Concerns
After witnessing my friend Ashley in utter despair over Jason's attempts to hook up with every female in the coven group . I start to drift my thoughts on Micheal. How he ignored my calls . How his friend asked me not to call again. How he had been absent from the past few games knowing my season would end. The need for his kindness started making me realized the lack of love that I had experienced in my life and how I was starving from it now that I had a taste of it. It made me feel sick to my stomach like when I went to church with all the normal families as my mother was trying to restrict religion in my life to distract me from her having to actually pay attention to me. I felt myself sinking under as the color in my life began to fade and the sounds of life's rythmic beat began to fall on deaf ears. I was just here with no purpose other than to be broken . Joey came around the corner as I felt like I had been a terrible friend to him as he didn't know my words over a clear summer romance. I went to work and I came home and there was nothing. No sleep. No appetite. No need to be anywhere but inside my own head. I started to believe my magick was a curse doomed to leave me alone to a path only I was destined for. I can walk away there still is time . A choice to be less than I am. I don't need to be here . I don't need to do anything. This was my numb demeanor as I walked through the hallways sophomore year keeping routines. Looking normal. Looking fine. But I was hurting. Not as a broken heart heart but physically and mentally hurting. I reached in my back shaking over the counter pill bottles as I start to fish out a dose of midol and aleve . Screw the crushing I swallow it as I wait for the numbing to start. I wait for the need to be happy . To be okay. To be fine. " How many of those did you just take?" Said Joey as he grabbed my bad as he pulled out pill bottle after pill bottle of various pain killers and mental medicines. " Enough to stop the pain." I said feeling the effects of the pills from my morning dose to take effect. Knowing I had some I B profin and midol waiting for me at lunch and Tylenol and aleve for after school. " Mel. Even over the counter pills is too much to take ." He said but his voice was drowned out by the feeling of serenity and relaxation as I closed my eyes relaxed . As he shook me to get my attention. Joey grew up with his mother's extreams with her prescription medication and her pain pills he recognized what was going on . " I'm fine I know what I'm doing. I need them to stay focused. Don't worry about me ." I said as I didn't know if I was saying those words to him or to myself to self comfort the numbness I craved . Alot had happened in the span of months. Matt, Micheal, my mother's broken promises as she would make any excuse to make my problems someone else's problem . It was all on me. The responsibility of raising my mother . I was a child that never was allowed to be a child. I was a mother that never bore a child. And I was convinced no one could ever love someone so broken and a walking wreck that was my life. Joey walked me to the corridor and handed me a bottle of water after class as he knew he couldn't talk to me while I was like this . Melina drank the water with reluctance as she knew water made the medicine wash out faster as he stood there and made her drink the water. Melina was also upset Ashley took Jason back after he tried to cheat on her with Melina. She was so tired of the injustice. Tiff ran up out of nowhere as she looked panicked . " Hey Mickey. I need to tell you something." She said urgently. " Okay ." Melina said as she finished the water handing the empty bottle back to Joey now feeling less high and more aware . " So I went to the fair. The one you couldn't go to because you had to work." Reminded tiff of their cancelled plans they made . " Yeah. And." Melina said as she could feel the dread building up to bad news. " It's Micheal. I saw him there with another girl that played softball. They were like together together. Apparently it was his things dating girls from different teams and different cities. This one was blonde off of the moody team." Said tiff as melina's heart fell and broke. Then it all made sense the two weeks dating thing. He had a girlfriend. " Don't worry . I told that girl you were his girlfriend all summer long." Said tiff as a matter of a fact. " Wait who the hell is Michael?" Interject Joey as I just realized he was still standing next to me. " An softball umpire that cheated on Melina. Girl we have to do something." She urged as Melina just stopped caring as she felt something shutting down in her. " No. He never called me his girlfriend. I was just his friend well that how he said it when we went to church together." Melina said it before she realized as the words hit her harder than she realized. " Thanks ,tiff for letting me know. I need to go ." Melina said as she walked away to go find a quiet place to think . Now she was sober and in pain she felt like she needed to escape. She needed to get away from everything. She picked up her phone and called her aunt her mother's sister . " Hello." Said her auntie. " Tita Can I come and live with you. I can't stay down here anymore with mom." Melina said as she knew if she stayed she would break apart. " What does your mom say?" Said her aunt concerned. " She doesn't know please can you come and get me . I don't want to be here anymore." Begged Melina. Melina's tita her auntie lived in Hawaii and melina felt she needed a new venue to forget her life . She needed to escape. She need to be away from her family and all her problems.
Melina's aunt sat on the phone deciding how to handle her niece's request. In the past her eldest sister Lara told them If she couldn't have her daughter's no one could when she had offered to take the girls to prevent them from being in the system at all. " You know I need to talk to you mom about this. I can't just take you over oceans on a whim." Melina heard her aunt say as she felt the overwhelming anxiety building in her knowing she would serve some punishment if her mom found out about this phone call. " No you don't. You don't know how she is . She is terrible . She keeps me locked up and follows me all over dates. She let Paula and Mia run wild but I can't even leave the neighbors unless she is with me. I'm trapt . I can't take it anymore." Pleaded Melina as she wasn't lying but she made it sound more desperate than needed. " I still need to talk to her. You are still her child." He aunt said . Melina sighed and hung up the phone aggervated. That evening Melina came home as she could tell by her mother's face her auntie had already spoken to her. Melina slinked in knowing it was way worse hearing it from another source then from her. But Melina didn't trust her mother to understand. She was not the most reliable parent . She glared at me as he and her auntie was on the phone as she grabbed Melina by the ear and threw her in the room and shut the door. Melina heard the door lock as she knew that meant stay there. Melina was in trouble now it was a waiting game to see what happened to her . Hours later she shoved the home phone in melina's hand . Melina lifted it to her head to listen. " Yes." Melina said as her mother watched her call . " Look I can't take you from your mother over some boy . You running away from boys don't make the problem go away. Your just sixteen. You will have other boyfriends. " Said her aunt as Melina rolled her eyes knowing her mom would use that as an excuse for Melina fleeing and not her neglect. And her bad driving instructions. Or her constant guilt trip over her paycheck helping her pay bills. " Your mom will let you have a little more freedom now we have spoken . And I suggested her to bring you to church if you need to speak to someone not your mother." Said her aunt as she didn't like the idea of going to church to talk to a priest . Melina had no idea the cruelty of her mother's use of religion to scare Melina back into submission. Melina watched her mom as she wasn't even allowed to have a private conversation with her aunt as she had her mom watching her. The next day melina's mom took her to the church as she hadn't taken any sacraments except baptism . Her mother was now convinced more than ever she needed to be a full Catholic as the rightful age to be an adult in a Catholic church was thirteen and she was now sixteen . At this point she was pulling at straws to remain control over Melina . She tried to convince Melina to take all the sacraments in a classroom full of children who was six years old . When Melina refused to do this her mother spoke to the father about the introduction of nunhood to control her hormonal teenager. The priest saw it for what it was and said she wasnt able to be inducted with no training and since Melina refused her mother's attempt to be a better Catholic she was going to try to induct Melina into being a nun. Melina saw her freedom that was promised transition into another cell. Her mother couldn't just let Melina have her freedom without consequences and she saw the oppression clear as a Catholic day. This was not what her aunt told her mom to do. But this was what my mother's twisted mind made it into. She would rather me be locked in a convent then dating and have to deal with me. " No! I refuse to be recognized as a Catholic. I refuse to be humiliated with children in a sacrament class because you gave me away when you chose my father over me. I refuse to go from one cell to another." I protested as it echoed in the father's office of her scheming as her last chance to make me subservient. The father mouth made a thin line . " There you have it. We only accept willing sisters as it takes dedication to be faithful. Perhaps in two more years she may change her mind but right now she isn't willing to do the prep work." He said as my mother gave me the most awful look like I had betrayed her and spoke blastomous words against her and her faith. In truth my mother hadn't been to church in years and the need for her to control me with the fear of denying my freedom was absurd. " I am your mother . You need to honor me." She stated as she tried to used a commandment of honor thy mother and father against Melina. " I must first have a mother to honor." Said Melina as the father knew the family dilemma as he was the one to grant the divorce from my biological father when the crime fit the separation for a disposition. Catholics once married in the church could not divorce. Myother married my father in a civil ceremony and was nearly excommunicated for the seperation if the crime was not so hanus to fit the reasoning for the divorce. Now she was trying once again force her part time faith to control the narrative for a daughter who wanted to leave her mother for not understanding her. Melina left there that day knowing that the events that transpired was a base for the disconnection her mother would cause later on over her controlling mannerisms. Melina went home in silence as she felt her mother was always trying to get rid of her so she wouldn't have to deal with her .