I was little, I remember screaming, yelling, crying, and swearing. I lied down in my room looking at the ceiling. I get a text message. You are the stupidest person I’ve ever met, I hope you DIE! I lay back down after reading the txt message. After a while of this happening every day I felt like I had no feelings. I was just so used to crying in my room. I just stopped caring about family, friends, and life. I always thought to myself no one likes me. I’m just this kid who gets in everyone’s way and doesn’t help anyone. My dad is on a business trip. Whenever he is home there’s more yelling, screaming, crying in this house. I remember everything, I tell my parents I forgot, but I still remember like if it was yesterday.


It was Christmas break. School just got out. I was in 6th grade. My mom was yelling at my father and my dad was swearing back. I heard things hit the walls, things shatter, things being thrown down the stairs. It was about my sister, my father would not listen to my mom. My dad didn’t care he thought it was nothing. They called each other names, really bad names. My dad grabbed my sister and left. My mom started crying in her room but I heard her through the wall of my room. I just closed my eyes and fell asleep to my mothers crying.


Whenever I woke up I woke up to yelling. I sometimes sat on the stairs and watched my parents fight. They knew I was on the stairs but they didn’t stop. The just kept fighting. My sister ran away that night, we didn’t know where she went. She came back home late. She was still in her room, sulking. My mom held up my sister’s phone and yelled at my father. My father just yelled, and yelled at her. My mom grabbed my arm and took me in the car. I asked where we were going. She said in a soft and crying voice, “Were going to a happier place.” We drove for an hour. I recognized the place, my aunt and uncle rented a house up in Chandler. My mom pulled into the driveway with her van. She told me that I was going to stay there until dark. I said,”ok.” I was scared, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t cry, I just walked to the door. I turned and saw my mom driving away while looking at me. As I turned back around to the door I saw my aunt, she came up to me and hugged me. I didn’t say anything, and neither did her. My aunt was my mom’s twin and they act very much the same except she was happier.


I stayed there for a while. It felt like forever but I just sat on the curb in the front yard while watching cars pass. It was a very busy street. It was around nine by then. I turned a little and saw my aunt on the phone watching me through the window by the door. She didn’t know that I saw her. She just watched me while I watched at the ground in front of me.


My mom’s car pulled up and she rowed down the window as I stood up. She didn’t say anything. Usually I and my family are very talkative but not recently. All I knew then was that something important was on my sister’s phone. As I got home my dad’s car was gone. I was going to ask something about that but I just couldn’t talk. I could say it perfectly in my mind put I just couldn’t send it out of my mouth. As my mom opened the garage door she pulled the car in. I didn’t talk that whole day. As I walked through the door I heard pounding on the walls and things moving in my sister’s room. My mom walked up the steps while pounding on the floor. I stood by the door just watching. My mom walked fast down the hallway and pounded on my sister’s door. “Open the door now!” “No!” Yelled my sister from inside her room. She was crying while she said that. I slowly tip toed up the stairs and into my room. I went in my room, locked the door, and put my head into the pillow. I just took out my iPod and put it on full blast into my ears. My iPod could not silence what was happening around me. I heard the door smash. Then I heard my sister screaming really bad words to my mom. She just repeated it, I wanted it to stop but she wouldn’t. She just yelled the same two words over and over again. I took out my pencil from underneath my bed. On the top on the pencil the eraser was missing and the metal piece was chewed so it was sharp to the touch. I just took it to my arm and just rubbed it hard enough it wouldn’t pierce the skin. The feeling of the pencil hurting me made me take my mind off the yelling. I did not like it but it was better than hearing the screaming. I just lied in the dark on top of my bed with my iPod on and me rubbing the top of the pencil on the top of my arm.


I don’t remember closing my eyes but somehow I fell asleep during the night. When I woke up, there was no yelling. As I sat up to look what time it was there was a stinging feeling from my arm. I looked at my arm, it was covered in dry blood and cuts filling the whole arm. I did not mean to pierce the skin, or cut it that bad. I heard a knocking on my door, I yelled just a second. I ran to my closet and found the first long sleeve shirt I could find. It was a dark blue one with a snow flake in the middle. I didn’t like it and I've never seen it before but I quickly put it on. As I put it on my arm stung so badly that I screamed. My father called, “Are you all right in there Patrick?” “Yea, just stubbed my toe, you can come in.” My dad opened the door and said, “Can you do the chores for me?” I let out a groan by accident. My father started yelling, he got angry so quickly he was yelling at me like I was my mom. He took my lamp and whatever he could find and threw it on the floor. I don’t remember what he said but I remember it was terrifying. He said something about how I ruin everybody’s lives and that he hates me and the family. I ran down the stairs while he was still knocking things down then while I was going down the stairs he threw a book towards me and missed. I ran and didn’t look back. I opened the door and ran through it.


As I came home I heard yelling from the street while I was standing In front of the house. They were inside but I heard everything they were saying. My mom said that he was going to go to jail, and my sister was going to a foster home in California. After I heard that I just ran, and ran. I wasn’t tired I just kept running. When I went about 2 miles my phone vibrated. I was walking by then. I took my phone out of my pocket and answered it. It was my mother, I was going to go with my cousins for a little while. I agreed, told her where I was, and hung up. I sat on the curb and looked at the sky. Usually in Arizona it is sunny, but today it was cloudy but no rain. I wish I could say I didn’t cry but I did. It felt good though. It felt relieving. As my mom picked me up and I went to my cousins I felt a little happy. I felt like this was going to be over.


A week later after Christmas break I went home and everything was back to normal except my dad was into an apartment. Now my family is happy, I don’t know what happened while I was gone but now they go to therapy, I still have tiny marks on my arm but there almost gone. My dad just moved back into the house a month ago and now it’s a lot happier here. There are still some fights but no where near what happened before. I still sometimes stay in my room thinking about what happened, that txt message that made me want to go away. I never wanted to die though, Id rather be alive than dead even if my life was miserable back then. Since I never gave up with life, it’s a lot happier now. There have been some changes though, I don’t see my aunt and uncle anymore because of a story that is too violent for this paper. I only told minor stories of the longest two weeks of my life but I love my life now. I am a lot quieter now, and lost a lot of friends because I was just so angry at school all the time. But they didn’t help me at all through what I was going through, I didn’t tell anyone what happened those two weeks because when I think of it I get out the pencil from underneath my bed and look at it. There is still dry blood on it but I do not want to remember those two weeks. I grabbed the pencil with two hands and snapped it in half. I went downstairs, then through the front door. I look up, it is one A.M and black outside. You can hear the noise of the cars going by on the busy road passed my neighborhood. It always reminds me of me sitting on that curb. I took the pencil and threw it as far as I could. Its over, I’m happier and will not think of those two weeks ever again.