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She hit him.
Techno knew his situation was bad. Knew that his mom was abusive and neglectful, but she had never…
She hadn’t gone that far yet.
So now he’s packing his bags. There’s this guy, Phil, someone Techno had met nearly a year ago that had made Techno promise he would finally leave if it ever came to corporal punishment. Techno didn’t need much convincing.
Now, Techno knows his mom is a bad, evil person, but he also knows better than to trust a grown man that’s trying to convince him to run away from his one piece of stable shelter, no matter how kind he may be. So, his plan of action differs from the plan Phil suggested and knows about.
There will be no 618 North Spencer drive at seven o’clock when Phil is sure to be home except for in emergencies but I’ll always try my best to be there, mate. There will be none of the best lawyers that Phil knows. And there will certainly be no fighting for foster care and possibly adoption if that’s what Techno wants.
It’s not what he wants. The last thing he wants is to be adopted by some weird man that had randomly approached him on the street.
(He was limping, angrily crying from the pain of a twisted ankle caused by his most recent fight, and Techno was too tired and delirious to say no to getting in his car. The fact that he got home in one piece was enough to earn a shred of trust from the boy’s cold heart.
But it’s still not enough trust for Techno to go running to him. Whatever Phil’s been doing has a high chance of being a long-con, and Techno won’t be falling for it.)
He grabs as many pairs of clothing as he can fit into his backpack after dumping out all of his schoolwork and supplies to make room for his new lifestyle. He keeps the bandages in their spot in his front pocket but makes sure to stuff some more in so that the zipper barely closes, no longer worried about his hoard of medical supplies being noticed. His wallet is put in his pocket and—
He pauses for a minute in the tearing-apart of his room to press the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, hoping that blocking the tears from escaping his eyes will stop them from tearing up at all. Or better yet, block the pain in his heart from leaking into his consciousness.
He doesn’t… He doesn’t want to go. Sure, he wants to leave his mom behind, he has for months ever since Phil showed him that he deserves something different, but that still means that he has to be the one to go, not his mom. His mom will get to stay in this apartment with decent air conditioning and heating, have a fridge and bedroom despite how often she sleeps on the couch from drinking too much.
Techno will be the one suffering for her actions, be the one doing all of the work like he has for years.
He sucks in a breath and it comes out as a shuddering rasp. It’s not fair.
There really is no time limit, so Techno lets himself sink against the walls and curl his knees into his chest. He has plenty of time until he’s supposed to be back from school tomorrow, so Mom won’t notice he’s gone until then, giving Techno plenty of time, nearly eighteen hours, to break down. And even then, he could just wait until after she’s done scolding him after dinner tomorrow and get another twenty hours.
No, he has to go before then. He promised Phil. Even if he plans on never seeing the man again, he should keep that promise as thanks for caring about Techno all this time despite it most likely being fake.
Stupid old man.
He gives himself an hour. He needs to be able to find shelter before he’s too tired and has to sleep. No way he’s running away in broad daylight.
He breaks down in ways he didn’t know were possible. He’s been broken in a way he didn’t think he ever could be. He forced himself to be strong just to avoid this heartache, yet it still hurts.
Techno feels lost, but that won’t stop him from marching further into the darkness. If anything, it fills him with the spite needed to walk faster.
He weeps, and when he hears his mom leave the house he sobs. Pulls his hair and scratches at his wrists because physical pain is better than anything his heart is feeling right now. He’s never been an emotional guy, but.
“Useless! Worthless! You were supposed to be a good kid! If you keep a good record you can earn enough money to get me out of here! And now I hear that you’re starting fights!?”
Once his hour is up, he begins a search of his room for materials once more, thankfully more calm about it now that he’s emotionally exhausted. He picks up anything that could be valuable to pawn off for some cash. He has very little jewelry, but he grabs all of his bracelets and earrings and puts them in a plastic bag, not caring that they might get tangled. He opens all of his drawers and digs through them, seeing if he misplaced any jewelry before or if there’s anything else that a pawn shop might take.
At the bottom of his last drawer, he finds a knife. He had bought it a few years ago after multiple attempts until he got a cashier that didn’t care enough that a child was trying to buy the five-inch blade. The hunting knife isn’t the best quality, but it isn’t a super cheap one either, he had done his research and got the best thing he could for the money he had scrounged up from working odd jobs and whatever he could convince his mother to give him. It totaled up to be a lot for a kid his age, and he couldn’t stop grinning when he finally had the knife for himself. He had worked hard and actually gotten something out of it for a change.
The knife was a happy beginning, but little specks of dried blood still refuse to leave some of its crevices.
He hasn’t touched it in months. He chucked it in this drawer and tried his best to forget about it. Apparently, it had worked.
He picks it up and shoves it into his bag. He won’t pawn it off, it’s too valuable as a weapon for that.
His bag is getting full and—he lifts it—heavy. Techno grimaces at the weight, but he can’t lighten what he has for fear of being too low on supplies. He’s already low on supplies. He barely has any hygiene products, and his first-aid stash won’t last forever.
With one last deep breath, he swings the backpack on and leaves his room.
The living room is dark and quiet, the smell of alcohol lingers in the air but not as strongly as most nights. Mom went out to drink instead of staying in.
He makes his way to his mom’s room and opens the door carefully. He steps in and makes his way to her dresser and takes the light jewelry box from the top of it. Whatever meager necklaces that hang on the wall follow, and he notices that her silver chain with a single faux pearl is missing, so that’s what she’s wearing right now. Her pearl earrings are also gone. Good, she didn’t take the ones that would make more money.
Her wallet is nowhere to be found, so that puts a little wrench in his plans, but he still has his own money and her credit card number memorized. Years of making him buy stuff for her finally coming around to bite.
He leaves her room, not bothering to close the door, and enters the kitchen. He stuffs as many snacks as he can in his hoodie pocket without it being unruly, and his cargo pants are filled with granola bars and trail mix. There isn’t much food in their pantry to begin with, so Techno is left with space in his pockets, but they don’t have any more packaged food so he leaves it be.
A package on the bottom shelf catches his eye, and Techno looks at the box of his mom’s favorite treat. She loves those chocolates so much that she’ll always find a way to have them in stock, and Techno knows to bring her a few when her drunkenness has brought her to a place in the past with bad memories.
He picks up the box and leaves it on the counter for her to have easy access to it when she comes stumbling in the front door in the morning.
‘Soft’
Techno freezes at the whisper. His shoulders go rigid and his eyes wide, looking around the room. All he hears is a giggling that has grown more and more common over the years.
‘You’re going soft,’ it, or they, giggles again, and Techno turns his head back to the box of chocolates. It’s just the voices, no one is here.
“Go away.” He speaks, his voice uneven from his breakdown minutes before.
Nothing changes and Techno takes a deep breath before putting the interaction out of his mind. It’s time.
The chilled air brushes over Techno as he opens the front door. Thankfully, the weather is warming up, so Techno won’t have to worry about the cold for long.
He stands there, looking at his shadow that falls over the stairs of his apartment building. Hesitating for the first time that night.
It was only one slap. Surely she didn’t mean it like that. It was just one slap, so does he really need to leave? She’s never done it before, so it has to just be a one time thing. Should one moment in time really dictate that he has to go into the streets? Become homeless?
Deep in his gut, Techno knows that calling it “just one slap” isn’t putting the whole thing into perspective. Kids at school talk and joke about their parents hitting them all the time, he’s never been sure that they’re all telling the truth, but he’s sure that some of them are hit. TV shows show parents slapping their kids, and they still turn out fine. They’re still a loving family even if one of them gets angry and resorts to violence for a moment.
But the difference is that the parents look horrified or at least sad at what they’ve done, or they come back later and apologize. Even if they don’t do that, the parents are loving the rest of the time.
Mom is never loving. Never apologizes. She didn’t look regretful when Techno stared up at her with tears in his eyes while holding a hand to the mark that will surely bruise. They aren’t a loving family, hardly even family to begin with.
The slap had more meaning behind it than words could ever describe. It said that Techno wasn’t precious to Mom like she used to say when he was little. It stated that she didn’t see him as her own anymore. He was just a misbehaving tool that she needed to work right. If a computer won’t turn on, try hitting it a few times. She put hatred and disgust behind the blow, not simple anger and frustration.
And so, with whispers in his ears and memories of a warm smile telling him he’s worth more than what his mother gives him, Techno leaves his home.
No, it was never a home. It’s an apartment made of graying wood and harsh bricks filled with harsh words and burdened souls.
Techno grabs onto that spark of anger ignited in him and fans it, filling himself with anger hot enough to fend off the cold and fear. He doesn’t look back at the place he was raised in.
Good Riddance.