My father had J.P in the corner with the gun pointed to his face while screaming at him, saying how he was such a piece of shit and he was worthless. I didn’t know what to do at that moment because there was so much going through my head. If I made the wrong move or said the wrong thing he could go off like a hair trigger. That was not something I could afford to happen. I couldn’t lose my mom and my brother. They were the only reason I was playing football when I didn’t want to play any sports at all. I had to be able to make sure they were taken care of.
Indecision raced through my brain as I tried to figure out what to do but then the decision was taken out of my hands when our dad turned around and looked at me with such hatred in his eyes. I never understood why he hated all of us. I thought marriage would have been a happy thing. I guess not.
“You stupid, little fucker. You think you are going to save him this time?” he taunted. His words were slurred and his face was twisted into a snarl. He cocked the gun and the next thing I knew, the gun went scattering across the kitchen floor. Somehow J.P had gotten the courage that he never showed before to get the gun out of his face.
Dad realized what had happened and from there, everything went from bad to worse. I told J.P to call the cops and let them know mom needs an ambulance and then I flew at dad. By the time the cops showed up, there was blood all over me and I didn’t know how we got to the top of the steps but dad was at the bottom of them with his neck at an odd angle. Chest heaving, the cops told me to put my hands in the air and I was arrested. As far as I knew, J.P went with mom to the hospital. Dad was considered dead on arrival.
Later that night I was released since I attacked out of self defense. I told them everything that happened honestly. There was no reason to lie. When I returned home and found no one there, I knew something was wrong. I walked to the hospital since it was only a mile away and walked into the emergency room asking for mom. The weird looks I was getting was most likely because I was beat the fuck up. As I sat down, I looked around to see if J.P was waiting anywhere but he was still nowhere to be found.
“Excuse me, sir. Your mother is in surgery. If you want, you can take the elevator to the third floor and let them know your mom’s name. You will be able to wait in the waiting room,” the nurse told me. When I got to the third floor, I noticed the distinct smell of bleach and hospital. My shoes squeak on the floor, sounding like bombs going off in the entirely too quiet hallway. My heartbeat was pounding in my chest like a bass drum beating in my ears.
I finally made it to the nurses station and let them know I was here for her. Like I knew they would, they told me to go sit in the waiting room with the same wary looks as the nurses downstairs. Unfortunately when I got there and saw J.P was not here either, I knew without a doubt he was gone like the wind. I couldn’t sit so I paced and paced until I thought I was going to burn a hole in the floor. My feelings were so up and down about everything in my life and how one whole night changed everything. I was terrified because my brother was somewhere out there and I wasn’t there to protect him. At the same time, I had hope that mom would be okay and the surgeon would come to tell me she survived and she would recover.
As it was, when the surgeon did finally come out to tell me that they did everything they could, I knew right then and there that I couldn’t hang around anymore. The surgeon apologized profusely and told me what the next steps would be. For fuck’s sake, I was sixteen years old. I didn’t want to fucking deal with this. My heart was shattering beneath my fucking feet. The tears sprang and fell down without my permission but my mother was the fucking heart to our family. She was what kept everyone kicking. How the fuck was I going to survive without her?
Mind made up, there was nothing more I could do there. I would do what I had to do to get us to survive until we aged out, because there was no way I was letting us go into the system and get split up. My head was spinning with memories of mom by the time I got back to the house. It was like walking into a crime scene. Blood was everywhere and when I got to the steps, I heard the movement. Heart pounding, I went into our parents’ room and found J.P. Only this was not how I wanted to find him. There was a chair knocked over, underneath his feet. The noose that was hanging from the rafters above was tight around his neck and he was struggling to breathe.
Jumping into action, I pulled the chair back up so I could at least get him some air. He started coughing and sputtering. “Why couldn’t you just leave me there to die? I am nothing. How the fuck do you expect to be able to protect me from everything when you will have to be out supporting us? Knock it the fuck off and let me be, Axel!”
His voice was so full of emotion that
