Escape - Short Story

It had been a typical night. Hailey was in her room, listening to whatever was on the radio at the time, twirling her long blonde hair, but most of all, trying to drown out the noises below her. Her younger brother Ryan was sitting next to her.

“Hailey, when is this going to stop?” He looked up at her with the most sincere look of innocence.

She said the same thing she heard from her mother every time she used to ask the same thing. “It'll be all right, Ryan, don't worry.”

Hailey was seventeen years old and knew better than the bullshit her mother tried to feed her about her not-so-wonderful relationship with her boyfriend, Jerry. She thought that if she wore sweaters and tons of make-up, they wouldn't figure it out, but Hailey knew better than to buy into that. Ryan was only six and much too young to understand. Her mother was hiding something, and Hailey knew that. She just couldn't believe her mother was so naïve as to think she would fall for her act. Her mother was always a shady person, and it all started the night her father was killed.

Hailey's father was her best friend. She loved him dearly, so much that sometimes she used to think she loved him more than her mother did. She then found out that she did. her parents got married when really young, mostly because her mother was pregnant with her. She must not have been satisfied with her father, because she was fired from her teaching career for having sexual relations with the dean of the college. Hailey wasn’t shocked by that. She was shocked when the very same night they found this out, her father was mysteriously killed. They never found out who did it, so the bastard who did it got away with it as well.

Her mother pulled off the grieving widow act worthy of an Academy Award: crying all the time, bringing pity on herself from the neighbors who brought enough food over to feed them for a year, you know, all that shit. But then she started drinking very heavily, leaving Hailey to take care of Ryan. That winter, Ryan got a hold of her glass of whiskey and got really sick and almost died. That was enough for her mother to wise up and go to rehab. Rehab. That’s where their lives took the worst twist of all.

Hailey's mother left her and Ryan behind for six months to go to a 24-hour rehab facility. Just turning eighteen, she couldn't live the life that most people her age were. She was home with Ryan, but they were happier in that time than any other time in their lives. Granted, she was forced to get a part-time job so that she and Ryan could survive. It was almost as if she were a teenage mother, but only temporarily.

When she came back from the center they were introduced to Jerry, a recovered drug addict and alcoholic, who her mother had been seeing while she was there. “Oh, this guy’s a winner.” was the first thought running through her mind.

“Mom, why in the hell would you bring this guy home? First of all, you just got out of rehab! Second, that's where you met this guy?! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“I didn't meet him in rehab, I've known him for a long time, but yes, he happened to be there too and we got to talking and thing just...I don't know...progressed from there.”

“Either way, he's a recovering drug addict and you want him around your children?! Do you care about us at all?!”

“Of course I do! I went--”

“If you really cared about us, you wouldn't be bringing some guy you hit it off with in rehab home with you!”

“Who I bring home is none of your business, young lady, and I'd appreciate it if you'd butt out of my personal life.”

“Wow, mom, this is the new meaning of low, even for you. Come on Ryan, let's get you up to bed.”

Over the next couple months, Jerry was spending virtually every day at their house, portraying that his relationship with her mother was in the “honeymoon phase” and that they were so happy together. After about two months of the nauseating behavior her mother was displaying, he moved in with them. That’s where Hailey's misery began. Within days, Jerry started drinking again, which led to her mother drinking as well.

One night in particular was the most painful she'd ever witness. She walked in the door after taking Ryan to the store to see her mother with a Jack Daniels bottle in one hand and a half empty glass in the other. She couldn't believe how pathetic she was, but what made her even more angry was that this woman was supposed to be her mother.

“Mom, I'm not even going to lecture you right now. I just want you to know that you are the biggest disappointment in my life. The only thing I have to be proud of is my little brother, and that's because I raised him instead of you. So maybe he'll be a little less fucked up than I am because you don't know how to be a mother.”

Her mother wouldn't even acknowledge her presence because she was so drunk and entranced in her whiskey glass. Hailey could not believe what she was seeing. She was coming in second place to a glass of alcohol. She had no choice but to look the other way and continue to care for Ryan.

The night she saw Jerry throw a glass against the wall and bash her mother's head into the table was the night she decided she needed to get out and take Ryan with her. The sight of her mother's bloody head unconscious on the table was enough to make her want to vomit, so she knew there was no way she could let Ryan see her.

Hailey quickly packed her bags and a couple for Ryan as well. He asked her where they were going and why her mother wasn’t coming with us. She told him that they weren’t safe living with Mommy and Jerry anymore and they had to get away from them. She knew that he was upset, but she also knew that she was doing him a world of good by taking him away and sparing him the misery of the life she had to live out.

Her mother died three months later from blunt trauma to the head, and Jerry was thrown in jail for life. She then knew it was the best decision she could have made to get out of that house because she had the gut instinct that he would not have stopped after her mother.

No doubt it was hard for her to be on her own at eighteen, but with at least with a high school degree under her belt, she was able to get two part-time jobs while she worked her way through college and raised a seven-year-old. She ended up getting her Master's Degree in Psychology and became a therapist for abused women. She figured that since her mother was a lost cause, then she should at least try to help other people through their hard times. Even though her mother was not the greatest person in the world, she still loved her and wished every day that things would have worked out better for her.