I'll never hurt you

She started to laugh and her hand landed dangerously to my nape. She couldn't think twice about strangling me. I felt intimidated and agitated, I grabbed her half-empty whiskey bottle and walking off with it. "Azora, gimme that back!" I marched into the kitchen dumping the whiskey in the sink. When I turned around, she grabbed my arm.

"You little pesky brat! You think you're in charge of me now! I'm still your mother!" The empty glass fell to the floor and glass scattered everywhere. Just great. She summoned Lobelia and the rest to get out of her way as she inched closer to smack me on the face.

I pulled away from her. "You're drunk and making a fool of yourself!" Just then, she pushed me and I fell to the floor, bumping my head into a bar stool.

"You just want to hurt me, you ingrate!" She started crying and I groaned, too used to the routine.

"Mom! I'll never hurt you and you know it. Please, go to bed and rest." I pleaded with her because I knew at that point the alcohol had taken over, controlling her like a zombie.

My mom stopped yelling and began sobbing. She fell to her knees crawling over to me, pulling me to her. "I need you Azora. I love you and you're all I have."

I sighed and reluctantly rubbed her back. "It's okay."

"No! It's not. I'm a failure, a complete fool. I can't even get a good man in my life. They all want my damn money.... your fa...father is an imbecile! He'll rot in hell!" She spoke with a stutter and I could only pity her.

Stumbling to my feet, I picked her up off the floor. "C'mon, let's get you to bed." Masha and Akira came over to help me out with her. Embarrassment consumed me at the fact that I was putting my own mother to bed because she was wasted on whiskey or whatever else she had drunk that day. Once I got her into her bed, I threw the covers over her. When I looked around her room, there were clothes all over the floor including the purple lingerie she had worn earlier to seduce Fox. I picked them up and suddenly felt my hands getting slippery, it was then I realized there were three strips of used condoms hidden in the clothes I was picking. Yew! How disgusting it was.

"Three rounds! I never knew your mother had such energy in bed, quite interesting." Akira chuckled lightly.

"Shh! Keep your voice down, she can hear you." I warned her.

I pushed up the bin and threw the latex and washed my hands in the sink. I saw something else like a card on the floor, I picked up when Akira and Masha weren't looking. I slipped the card into one of my inner pockets and walked out of the room with both of them. I was so relieved that she was now sound asleep. Even when I didn't want to take care of her, I ended up doing that anyway. It was like second nature to me.

As Masha and Akira went back to their chores, I walked back to my Study. The next day was school and I wasn't yet done with my essay. I had to get it done before dinner. I sat on the swivel chair and took out the card, it was Fox's ID. I took a good look at it and I couldn't believe he was twenty one, four years ahead of me. I captured his details on my cell phone and quickly dashed to mom's room. I had to return it in case he came for it.

I tiptoed silently and walked out of her room. Macy almost startled me and I had to carry her to the Study. She was such a cute cat and I loved her because she reminded me of Dad who I hadn't seen for two years now. Flipping the pages of the Literature book, I felt so bored for having to read at least six essays to shortlist my vocabulary on the essay I was working on. Miss Redmond would be on my neck come the next day if I wouldn't read the best essay she'd expect me to. I didn't know why she held high expectations of me, was it because I was a genius? Well, I couldn't complain at all, I knew I had to pull a lot of strings to impress her.

The fun thing about Literature was that we could express ourselves directly, too much imaginations and fantasy. I didn't know why Miss Redmond chose to give us an essay from Simone de Beauvoir's book, 'The Second Sex' considering the fact that it'd only bring conspicuousity. I didn't see the difference in treating women in the present society as well as throughout all of history.

In the present society, women still worshipped men, depended on them for everything. A woman had no right when it came to being the custodian of her own children, a man had to interfere. I didn't see the essence of grasping the nine hundred and seventy eight pages of Simone's book. Nevertheless, I had to give my own POV, that was all that mattered.

******

I was fast asleep when I heard some noise coming from mom's room. It was a man's voice and then there was laughter. It was going to be a long night, so traumatizing. My throat was perched and so I went downstairs to fetch a jug of water only to find Fox, fixing coffee in the kitchen counter. It was late in the night and I couldn't fathom why he was here again. Seeing him once again, my heart began beating uncontrollably. He took my breath away and I didn't know if it was good to greet him or not. There was tension all of a sudden and I just moved to the kitchen cabin and then thought it wise to consider bottled water.

Without saying a word, I opened the fridge and took out a bottle of water and walked out of the kitchen almost bumping into mom.

"Watch it!" She whispered.

"Sorry." I mumbled and went upstairs. I felt mom's eyes peering at me like she'd skin me alive the next minute. When I reached my room, I sighed deeply and opened the bottle to calm my nerves. I never thought he'd show up again maybe he remembered his ID and that's why he was here, even so, mom couldn't let him off the hook so easily. Another night of steamy romance, full of lust and desire. Our house was like a movie setting, unbelievably dramatic.