A Hundred Fears

Emily's POV

"Yeah, now it looks better," I said to myself as I put the finishing touches on my painting.

It was a painting of a girl dancing in the rain. I didn't know how I ended up drawing it, but I just did. There was something about rain that mesmerized me to the extent that I forgot all my worries.

I should probably hang this o—

My thoughts were interrupted as I heard someone slamming the door and then the shattering of glass.

Not again!

I sighed as I went downstairs to face my mother. She was sprawled on the floor with a broken bottle of beer in her hand and was mumbling incoherently under her breath.

"Mom, please, get up. You can't do this to yourself every day," I said while picking the pieces of glass up from the floor.

She didn't respond at first. As I tried to get the bottle away from her, she turned her head towards me.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?'' she asked while taking the bottle in her other hand out of my reach.

''Mom, this isn't good for your health. You should stop cons—''

"Ha! And why do you think you can tell me what I can or cannot do? You're not my mother!" she yelled at me while getting up and taking another bottle of beer out of the fridge.

"Mom, please st—"

"OH YOU BETTER SHUT UP AND GO BACK TO YOUR FUCKING ROOM," she yelled and lied down on the couch, taking a gulp from the bottle of beer.

I knew that even if I tried, I wouldn't be able to do anything about her situation at that moment. I would just end up hurting myself even more, so I did what she told me to do. I left the broken pieces of glass on the floor and went back to my room.

I closed the door and sat against it. I felt my eyes prickle, but I refused to cry. I wouldn't cry over her. I knew she wasn't my mom. Not anymore. I remembered the times when she wasn't like this. When she cooked food for us. When she took me to the park with my brother. When we were happy.

Suddenly the thought of my brother Christian made my eyes watery.

But no, I couldn't cry. Crying made you weak, and I couldn't afford it right now. I didn't want to be weak at the point in my life when I should be strong enough to cope with this.

I sat there for what seemed like forever, remembering the good old times. It was past midnight when I stood up and went downstairs.

My mother was sleeping on the couch. I took deep breaths and started picking up the broken pieces of glass from the floor and cleaned the mess she made. When I was done doing the chores, I headed back to my room, but on the threshold I suddenly turned around and saw my mom sleeping peacefully on the couch.

I took a blanket and placed it on my mom. 

I couldn't hate her even if I wanted to. No matter what she did or how she treated me, she would always be my mom, who once cooked me pancakes and made my hair every day.

I went back to my room after a while. I took the canvas that I painted and hung it against the wall opposite my bed. I crawled onto my bed and stared at it, and after a while, I let the darkness of a deep slumber consume me.

Emily's POV

I woke up the next morning to the sound of my annoying alarm.

Ugh! Why would this world not let me sleep some more?

I found my phone under my pillow and tried to unlock it. But no, it wouldn't budge. The touch of this thing wasn't working at all these days because of the broken screen. I guess I really needed to buy a new phone.

Annoyed at my constant failing I turned it off. Not that I didn't want to buy a new phone. Of course I did but I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it right now.

I lost my job as a waitress 2 months ago. When our restaurant caught fire and then the owner decided to do the most horrible thing a person could do. He shut down the restaurant.  Like thousands (not really) of people lost employment because of that bastard. And then when I tried to reason with him he just simply said ‘Honey you can come to my place any night if you need money, you just have to make me feel happy’ and winked. Like seriously did he really expect me to sleep with him for the sake of some dollars? No, thank you!

But now I really was in a desperate need for a job.

This phone broke a month ago while I was coming back home on a bus. A boy behind me was in a rush as we were exiting the bus and he slightly pushed me towards the door and me being me, stumbled and my phone fell off the bus but guess what was the best part? That stupid boy ran past me and  didn't even care to look back and help me get off of my ass, instead stepped on my phone and ran to God only knew where. 

Stupid Men! 

*******

 

After some time I found myself in the kitchen making breakfast for me and my mom. She was still asleep and honestly I didn't want to wake her up anytime soon thinking that she will probably be on a hangover and will literally tell me to fuck off if I'd try to make a little conversation with her. 

Huh! When am I getting out of this misery?

*******

Before my mom could wake up I was out of the house. I went to school's library to use the laptop for finding some suitable job for me. 

Speaking of school, summer break was almost over and I had about 3 weeks till the school started again. I seriously didn't know what I was going to do then. I had no money whatsoever in my pocket. Though I had quite a few savings thank God but of course they won't be enough to feed us for months. Mom was also fired from her job because of her constant drunk behavior and she couldn't care less about my school fee. She just cared about buying her alcohol from the some savings that she had. Good thing that I had always worked hard in studies and had earned myself a scholarship. But still we needed money for bills and food etcetera.

It had been half an hour since I'd been trying to find some job for me but in vain. Either I was too young for it or either they required some experience which I unfortunately didn't have. Like c'mon I'll turn 17 in two months!

After some more research, my eyes landed on an ad for a job. They needed a helper for the chef in a restaurant three blocks from my house. No experience required.  

Perfect. 

I made a call at the given number and told them that how desperately I needed this job and that I even had a bit of experience since I had worked for two months in a restaurant as a waitress. They told me to come for an interview on Monday which was two days from now. Good I'll have some time to prepare myself.

Before exiting I grabbed some novels to read because dying of boredom was not an option for me. I placed the books on the counter and noticed the librarian grinning and checking me out.

Ew! All I wanted to do at that moment was puke on his face and remove that ugly smirk. 

Stupid Men!