Mother

She stands at my doorstep, frizzy brown curls, standing up on edge around her face as she stares at me with pain glistening in her crinkled charcoal eyes. Her bright red lipstick contrasts starkly with the state she’s in, completely disheveled. Her violet jumper hangs lazily off of one shoulder exposing fair freckled skin and the pale pink scarf around her neck barely hangs there in a loose knot, showing off irritated patches spreading beneath her chin down to her chest.

“Brian?”

I stare at her in complete silence before the reality of what she did kicks in and I shut the door in her face.

Took you long enough to remember me, mother.

“Brian! Brian, please open the door. I’m- I’m sorry I left you Brian, it was a mistake, I was angry and I didnt know what else to do I had nowhere to go,”

She begs and pleads but I don’t care. She left me with him. Someone who couldn’t give a damn about my life and what I was going through in college. Someone who drank his sorrows away lying under a heap of beer bottles, day after day drowning in himself, slowly and steadily losing himself and becoming a horrible, monstrous being who spewed the vilest profanities at me, degrading me to nothing. And I believed him because I knew people spoke their heart out when they were intoxicated. So he must have been right. I was gangly, and ugly, and stupid. No wonder I got bullied every single day of my life. I deserved it.

Can you believe I thought that same thing for 12 years of my life? What a waste. But not anymore. I’m free now. This old dorm, my best buds and my new job at the Pizzeria is all I need. Which reminds me, my pizza has probably gone cold. I check the box to see if its still warm. Much to my surprise it is! I take out one of the stretchy, cheesy slices and take a big bite. Heavenly. Its times like these that I’m ever so grateful. Even my estranged mother’s persistent knocking fades away into silence and the shadow beneath the door disappears too.

Good. Its pizza time.