I had three days before Aunt Cindy left for her brief trip to New York. For most of that time, I locked myself in my room, writing and re-writing the letter to my mother. For the life of me, I couldn’t get it to correctly convey what I wanted to say, so I spent most of my evenings scribbling furiously and throwing away paper. What started as a goodbye letter slowly started to become a letter full of anger and accusations.

Whenever Aunt Cindy came to pick me up for the day, she tried to get me to talk. But despite her best efforts, I wouldn’t speak a word to her throughout the whole day. My plan was set, and I didn’t want Aunt Cindy to think something was up. So I acted like I was still angry with her, which I was. To avoid her, I locked the door to my room in her cottage each day until it was time to leave.

The night before going to New York, my mother came into my room to talk. When she knocked on the door, I scrambled to pick up all the bits of paper with angry goodbye messages on them and shoved them in my trash bin. For extra measure, I covered it with a jacket.

I had just finished a scathing, accusatory letter to my mother. Bits and pieces of it still floated about my head as I grabbed a book off the floor.

If you had just been a normal mother who waited to marry someone maybe this wouldn’t have happened …

… I’m completely alone and miserable and no one cares.

I climbed onto my bed and flipped open the book to a random page.

… You should have kicked Greg out when you had the chance, but you didn’t because you’re a coward.

“Come in,” I said, and pretended to read the book.

… I never want to see any of you ever again.

I knew it was a horrible letter, but I had twelve years worth of anger pent up inside of me and it was all being unleashed. I was tired of staying silent in my room. I needed everyone to know exactly what I was feeling.

Aunt Cindy must have spoken to my mother about constantly locking myself away at her house, because she came in holding a plate of brownies. Sweets was one way my mother got me to open up about things, but this time I wasn’t budging.

“Hey sweetie,” she carefully made her way around the piles of stuff on the floor. “Goodness Mia, you really should clean up in here!”

“It’s my room,” I grumbled. “I’m the one who has to sleep in here not you.”

My mother gave me a look as she sat next to me.

“Mia I know you’re mad about Aunt Cindy leaving, but this attitude…”

“I don’t want to talk about this okay?” I put my book down next to me and crossed my arms. “I just want to be left alone.”

My mother sighed and tried to smooth my hair back but I leaned away so she couldn’t reach me.

She retracted her hand and put it on her lap. “I know this is hard on you. It’s hard on me too believe me. But you can’t shut everyone out like this. You need to talk about these things with me.”

When I still didn’t respond she said, “It’s okay to feel sad and angry. In fact it’s perfectly natural. Once you get through the grieving stage you’ll start to see things rationally.”

Her tone of voice triggered me. I’d heard it all too often when she was speaking to grieving families at the Funeral Home. “I’m not one of your clients, Lucy!” I shouted. “Now can you please just leave me alone? You never open up to me, why on earth should I open up to you?”

My mother’s eyes widened in shock. I had never yelled at her before, and if I wasn’t so angry I might have felt guilty. Only Greg shouted like that and called her by her first name.

After a few moments of silence, my mother put the plate of brownies on the bed and got up to leave. Before she walked out the door she turned back to me and said, “I’m sorry Mia. I’m sorry I can’t fix things for you.”

And she was gone, closing the door behind her.

Tears burned in my eyes again. It surprised me that I hadn’t run out of them yet.

                                                                 ***

The next morning I packed all of the things I wanted to take with me into a suitcase. The final version of the letter to my mother sat on my pillow. As I wheeled the suitcase to my bedroom door I paused and looked back at my bed. Dashing over, I dropped to my knees and retrieved the shoe-box. Throwing off the lid, I grabbed all of my childhood drawings. I looked down at the one of the Scary Man, wondering if I should bring it along too. Shaking my head and thinking better of it, I carefully placed it on my bed and shuddered.

I gingerly put the drawings into a folder I grabbed off my desk and stuck it into my carry-on backpack, swinging it onto my shoulders. I looked around my room one last time, making sure I hadn’t missed anything. When I could think of nothing else, I took a deep breath and steeled myself as I left.

I decided to leave early in the morning while my mother was still asleep so I wouldn’t run into any trouble leaving. I carefully made my way down the stairs and to the front door. Since Greg was nowhere to be seen, I figured he was at his girlfriend’s house.

Good, that was one less thing to worry about.

I opened the front door slowly, so it wouldn’t make a sound and went outside. Figuring the bus would be the best transportation to the airport, I made my way down the driveway. I had planned on walking to the bus stop a few blocks away ...

Only I didn’t get very far.

“Where are you going?” an all too familiar voice asked from behind me. I turned around and saw Greg standing next to our mother’s car, looking bleary eyed and, wouldn’t you know it, drunk. Adrenaline was already pumping through my veins, which made me feel bolder.

“None of your goddamn business Greg. Now leave me alone.”

Greg’s jaw dropped in shock, then his eyes dropped down to my suitcase.

“Are you running away you little loudmouth? Go ahead, be my guest, dumbass. Don’t need your backtalk around here anyway.”

Something in me snapped. Years and years of suffering Greg’s name-calling and threats all rushed forth like a brush fire. The fear he used to instill in me melted like ice and I couldn’t stop the torrent of insults from pouring out of my mouth.

“Urrrgggh! Greg, I am done with your constant abuse!” I pushed my suitcase to the ground. “You are nothing but a bum who leeches off other people, sucking the life out of everyone around you. I hope you drown in your alcohol and then an anvil magically falls out of the sky and crushes you to death. I hate you, you goddamn, stupid, alcoholic asshole!”

I had done it this time. Greg looked angrier than I had ever seen him before.

“You’re gonna pay for that you little bitch!”

He lunged forward and I screamed, turning to run away from him as fast as my legs would go. There was only a handful of times I had talked back to Greg and each time I had been mindful of his limits. But this time, I had pushed him too far.

This time, I knew if he caught me, I would be in danger.