Simon slowly opened the door, wondering to himself just how much noise he was making. He'd left so suddenly he'd forgotten to take his hearing aid with him. Sounds like the party, the sirens, and his classmates screaming were all just muted noise to him.

He crept slowly along the hardwood floor in the dark. He'd lived in the house since his birth, so he could navigate the space fairly easily with the lights turned off. He'd even figured out where the wood made the loudest squeaking, just for occasions such as this one.

Suddenly a light flashed and he flinched, tripping over the step that divided the kitchen from the living room, and looked up. There she stood. The demon of the house. She was wearing a red, tight-fitting silk robe and slippers. She motioned him to get up and handed him the hearing aid.

He put it on and adjusted the sound. "I'm sorry." He spoke so softly he couldn't hear himself.

His mother, evidently, did.

She wiped her hand back and smacked him across the face. His skin started to burn.

"Where did you go? And without your hearing aid?"

"I just went to the lake." Leaving out the part about going to the mainland.

"What if you'd gotten killed, huh? How do you think that makes me look?"

Simon held his cheek and shrugged. "I'm sorry."

"Albert already left." She crossed her arms and looked passed her living room out the window. "It's dark. You could have gotten lost, you stupid boy."

He hunched over. He was already shorter than the woman. For a seventeen year old boy, he was fairly small. Standing at just bearly five feet. "I'm sorry." He said again.

"I deserve more respect than this. Do you understand how difficult it is to care for you? How expensive? I could have just gotten rid of you. Made everything a lot easier. But I decided to keep you. And for all the shit I have to go through in order to keep you alive, I deserve your damn respect."

He flinched as she began to raise her voice, receiving feedback on the hearing aid. His hand wrapped around the bruise on his wrist. When he was younger he used to tell her every time one of her boyfriends did something to him. Each time she would either ignore it or ask what he did to deserve it. In most cases, it was because he didn’t hear his name being called, or walking in on something he shouldn’t have. Other, more rare cases, it was just because those men needed something to take their pent up rage out on. “I won’t do it again.” He promised.

His mother huffed. “You think I believe anything you say, boy? Where’s your sketchbook?”

He jolted. “W-wait… why?”

“I’m grounding you. That’s why. I could take your cellphone, but what good would that do? You have no one to talk to. The only thing you seem to care about is that damn book, now hand it over!”

Suddenly he felt panicked. Almost like she was taking away his way to breath. “N-no… please, I won’t leave without telling you. I promise!”

*She walked past him towards the stairs. His heart leaped as he raced up the stairs before her. She caught his leg and pulled him down. The skin of his chin cut against the old wood, spilling blood out onto the stairs. He ignored it, though. He pushed against her and she pushed back, both putting up a valent effort until they reached the top. Simon grabbed her robe and pulled on the string.

“Let go of me!” Her face was within inches of him. He could smell the sweet scent of liquor blended in with her cheap perfume.  She punched him this time. The force of the blow knocked his head against the hard wood of the last step, making him a little dizzy. Slowly he rose his head, watching in horror as she made her way for his bedroom, retying her robe.

He rolled over and forced himself up, getting a little light headed and having to hold onto the railing so he wouldn’t fall back. Once he could see somewhat straight, he ran for his room and swung the door open. Every muscle in his body suddenly felt like jelly as he saw her fingers caressing the only thing making his life bearable. The only thing keeping him sane.

It was a used sketchbook with the words faded and a few pages sticking out the sides. He actually hadn't had it long, give or take a week, but he'd used it nearly every waking moment. Her eyes seemed to glow in the night as if to reflect her evil intent. She watched her sons expression shift into defeat as she opened the book.

“Wow. Great artwork, boy.” She laughed. Her fingers caressed the page. “You’ve got some real talent. Too bad this worthless trade is all your good for.” She ripped the page out of the book and held it between her fingers. “It’s too bad you aren’t smart.” She crumpled it up and let it fall to the floor. “You waste my time and money keeping you alive and this is all you can do.” She stole another page from its home and crushed it in her hands. “That disease should have killed you. What a miracle that would have been, huh?”

She watched gleefully as Simon’s face contorted into pure horror as every single one of his beloved drawings fell to the floor, one by one.

“All it did was make you deaf.” She let the book fall to the ground once she’d torn the last page. Simon fell after, his eyes and heart stinging. She kneeled to him. “If you ever defy me again or make me look bad, I’ll fucking kill you. Understood?”

*He looked up at her. When he was a child he was terrified of her as she glared at him with disdain in her eyes. Nothing had changed. Not that he was scared paralyzed of her, or the look she gave whenever he entered the room. In defeat, he simply nodded. “Understood.” His voice was so weak, you could even hear a sob.

“Good.” She smacked his cheek before wobbling to her feet.

He fully collapsed to the floor, running his hand through his hair, looking at all of his hard work now crumbled and torn. He collected the pages, straightening them out and looking them over. His hands shook at one in particular. It was a drawing he’d made not too long ago of a mother and child. Both happy and playing together at the peer. He recalled the memory of the two. It was one of the days he went to see Carter at the bait shop. He remembered it so vividly because it only reminded him of the one thing he always wanted. 

And yet, for some reason, could never have.