Breaking Ground

Chapter 1

At first I didn't understand. Why it was my Mom that had to die, and my dad that had to be a drunk, and why no one liked me after that. One day everyone was sad for me and then the next they moved on like nothing happened; but not me, I'll never move on.

I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it has been three months already, she died on October 17. It was no surprise though, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer five months before, and she went through so many procedures and surgery's, but one night after the longest surgery the doctor came out to my dad and I. The doctor asked me to leave so he could talk to my Father alone, but I wouldn't budge so finally he gave up and told both of us. I remember the news hitting me like a tidal wave, suffocating me. And I was trying not to cry because my Mom, the one that cared for me all these 16 years, the one that protected me from my Father when he came home late and he smelled like alcohol, the one that just whispered in my year this morning "I will never leave you Savannah, never", was going to die.

Her funeral was the worst, all these people that knew her from work or because they saw her on TV broadcasting the weather, all these people dressed in black, and they thought they knew her but they really didn't. The only people that knew her for who she really was, was me and dad and grandma. This is why I hated that day the most, because I had to watch all these people grieve for her when most of them didn't even know her last name. It was Fortitudine, her last name, our last name, it means 'strength' in Latin. And her first name, Andrea meaning 'daring', and she was daring, standing up to my Father in his drunken state.

Now my Father is never sober. He doesn't care about me any more. He doesn't ask how school was or make me dinner, he never says "good night" or "good morning". But I don't really care, as long as I still have my daddy. Every night I lay awake in bed until I hear the front door open and slam shut, announcing that my father is home. From there I get up and lock my own bedroom door, because who knows what he would do to me when he's not thinking straight.

My friends used to come over and stay with me, a different one each night. But now I don't have any friends to comfort me, and support me. I lost them all after one month without my Mom. They said I wasn't paying enough attention to them, like I was lost in my own world. And I can't say they were wrong, but what kind of friend leaves you in this kind of state when everything you ever needed, was gone. Now I walk the schools halls alone, and sit in class alone, I never have a partner for a project. I'm always alone.