I don’t remember what all was said that night, but what I do haunts me. He stared at me in a way that he never had before, a way that he saved for his worst enemies. I remember, right before I went to bed that night - I was exhausted from crying all five hours that it took to get home - that maybe tomorrow would be better.

You see, we fought all five hours, he was a druggie, it hurt me to see him like this, it hurt me that he though that I was stupid enough to believe his lies. Lies that he wasn’t messed up. I could latterly see this factor in his eyes. The trip was only supposed to take three hours, he kept getting lost.

My one month old little sister was in the car with us, along with his fiancé. She was angry that he was lying also. We stop for the third time in the first forty minutes at this Gas station in the middle of no where. He was gone for fifteen minutes, finally I ask his fiancé if he’s been doing drugs again, she wouldn’t talk about him, didn’t want to talk trash about someone in front of their kid. I understood this, it was reasonable. Instead she told me about herself, she’d done some drugs in the past month, she wasn’t proud of it, but it was the truth. I was more thankful than she will ever know for telling me the truth.

She told me about how his friends weren’t good for her to be around, weren’t good for him to be around, she just wanted him gone. Oh, of course this happens all the time though, she kicks him out for a day or less, he rethinks things and doesn’t continue to do drugs for awhile.

When he comes back, a half an hour in total time it took him, she tells him she wants him out of the house, he can have their child every other week once he gets a safe place to stay. I can’t remember everything after this. A lot of screaming. We’re all screaming at each other. I call him the mean version of a butthead, the first time I’d ever cursed at either of my parents, any of my family, I didn’t out of respect. I tell him I don’t want him in my life anymore, he’d caused my nothing but pain. He responds with telling me that I don’t realize everything he’s done for me.
“YOU’RE NEVER AROUND, YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING FOR ME.”

I remember his fiancé screaming,
“Why are you doing this to me, why are you putting me through this.?!”

He tells me, at one point in time, that this is reality [By this he means drugs], in response of me saying that he needed to wake up an face reality, get his head out of the damn clouds. But I don’t believe that drugs are a part of reality, I believe that drugs are a substance people use that can’t handle reality.

I tell his fiancé to take me to my Great Grandfather’s house, were most of my family in this tiny town stay at a majority of the time, even if their own house is only a five minute walk away. Even though I live three hours away from this small town, I think of it as my home, home is where the heart is. He won’t give his fiancé the keys so she can drive their infant home, I tell him to give them to her, that his child is hungry and wants to sleep in an actual bed. He tells me,
“You don’t know ****ing anything Mackenzie [He says my name in an angry way, a way he never has before], go watch your cartoons.”

I walk away angrily, I walked to my cousin’s house. She isn’t there and her Father doesn’t ask me why I’m crying as he tells me that they’re at my aunts house. I walk there, a three minute walk, to find two of my cousins, my aunt and her son is there too.

Another one of my aunts is staying at our Great Grandfather’s house, he’s way on a fishing trip, and she doesn’t like my cousins. My cousin’s Father won’t let us stay at his home, he never said why. They get into a big argument and now we have no where to stay. In her rage, she tells me she hopes both of our fathers would both drop dead, I silently agree. Finally we just go up to our Great Grandfather’s house and crash in the guest bedroom, despite our aunt’s protests.

I wake up to the sound of my cousin’s mother in hysterics, my other aunt blandly tells me that my fathers dead. Of course today won’t be a better day I realize, today’s the thirteenth, Friday the thirteenth.

It’s been a month now, and the image of him in his casket pops up into my head at random times. It haunts me.

Make sure you think about what you say before you stomp away in anger, it could be the last thing you tell someone.