I saw it coming

I hear the voice over the phone and I can't believe what it's saying.

"I am so sorry, Mrs. Smith. I don't want to be the one to tell you this but I have no choice-"

"NO MORE!" I screamed at my mother to put the phone down, but she wouldn't. My mother never did what I told her to, even though I would try to help her.

"Let's start jogging together, we can lose weight side by side. You don't have to be overweight. We can both be fit and healthy."

"Oh, I can't do it, Jamie. I don't have the stamina." she would say with a mist of hopelessness.

I paced around the kitchen, staring at the tiles. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7- I lost count. She's starting to cry. The phone was placed back on its hook. She sits down on one of the comfortable red chairs in the dining room with her hands in her lap.

"First, John and now Jamie. What am I going to do?" she cries in a shaky whisper. "Now, I am alone." She stands up.

I stop pacing and scream at her "Why can't you ever believe me!! You don't even take your own daughter at her word. You did this! This is your fault!" I scream until my voice breaks and I start to cough. It doesn't matter. She doesn't hear me anyway.
She never liked me screaming at her. It was always her fantasy that I be this sweet, blonde haired, hazel eyed, thin beauty. But we both knew I was anything but. Yes, I had blonde hair but my love of dying it never stopped. I would never be as thin as she wanted me to be... I would never be as thin as she had been when she was my age. I would never be as beautiful as she had hoped. All she ever wanted was for me to be happy, living a life she never was allowed to live. Now with my lip and tongue piercings, my black eye liner and formfitting clothes that showed I actually had a figure (no matter how much she hated that it was curvaceous likes hers), she kept telling me during arguments," I don't know who you are anymore." with this sappy ass frown and tear stained cheeks.

"Save it mother. Who says you ever knew who I was? You have no fucking idea what goes through cute little Jamie's head and you never will, because you can't handle it. Your fragile mind can't bare to hear how sweet Jamie cuts herself every night, wishing for a love so kind and restful to fall into her wide open, bloody arms. Or how your loving daughter smokes pot and drinks excessively. You can't handle me, Mother." This is what I want to say whenever she tells me that sentence, but I haven't the heart to crush her dream of having a daughter that can also be her best friend.

None of this matters now. That was the past... painful as it was, I wouldn't take any of it back. Now, this is the present and my mother is shaking while she rummages through a drawer in her bureau.

"What the fuck are you looking for now?" I demand but I expect no answer.

She stops and crumbles in countless sobs as she shuts the drawer. Her exausted body stands up, walks to the door, takes her keys off the hook of our wooden "a family makes a house a home" key that holds our collection and walks into the garage. I slam the door behind her and scream until my voice and my breath won't allow me to do so anymore.

Now it is time for me to crumble. The multi-colored Parisian rug that is our family stability, has been pulled out from under us, and now all there is left to do is break. I am breaking. I run to the kitchen when I hear our family's Toyota Camry's engine start. I thrust open a drawer and find my favorite. I call it "Xavier". Xavier is my mother's most precious "meat cutting knife" (as she calls it during use). Xavier has been my friend through many break downs. He would soothe me with his silence and precision. Every slice I would make was a passionate kiss from my dear Xavier. He loved me and I loved him. Remembering the sweet surrender that would occur as I put Xavier to my skin, I admired the shine Xavier held. I would caressingly bathe him with tenderness after every usage. I never left any evidence of Xavier's and my love affair. But now evidence has no relevance. I pressed the blade into my skin and pulled it back as harsh as I possibly could. A deep, beautiful cut was made, but as quickly as it was made, it vanished.

"Shit. When I need you the most, my dear Xavier, you can no longer help me." I throw the betraying knife at the window. The handle breaks the glass and I scream again. It is no use acting this way but there is nothing else to do.

After a while of sitting on the floor, crying away my problems, I remember that my mother had driven away. Or had she? I can't remember hearing the garage door creak and rumble as it does when it opens. Had I been so wrapped up in myself, I hadn't notice the racket? I walk to the door and stub my toe on my two year old brother, David's toy truck.

"Fuck!" I scream in exaggeration with the pain I felt inside and in my stinging toe. I throw the toy out the broken window.

I open the door and step onto the concrete. My bare feet cooled by its lack of insulation. What a calming feeling that had always been for me. Now I just felt irritation. I could hear the engine still, and the fumes left a thin haze. My mother sat in the driver's seat with her head back against the head rest. She no longer had a double chin. My mother, the dreadful beast of a woman, had purposefully started the engine and left the garage door closed to rid her of her troubles.

"Fucking cow. You never could cope with things. When daddy left you, you relied on me to be your confidant. I hope you enjoyed that phone call. Bitch." I walk back into the house and shut the door.

"She could have kept me. I told her he would cause problems. She never trusted me. I had to die for that bitch to realize she isn't always right. What a fucking moron." I say as I sit on the stiff, white, leather couch and lay my head back with a smile.