Anastasia by A. Marie
Anastasia
Iwas prepared to become a woman when I was just a little girl. Childhood vanished before my eyes. That’s what happens when you rid someone of love. You open the doors to darkness without letting them realize there could ever be color. I want to say that I blamed my mother, but the only way I could do that was to also blame her mother, and then the mother of her mother.
The heat that escalated through my body only seemed to grow as I tried to ignore it. The longer I tossed and turned, the more the temperature pricked my skin. A sigh escaped my lips as I just laid there in a pit of my sweat, hoping it wasn’t affecting my sister as much as it was affecting me.
“Nana,” Alex called out from the other side of the room. “Mum didn’t pay the electricity bill again, did she?”
“Stay here, I’ll figure it out,” I whispered before getting up from the mattress.
We weren’t fortunate enough to own anything to lift our bed off the ground. We were lucky enough to simply have a mattress.
I walked out of my room and straight to my mother’s. Softly knocking on the door, I waited for a response. It seemed as if long moments passed before the door finally opened to reveal some half naked stranger. He had a small towel to cover up his area, but other than that, he was naked. The stench in the room assaulted my nostrils. It didn’t help that there was no electricity to help ventilate the area.
“Uh, your Ma’s pretty occupied, sweetie,” the man said, with a hint of a New York accent. His cornrow braids went down the back of his head, and the cigarette that sat perched at the corner of his mouth added to his whole appeal. What irritated me most was the fact that he talked to me as if I were twelve.
I narrowed my eyes at him before propping my hand on my hip. “I need to speak to my mum.”
He let out a groan of annoyance right before closing the door. Seconds later, my mum appeared in all her glory. She was wearing a scowl on her face as she looked at me.
My mum began tying the strings of her robe as she narrowed her eyes at me.
“What the hell do you want, Nana?” she asked, closing the door behind her. Based on the slur of her words, I knew she was high. It was almost as if she couldn’t survive a day without a high pushing her to live. I just couldn’t identify what she could’ve gotten high from this time. Was it meth, crack, weed?
“It’s hot. Did you forget to pay the electricity again?” I asked.
“What do you think I’m doing right now? I didn’t have the money, okay? He’s going to pay me for a good time. That way, I can feed you and your sister. Then, I will get our electricity back on once I have the money,” she said, her words coming off almost unrecognizable.
Shaking my head, I grabbed her hand. “You didn’t have the money? I made sure I gave you my whole check. Don’t tell me you spent it all just to get high!” I seethed. “You are a grown woman; you need to get your priorities straight!”
She narrowed her eyes into slits. I could almost smell how angry she had become in just those few seconds. “You’re twenty years old. If you don’t like the way we live, then leave!”
“You know I have to take care of you and Alex. I can’t just leave my little sister. I don’t trust the way you are when you have drugs in your system. She’s only seventeen, and knowing you, you’d sell her just to get high. You used to be a great mother. Now, you deserve to go to hell,” I told her, on the brink of tears.
I knew it was coming as soon as her hand cocked back. My instincts couldn’t help but take over as I shut my eyes to prepare for the collision. Pain quickly danced around my skin from the impact of her swing. My head almost knocked off to the side as I held my hand against my cheek. When I looked back at her, grasping my cheek, my jaw seemed to fall as my vision blurred from needy tears.
“Mum!” Alex shrieked. “Why would you hit her?”
At that moment, my mother’s bedroom door opened. The previously naked man was now completely dressed. He looked at us before beginning to walk toward our front door. I watched as he shook his head in disapproval.
“Dante, where are you going?” my mother called out before walking toward him.
“I came for a quick fuck. I didn’t come to listen to you deal with your crazy family,” he said.
My mother grabbed a hold of his wrist, tears falling from her eyes. “Baby, I’m sorry. They’ll leave us alone. Please, just don’t go. You know how good I made you feel, I could do that again, and whatever else that you want.”
He looked at her, rolling his eyes in complete disgust.
“Get off me,” he demanded, pushing her as hard as he could. My sister and I watched as she fell to the floor with a loud thud. My mother quickly got up and attempted to chase after him, but she was too late. The door had already slammed shut.
“Look at what y’all did! I needed the money. I needed it. Goddammit!” she yelled out.
I looked over at Alex to see that her nose was bleeding. The longer I watched her, the quicker I realized that her eyes were shutting as she stared at Mum. I couldn’t help but also notice how unevenly her body seemed to sway.
“Alex, are you okay?”
I hurriedly walked over to the restroom, grabbing as much toilet paper as I could. Promptly, I held it up to her nose as my heartbeat seemed to race. My brows were furrowed as hope began banging on the door to my heart that Alex would be okay.
“Nana, I don’t feel too good,” she whispered. It wasn’t the first time she had her nose bleeds. She had been having them for the past few weeks. However, I had never seen her so drained before.
I walked her to the bed, and I helped her lay down. My eyes scanned her body and saw many bruises and red spots. She looked terrible, and with my constant working, it made it challenging to notice any of this.
“We need to take her to a hospital, now!” I exclaimed.
“For a nosebleed? Really, Anastasia? It’s probably just the heat,” my mum responded, still leaning against the door.
Shaking my head, I walked back over to my sister, placing my hand on her head. She was burning up with a fever.
“I don’t think so. I remember her telling me that she has been getting infections like crazy. She hasn’t been eating, and look at her arm,” I said before grabbing a hold of it to show her all the bruises were appearing on her skin. “Something is wrong with Alex!”
I watched my mother as she walked over to my sister. She did the same thing I did—checked her temperature by raising her hand to her forehead. “I’ll get dressed, then I’ll start the car, and you have to get her in there. I have things I have to do later, so you’re going to have to take care of her. I’ll figure out how to pay the electricity bill so it can be on by the time you get back.”
Her words were no longer slurred, but I still didn’t know if I could trust her to drive.
“I’m not high, I swear. I was just a little tipsy,” she told me. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice, so I just turned away from her and focused on Alex. Her eyes were closed as she laid on the bed. The warmth wasn’t helping her at all, it only supported the drained look she had.
“Alex, do you think you’re okay to stand up?” I asked her, biting down on my lip. She nodded her head before moving to get back on her two feet. I helped her off the mattress before grabbing her socks and shoes. Placing them on her feet, I let her lean against me as we walked out of our small apartment and down the stairs.
There were a few times when she came close to missing a step, but I was there to make sure she didn’t fall. When we finally made it to the bottom, my mother was in the car, but she seemed distracted, talking on the phone. I didn’t pay her any attention as I opened the back door and carefully laid Alexandria down on it.
My mum abruptly let herself out of the car, slamming the door behind her. There was an apologetic look marring her features.
“Dante is coming back, so I can’t drop you guys off. I’m sorry, baby girl, but I need the money. When you guys come back and Alex is all well, the electricity will be back on. I love you guys, okay? I really do,” she rushed, before throwing the keys toward me and walking back upstairs.
I stared at her disappearing figure with disappointment filling me like it had done so many times before. When it came to my mother, disappointment was her best friend. They walked, ran, and got high together. Disappointment loomed in my soul every time I thought for a second that my mother loved us as much as she said she does. That was what my mother was to me…nothing but a disappointment.
It wasn’t her fault, though, that she chose money over her daughter. I blamed it on the opioids that called out her name when she tried to stop using them. I blamed it on her past that haunts her, leaving it to haunt us. I blamed it on the hereditary darkness.
Aggressively pushing the car door open, I hurried into the driver’s side of the vehicle. My eyes cast back through the rearview mirror to look at Alex. She was lying down, her eyes open with tears falling from them.
“Hey, don’t cry. It’s going to be okay,” I assured, even though I felt like crying myself.
“Mum is not a bad person. I know that she isn’t. If I ever die, I just want to make sure you don’t forget about her. Continue to help her as if I were still alive,” Alex let out as I started the car. My eyes narrowed as I processed her words.
“You are not dying, so don’t say anything like that again. You are going to help me get Mum sober. I know that I can’t do something like that without you, okay?” I reprimanded her. We were already down the road, I was driving at the speed limit—possibly a little faster than legally accepted.
She didn’t respond to my words, so I took it as her agreement. When I looked through the rearview mirror once more, I could still see the tears in her eyes.
“You’re not dying.”