K. Randis - Spilled Milk

“All right.” He grabbed my hand and pushed me through the crowd. We didn’t stop until we got to his truck and he let me inside and locked the doors.

My heart was thrashing against my chest. “I’m sorry Judd. I’m sorry.” I put my hand up to my mouth and tears formed around my eyes. It seemed like I was always on the verge of a breakdown.

“Hey no, no, it’s okay. We can go to my house.” He grabbed the back of my jeans by the belt and pulled me over to him. I put my head on his shoulder and let the motion of his truck rock me to sleep as we drove into the countryside.

The nightmares started almost immediately after Earl was gone. Several of them would wake me from my sleep screaming, and with others I would wake up sobbing uncontrollably. Sometimes I could remember them, other times I pushed them from my mind and took a steaming shower at three in the morning to relax. The body twitches were the worst. My arms and legs would fight to keep me awake to avoid the nightmares. My limbs would spastically jolt before I would become so exhausted sleep would find me.

Midge told me she was sorry my Mom couldn’t understand the trauma I was revisiting every time I stepped into the house. “She changed those sheets… and expect you to sleep soundly like nothing happened?”

The chair I chose most often was seated right next to Midge now, and I shook my head confirming her statement.

“I’m sorry child. You found something that triggers you, and unfortunately you can’t help with other people do. No ma’m. The only thing you can change is yo’self.”

“The only way I’d feel safe is if I wasn’t there. But I’m only sixteen. I mean I work, but I don’t know what I would do, where I would go.”

“Do you have a friend you can stay with? Family maybe?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know anyone’s parents that would let me stay long term like that. Gina would, but Paul and I weren’t even on speaking terms, never mind attempting to become roommates.

Midge got up from her leather chair and headed to a small bookcase adjacent to her desk. “I want to give you some information. I know you like readin’ so you go ahead and read it.” She placed a white packet in my hand. “It’s about emancipation. You know what that is?”

Midge has taught me so many things about myself and other people over the past year. I didn’t know how I could ever repay her. She told me the day I walked into her office and told her I had finally told a family member about the abuse was payment enough. “I thought you was going to take that one to the grave, I did.”

“Emancipation of a minor is when you become your own parent. Your mom won’t be responsible for you no more, but you would need to prove you can support yourself, have a place to stay and take care of things like your school.”

“All right, so why don’t I just do that?”

“It’s a long process sometimes. You have to file a petition with the family court, and your mom might try’n fight it. The judge does whatever’s in the best interest of the child. It’s not easy to get, sometimes when a child’s been abused it makes it easier, but not always. Depends on your judge an’ what they think.”

“I can’t stay there anymore, Midge. You know I walked into the bathroom the other day and saw the toothpaste sitting on the counter…” My gaze trailed off somewhere behind Midge as I remembered the panic attack that ensued. “I thought I was going to die. My heart nearly came through my chest. Just from looking at a bottle of toothpaste. Why?”

“Child, listen to me.” Midge clasped her hands over mine. “This is a long road you’re headed down. You did a mighty brave thing for you and your siblings. Mighty brave. But now you need to focus on you. You gonna find out what triggers you, what upsets you, and it’s gonna bring back memories. Sometimes good, but mostly bad. Ain’t nothing you can do about that. What you can do, is figure out why it’s happenin’ and make sure you have those coping skills to beat it. You hear me? Now, don’t focus on the fact the toothpaste made you have the anxiety, think deeper. ” She pointed to my heart. “Why you think that made you upset as it did?”

The toothpaste was always in the bathroom. It’s never changed. It was an upright white canister that dispensed two different kinds of toothpaste. It never changed.

“It never changed.” I looked up at Midge, smiling. “The toothpaste never changed. Earl always bought the same kind. When I saw it, it made me think of him.”

Midge nodded and winked at me. “There ya go, you found your trigger. Now you jus’ gotta work on coping with it.”

I read over the packet several times in the next few days. Ethan lay on my bed pulling at my hair with a toy brush as I highlighted some important parts. He was two already. The thought of leaving him was my biggest hurdle but Midge was right. I had to start focusing on myself and my healing if I was ever going to be any kind of functional adult.

The suitcase I dragged from the basement smelled musty. Mom followed me up the stairs half panicking and half in tears. “Brooke you can’t just leave. We changed that whole room around for you, your Aunt spent a lot of money. What would she think?”

“I’m sorry Mom, it’s not enough.” If I was going to leave, I would have to do it fast and with minimal talking to avoid conflict.

“You’re only sixteen! Where are you going to live, huh?” She watched me put a pair of jeans into the suitcase. “I’ll just call the police. I’ll tell them you ran away and they’ll bring you back to me.”

The packet Midge gave me was in Mom’s hands. I had anticipated a remark like that from her so I regurgitated what I practiced in my head. “You can’t, Mom. I’m emancipated. Since I was abused the court considers me emancipated, which means I am my own dependant now. I have a job, and a car, and a place to go. I don’t need your permission. Call Heather if you want, she’ll tell you.”

It was a risky lie. The packet showed that emancipation procedures could take months or years to decide upon. I didn’t have that kind of time.

The nightmares were increasingly vivid and the tension between Mom and I walked a fine line between uncomfortable and hostile. She felt I owed her something for taking the bread winner out of the house, and I felt she had no right to blame me for the financial mess she found herself in since I told. She could no longer afford the house with her social security disability checks and she refused to downgrade in a house.

She stared at the white packet in her hands and shook it at me. “How could you do this to me? You’re just going to leave, run away from your problems? How will that solve anything? What about us?”

My mom and siblings refused to go to the Women in Crisis center I told them about. Mom was shocked to find I had been going there for over a year. I never told her Gina brought me. The services were free, and the healing couldn’t just be on my end. Everyone was going to be dealing with a lot of anguish. It was unfair for Mom to ask me to support her and my siblings when I needed time to heal myself.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” I reached over and kissed her cheek. “I need to do this for me.”

After long weeks of sleepless nights, I decided that sleeping in my car would be more favorable than having to live in a house I could only see myself being tortured in.

A local gym hired me to work a few hours a week which gave me a place to spend time and shower when I needed to. I had plenty of friends I could bounce around between when the temperatures would dip too low for me to sleep in my car and since I got free breakfast and lunch through school I only had to worry about dinner. Most of the time I was working at the telemarketing job anyway and would get a hoagie or stromboli from the pizza shop next door. I felt guilty and gave Mom almost all of my paycheck each week, but I needed to save for my own place too.