"If you love me, don't let go."

••

"Mama, please!" Small hands hovered above my head in a bid to shield myself from the raw wire, the skin on my knuckles tearing painfully at each strike that met them. Blood spotted my skin, oozing from my now exposed dermis.

"Remove your hands, Blaze Xander!" The woman, who was supposed to be my mother, ordered while not ceasing her merciless beatings on a skinny eight-year-old.

She grabbed my hands to pull them apart, and I cried at the top of my lungs, desperately crawling away from her on my stomach while my body scraped against the hard ground.

Two cold hands clutched my arms painfully from behind, sharp nails delving into my skin. I felt like the soft bones of my biceps were crackling under her grasp. She pulled me up to sit while I cried and covered my head with my hands, pressing my face between my battered knees. She hissed at my reluctance and walked away to a cabinet in the kitchen.

"You like stealing, huh? Just because your father is away on business, you think that you can be the man of the house. Well, I will show you!"

I wasn't sure what she was looking for, but foolish of me to have thought love could conquer all. I got up on shaky, bony feet and ran over to her, wrapping my red bruised arms around her slender waists and laying my head against her back.

"Sorry, Mama. I love you; I love you and I won't steal food anymore. I was just hungry, please...please don't hit me."

She stilled for a moment, and I thought my apology was getting around to her, but she just unwrapped my fragile hands and grabbed a fork from the wooden cabinet. She flipped the stove on and put the iron utensil onto the burning heat.

I took a step back with wide eyes, and she noticed that I was about to run away, so she grabbed me by my collar and pulled me forward.

"Mama!"

"Do not fucking call me that, you little menace! I am not your mother! You're just like your father! You're going to grow up to give women havoc just like him! What have I ever done to him? For him to have an affair like I am nothing!"

"Mama—!"

"If you call me that again boy, I will kill you." Her eyes were wide open, and they appeared red and veiny. "I am not your fucking mother, you piece of shit!"

She grabbed the fork from the stove and pushed it toward my face, but I steer my head away, the heat scorching as it passed by my nose.

I shake uncontrollably, ogling the hot iron cross-eyed as one of my hand clutched onto her wrist. "No, please... please." I whimpered.

"Hold your face! When you get older, you will use this face of yours to break hearts, just like what your damn father is doing! What makes that policewoman better than me?! Huh?! Tell me!"

I was crying frantically, trying to wiggle myself away from her, and I had no idea what on earth she was talking about.

She lifted my T-shirt and despite my wrestles, she pressed the hot fork into the side of my chest. The heat burned into my skin, and I felt the pain in every inch of my body.

I cried out, and with the little strength that I had, managed to push her hand away. The fork went flying across the room, and I took the opportunity to sprint all the way down to the basement of the house.

I closed the door, breathing heavily, as I wrap my gaunt arms around myself. The tight creases under the wooden door gave only a small piece of light, and I could see her feet as she walked toward it through the dust that gathered near the narrow light ray.

I heard a small cry, and her voice followed. "I am sorry... I am so sorry, Blaze. Oh my God... please come out; I didn't mean to."

Tears slipped from my swollen eyes of having already cried too much, and I muffled my sobs in my lap.

My mother was crazy. Maybe that was the correct term to use. She had Psychosis, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, and Anxiety Disorder. Sometimes her personality would drastically change, and she would aim her resentment toward my father at me.

My dad was always having an affair, but I can't remember if it was before or after my mom got sick. Regardless, the fact that he kept being unfaithful was enough to worsen her condition every day.

When she wasn't having one of her Psychosis episodes, she was still not the best parent. She was always taking drugs, drinking, and she was distant and aloof. Sometimes she wouldn't feed me, and I would have had to eat stale food resulting in a severe stomachache. Then she wouldn't care and ignore my sick state completely. If my neighbor or my dad did not come in time, I would have been a dead child.

My father knew she was physically abusive toward me, and they would quarrel every day and night, but he didn't report the matter because despite his affair and despite how messed up she was, he still loved his wife and her mental condition was the excuse he used whenever she would hurt me.

He probably loved her more than he loved me. And still does.

Sometimes she left me with her friend, a twenty-eight-year-old woman at the time who molested me when I was eight while she was 'giving me a shower.' I told my mother, and she only yelled at me, her words being:

"You're a man, and a woman attempts to touch you and you have a problem with that? Get used to it! Because you will grow up to cheat and abuse them just like your good-for-nothing father!"

Her beatings would range from hitting me in the head with glassware until I bled, beating me with poles and steels or anything in her reach.

Sometimes she cried and apologized, and sometimes she did not.

She was a messed-up woman who used me as her punching bag whenever my father wasn't around.

By the time Blaze is finished telling me the gruesome tale, my eyes are pooled with water. I had no idea he had to undergo all of that, yet I was so quick to walk out on him. I grew up sheltered, therefore I can never imagine how devastating it all must have been for him. It breaks my heart.

I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. "So...what happened, why did she kill herself?"

Blaze leans back on his palms with a sigh. His eyes are dry throughout the whole story, and I honestly wonder how he can speak about all of this without shedding a single tear.

"I came home one day," he begins. "From school..."

"Liz!" I entered my house and took my worn-down shoes off. It had been old for quite a while, but no one—not one of my parents seemed to have noticed.

They were either too busy with work or too mentally ill to realize.

I knew calling her "Mama" would earn me a fine ass beating, so I settled with her first name to avoid triggering another violent reaction.

The house was quiet as if no one were home, and I looked around in wonderment as I dropped my knapsack onto the couch. A pot was open on the stove, and the kitchen looked deplorable. Liz had been laid off from work when they discovered she was sick. She was a nurse at the local clinic, but they knew something was wrong with her when she started flipping at the patients and crying for absolutely nothing. My dad began working overtime and extra since he was now the sole breadwinner.

That made him have no time for me, and eventually, I had to learn how to cook and do a lot of things for myself. Despite being a boy, I wanted to feel the love of my parents, but it was never there. I had no friends because whenever I met someone and they found out my mother smoked crack and was not the sanest of persons, they began to avoid me.

I heard soft sobs coming from her room, and I slowly walked toward the door. It was cracked open, and I realized she was sitting on her bed in a white cotton nightdress despite it being four in the evening. I widened the door so that I could have a better view and saw that she was holding a metal object to her head.

A gun.

"L-Liz?" My voice was a little above a whisper, but something was wrong with me because the sight didn't scare me or surprise me at all. I just stood there, staring at her.

She was weeping as she wiped her nose, and her red bloodshot eyes looked up and met mine.

She gave a weak, uneven smile, and it was so close to creepy.

"Goodbye, Blaze."

BOOM!

She pressed the trigger, and my body jerked at the loud sound, my ears ringing from the harsh impact. Her blood splashed onto my frozen face, and I closed my burning eyes from the thick red fluid. I reopen them, and I knew something was not right with my emotions then because seeing her still body, open eyes, and lifeless form on the bloody white sheets did not hurt me. I could not feel anything at all.

I should have cried, but I didn't.

I should have been surprised, but I wasn't.

And the only thing I could think of was: 'Good Riddance.'

It was strange because despite how she treated me, I loved my mother regardless. I was a fool for her. When she cried, I cried. But now her dead body could not evoke any sorrowful or distraught emotions from me.

I took a step back and closed her room door. I didn't call anyone; neither did I seem to care.

I walked to the kitchen, made myself some cereal, sat in front of my Television, and watched cartoons until night came.

My father came home at dusk, and when he discovered me sitting down on the settee, he smiled while hanging his coat on the rack.

"You're watching TV, huh? You'd usually be locked away in your room."

I didn't bother to look at him. On other days, I would have chased over to him and hugged him with a huge grin plastered on my face because his being home meant my mother wouldn't hit me anymore.

The blue lights from the TV made the dried blood stains on my face visible to him.

He strode over to me, his features contorting in confusion as he observed me. "Blaze. Are you okay...?" He squinted his eyes to examine the red fluid coating my skin. "Is that blood on your face?"

I shrugged but didn't say anything. I just kept my eyes on the Television, my orbs following the action of the animated characters on the screen.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Where's your mother?"

I blindly pointed to their room, and he looked at me suspiciously, my mute behavior scaring him as he walked over to the door. "Liz?" He pushed it open.

And then his cries came.

"Oh My God!! Fuck! Liz... Blaze!! Blaze, what happened?! Blaze... Oh, God Liz! Why did you do this, Liz!!!!!"

He was crying so loud, and the only concern I had at the moment was the fact that his weeping was causing me not to hear the TV, so without a care in the world, I reached for the remote and turned the volume up.

"After a while, my dad discovered that something was wrong with me, so he took me to see a psychiatrist."

I stare at him. "What did they say?"

He sighs then brings his gaze to me. I search his blue eyes, and I see a small glint of hesitancy in them. He's scared to tell me.

"I won't judge you," I reassure him. "I promise I won't run away."

His lips turn up in a smile, and he brings his face closer to mine. I gulp at the proximity as he peers deeply into my eyes.

"But have you forgotten, green eyes? I did say you can never leave my side after I tell you that, didn't I?"

I swallow. Our faces being this close causes me to flush uncontrollably, but I need to keep focus, now's not the time for blushes.

"Exactly. I can't leave even if I wanted to." I conclude.

He moves away, but his eyes are still on mine.

"You remember I asked you if you'd run away if I were a sociopath?"

"Yeah...I do." I watch him carefully.

"Well...I am. I have Sociopathy: ASPD and mild bipolar disorder." His lips twitch in a faint, mirthless smile. "Will you run away now?"