After dinner, I cleaned up the kitchen while Mom went back to her room. I didn’t miss the second glass of wine she took with her. That meant it must’ve been a really bad day at work. But she’d never talk about it. I never knew anything about her because she never offered, only criticized my every move instead of sharing anything about her own life. I had to learn about her through her actions, and having a second glass of wine was rather telling. It also told me to stay far away from her for the rest of the night.
So I did just that. I finished cleaning the kitchen, took my bath, and settled into my room for homework. By the time I cracked my first book, it was almost nine o’clock. Thankfully, it was the first day back from break, so I didn’t have that much work to do, and most of it was easy. Because I found silence to be more distracting than a roomful of sound, I turned on my TV and lowered the volume some to add just enough background noise while not interfering with my concentration.
But apparently, that was too much for Mom.
I heard her stomping down the hall long before the pounding on my door. Our rooms were both upstairs, close to one another, with a small bathroom in between. The walls were thin, so I knew to keep the noise down when she holed herself up in her room. There was no way my TV could’ve been loud enough to bother her, which only meant the second glass of wine had kicked in.
She was an angry drunk.
And a cheap drunk. Two glasses of boxed wine was enough to turn her into the Hulk. It was a bad combination.
“Aubrey Jacobs! Turn that off right now! I’m trying to sleep!” She sounded wild and emotional as she threw herself into my door.
I often locked my bedroom door, not to keep her out, since I knew that would never work, but to at least give me some sense of security. I could hear her furiously twisting the knob while beating on the cheap wood that separated us.
After turning off the small television set on my dresser, I walked to the door and flicked the lock, my heart pounding frantically in my chest the entire way. I braced my hand on the knob, ready to open it for her, but then it flew open, smacking me in the eyebrow area. I jumped back from the intense pain radiating through my head and noticed my mom had her shoulder pressed against the door, which would explain the force behind the push. The second the door made contact with the thin skin over my brow bone, it split and a trickle of warmth rolled down my temple.
But before I could do anything other than flinch, she tangled her hand in my hair. With dark and wild eyes, she pushed the sore side of my face into the wall beside me, the rough texture rubbing painfully into my tender flesh.
“I had a stressful day and I’m trying to sleep.” She ground her deep, low voice out between clenched teeth, sounding nothing like the cold mother I knew so well. This was White Zinfandel Mom, her pissed off alter ego. “Do you know what time it is? Do you know what time I have to get up in the morning, or what I even have to do tomorrow?” She yanked me until my nose came closer to hers. With her hand gripping my hair, she huffed out a humorless laugh, her warm, alcohol-laced breath engulfing me. “Of course you don’t. Because if you did, I’m sure you wouldn’t have this TV turned up so damn loud, knowing it would wake me up. Unless you did that on purpose… Did you turn your TV on to purposely piss me off, Aubrey?”
My chin quivered as I watched this stranger in front of me, her face twisted like the Scream mask. I’ve seen her livid, I’ve been around her plenty of times when she’d had too much to drink, and I’ve even witnessed her vicious side, but this was something new. I could tell by the twitchiness of her eyes, that this had nothing to do with me. It had nothing at all to do with my TV. It was work. Something bad happened today, and I’d just become her punching bag.
I shook my head as much as I could with it pressed against the wall. I didn’t trust my voice to answer her, knowing it would shake with the tears that threatened to spill and sound pathetic with the tight knot lodged in my throat.
She finally let go and took a step back, her eyes shuffling around the room as I slowly cowered away. “Clean that up.” She pointed a stiff finger to the smeared blood on the white wall, not even bothering to glance at me to ensure I was okay. I wanted to believe she couldn’t meet my eyes because of the guilt that ran through her over hurting me, but I’m positive that wasn’t the case. I’m sure her inability to make eye contact had more to do with her inebriation than guilt.
I waited until her bedroom door closed before I crumpled to the floor and cried. But I made sure to cry silently, not wanting to chance pissing her off even further. It took me a few minutes, but once I calmed down enough to get up, I grabbed a dirty sock and got it wet in the bathroom sink, not bothering to turn on the light or look at my reflection. The pain radiating from my eye was enough to imagine how horrible it must look without checking in the mirror. Not to mention, seeing an injury tended to make the pain worse, and I couldn’t handle that when I had a mess to clean. I used the wet sock to wipe my blood off the wall, knowing she would be mad if I ruined one of her good washcloths. It was always about her possessions and appearance. Always. And then, after I had the wall scrubbed spotless and my tears had dried, and the pain became unbearable enough to see the damage, I went to the bathroom mirror with my first aid kit.
Even before I saw it, I knew the injury would look terrible. The blood ran in a constant stream over my cheekbone, past my jaw, and onto my chest…much like tears. Except these were thick, dark-red tears, leaking from a wide split next to my eyebrow. I cleaned it up, applying pressure until it stopped bleeding, and then closed it with two butterfly strips. Stitches would’ve been better, but I didn’t have that option. People would ask questions, which meant she’d have to lie again. And, of course, that would make her look bad.
I knew my face would look even worse the next day once the bruising settled in. And I didn’t know how I’d explain it without prompting any unwanted questions. It wasn’t my first rodeo showing up at school injured, and it probably wouldn’t be my last. But in the past, when something like this would happen, I’d have a teacher or two make small talk with me, asking politely what I’d done to myself. I’d give a reasonably plausible excuse, and then they’d carry on with their business. Normally, I wouldn’t worry, except now, it seemed as though I had a teacher that cared.
I’d have to face Mr. Taylor with a busted-up face, the day after he so sincerely asked me if I was all right. The first person in as long as I could remember who had showed me any attention, proved that at least someone noticed me, but he would see just how much things weren’t all right.
As if things couldn’t get any worse…
I wore my hair down, even though I hated it that way. I usually had my long, red hair pulled back into a bun, or at the very least a ponytail. Because if not, then I’d have to spend an hour straightening it. And with how thick it was, I tended to sweat a lot on the back of my neck, which always left me feeling gross. To top it off, it would frizz at the tiniest amount of humidity, leaving me with a giant, red puffball on my head. But I didn’t have a choice, because I had to hide the side of my face.
I had been right the night before, it was so much worse today.
Normally, I never wore much makeup. I didn’t think dark liner or eye shadow agreed with my coloring. Not to mention, my eyes were a light-green color, so the darker the makeup, the lighter they became. And to me, it made me think of a cheap streetwalker. But this morning, I had no choice but to go heavy on the eye shadow, hoping it would blend in with the bruising. Nothing made it go away, but at least I tried. In the end, I studied my reflection and laughed. I looked like a hooker that got the shit beat out of her by her pimp for not blowing him good enough.