd say.

Let her be, they'd walk away.

Ultimately, though, months became years and years became suspiciously looking like our neighbors were planning an intervention. So my mom got smart and got her alcohol by paying some local kids – illegal kids with fake IDs, that is – to get her fix from the liquor store. Then, at night, she'd lock her bedroom and drank until she had to come out and puke in the bathroom. I don't think any other 12-year-old knew as much as bathroom cleaning products as I did.

I was 14 when my mom first started dating again. Her first boyfriend's name was Michael, and he hated it when people call him Mike. He had this stuck up aura about himself and he was always dressed nicely. Like, buttoned up shirts and dress pants every day, even on the weekends. He drove a nice shiny car that I wasn't allowed to touch – or sit in. So I got used to being left alone since they'd go out all the time, leaving me behind to fend the house. My mom always told me I just had to be patient because Mike was "good for us, honey. He has money. We need it for rent."

She was right. He had money and we didn't. My mom got laid off from her old job just before she met Michael. I knew we didn't have much money left. How could we, when all she did with her paycheck was cashing it in with expensive bottles of vodka.

And cereal, I guess. We had to eat something.

When Michael finally left her, it was because he couldn't stand the empty bottles he had found everywhere in the house. The fridge, the cabinet, under the sofa cushions, and even behind the washing machine. Of course, my mom got mad at me for not having her back. For not throwing those bottles out whenever Michael came to visit.

I had to remind her that she was the one who told me not to throw out the many, many bottles because she didn't want the neighbors to find out. She thanked me for the reminder by slapping me across the face and sending me up to my room.

She didn't let me out for 3 days.

I had a bruise and though I couldn't ice my cheek, I was lucky I had some snack stashed in the back of one of my drawers. So I was alive when she hastily unlocked my door on Monday morning and apologized profusely, saying that she made a mistake by hitting me. That she was drunk and upset because of the break up, and she was going to stop drinking. That she was going to find work, exercise more to get back in shape, take care of me and all that good stuff she was supposed to be doing.

It's you and me always, honey, she said. And I believe I smiled my biggest smile in years.

First two weeks? Awesome. She read the newspaper, circled job openings with the typical red pen and went to interviews. At night she'd cook for us and even helped me with my homework if I needed help (I usually didn't, but I figured being needed was a good feeling for her to have).

One day, though, I came home to find her looking far too relaxed on the couch, sipping on a bottle of water. She watched me as I came in through the door and I watched her watching me. I sat on the other side of the couch, facing her, and that was when I knew I had lost her again. Or rather, she had left me again.

At least she still asked me how school was that day, though. Which I answered with a simple fine because I knew she wouldn't have understood if I had said anything longer than that. I then asked her how was job hunting. She answered in silence, emptying the water bottle that she had in her hand.

The next day, the same thing happened. I came home from school, she was on the couch, I sat facing her on the same couch and she asked me how school was. Only this time, I told her it sucked (a teacher gave me a D for a test, but I didn't tell my mom this, cause I knew she and her glossy eyes wouldn't have understood). So she leaned forward and wordlessly told me to drink from her water bottle.

Sure enough, it wasn't water.

The next day, and the day after that, then the next day after that, and all the days after that, she'd offer me a sip, a chug, of her "water".

And I'd always take it. I needed it.

I needed it to keep her happy, away from feeling rejected, in the hopes that she'd keep me.

Since then, a lot of Michaels came and went. Though not every one of them was as dandy as he was. Most of them actually looked like they either just got out of prison, or they were about to spend some time in it. I didn't – don't, actually – even know where she found them. It was like there was a warehouse full of these men that lonely, fucked up women could just pick and choose from.

This last one, his name was Alexander, specifically told me to never call him Alex, but Xander instead , and was even better in spending money on useless but very expensive things than my mom. Like more booze. Pills. Rock. Hookahs. Tribal tattoos that weren't even pretty. You name it, I've probably seen it on the coffee table of our living room, one way or another.

Oh yeah. He was bad news, alright. Enough bad news for me to start carrying my own water bottles everywhere I go. I needed it. I needed to wash down the taste of his mouth on mine. I needed it to float away when he was doing things to my body. And I needed it to trick myself into thinking that my mother still knew what was best for me and that was why she didn't want to believe me when I told her about the things she couldn't witness while she was out cold.

Like before, I was thanked with a slap across my face and got sent into my bedroom. She didn't lock me in for three days this time, though. Xander didn't let her do it, saying that she was being too rough on me and I was just looking for attention.

I didn't know whether I should thank him or not, but when he came through the door and unzipped his pants, I figured I shouldn't.

I was 17 when I came home to a completely silent house one day. I was hungover, too. Then again, armed everyday with 1, sometimes 2 bottles of "water" in my system, much like how I woke up from the nightmare, I was always in a state of confusion (not to mention a possible failing kidney or two). But this time I know the word is just a cop out for something more permanent and stronger. I know it was because the (empty) refrigerator stopped humming. There was no static from the TV, and there was no TV in its usual place. In fact, most of our everything was gone. Even the sofa cushions slashed open like something was hidden inside them, and when I got to our rooms, I found out that our mattresses were too.

Of course I panicked. I was a mere high school student in the middle of a chaotic house and what could've been a crime scene. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think... I was rendered speechless. Should I call 911? Should I call my mo– SHIT! MY MOM! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY MOM!?

But then the door to the basement bursted open and out came my mom with a bag that was way too big to just be an overnight bag, Xander following behind her with another one. They walked right past me like I didn't exist, giggling, laughing all the way to what apparently was his shiny new pickup truck that was parked right out front.

Where are you going, I asked her. A few times I asked her.

She turned her head around, and for the first time she didn't have those glossy eyes I was used to seeing.

We're taking a little vacation, she told me. But by "we", she didn't mean us.

She didn't answer me when I asked her when she was coming back. Instead, I just need a little break, honey, she told me again with a smile and a look on her face that my neighbors had given me when they learned about my dad's "passing".

Okay, I said, because she looked... happy? And just like that, my mom and her precious drug dealer boyfriend were off.

Just like in the dream, all I could do was stare until that truck turned to a corner and out of sight. Just like in the dream, I didn't cry. And just like in the dream, I told myself to wake up.

A few months later, right now, shivering from the cold in my cardboard house tucked in a shady alley behind, ironically, a liquor store, I'm still sleeping.

Hey, at least I can always get (steal) refills for my water bottle.