The Final Truth
A story of the burdens and reliefs of life and loss.
I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling it back off my face. I deliberately dug my nails into my head; I thought of this as some sort of self-punishment. I just wasn’t sure what I was punishing myself for.
I opened the living room door, I heard that unbearable familiarity in my kitchen. I sighed and faced the door. Leaning my body heavily against it, resting my head for just a second as it shut, “Here we go again,” I said silently to myself.
If you didn’t know, this was a typical day in the Elliott household. And yes, I am an ‘Elliott’. Unfortunately.
As always my mum had had a ‘few too many’, , she was sitting in the kitchen with one of her ‘cronies’. They were talking about the little they knew very little about, or maybe they did actually know about it, but they were both too far gone to let a silly thing like logic mess up this conversation.
Making a cuppa, hoping the caffeine would put some life into me. I stared at the kettle with the same intensity my dog stares at a tennis ball; this thought made me smile for a moment. As quick, the moment was gone.
My mother has this impressive way of pushing every button I have. Probably because she had installed most of them!
As the kettle started to boil, I was becoming more and more wound up with what I’d been listening to.
I didn’t know why, but that day I was particularly irritated. Suddenly a voice in my head laughed out loud (well not out loud, because it was my head, but you guys know what I mean!) The laugh was taunting me as if I hadn’t known exactly why I was irritable.
I’m sure it had nothing to do with ‘mother dearest’ keeping me up until 4 o’clock in the morning!!
1 am, 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, all along forced to sit there and listen to why her life had gone wrong. To listen about all the people she hated or who had wronged her. Before finally having to listen to everything wrong with me!
Then the music would go on (a passion, later in life, we ended up sharing).
Well, last night she had played Robbie Williams’ “Angels” over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and…. Oh, I’m sorry guys, is that repetition annoying?
As 4 am approached (and, by this time, I would have sold the front door for my bed), my mum started to cry
“I just wanna die baby, I’ve had enough. I just rest in peace.”
I could never explain how much heading this hurt so I stood up, I was done.
“It’s late, I need to go to bed!”
So this was the early hours of today and I’ve had about 3 hours sleep. Im looking for a fight.
Within minutes the argument had escalated to an all-out screaming match. I was crying, and in a moment of incessant rage, I went right up to her face and screamed at the very top of my lungs,
“I HATE YOU! DO YOU KNOW THAT?”
I stormed out slamming the door behind me so loudly, my heartbeat sounded louder than thunder. I no longer doubted that lightning could strike in the same place twice.
I stayed at a mate’s house that night and when I woke, I slowly sat up, and looked around a bedroom that did not belong to me. I closed my eyes with a pang of regret.
My mate and I awoke, and dressed, in silence; she was all too aware of my home life and we had a huge friendship, and yet ironically, that space did not always need to be filled.
I felt so guilty, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. We both heard a noise and looked at each other.
“It’s not mine,” said my friend almost relinquishing responsibility.
“Ahh, damn, it’s my brother; he has his own ringtone. Find the damn phone!”
It was indeed my brother. I don’t know how, but before even answering, I knew what he was going to say. Of course, I knew; I’d been waiting for this call for years, but last night I’d told her I hated her. So of course, I knew exactly what my brother was about to say.
He struggled to speak.
“I didn’t want to have to call you and tell you this…”
That’s all my brother needed to say.
I fell to the floor, screaming a scream that I’d hear for years after in my dreams. My brother, on the other end of the phone, was crying too but I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t hear my best friend, most likely in shock, who was holding me
She was trying to shout over my screams “I’m here! I’ve got you!”
Even with my screams, the world had gone silent…
The only thing I could hear, whilst in a heap upon the floor, was the same thing circling my head like a shark; the only screams I could hear were the ones attacking me in my mind:
If only I hadn’t waited.
If only I’d gone home yesterday.
If only today wasn’t too late.
