My father left me when I was born, and even though my mom never did, it always felt like it. Because of my lack of communication and social interactions while growing up, I became a sort of wallflower at school. Even at home, taking into account that my mother never paid attention to me; she limited herself to giving me food and the basic necessities.
It took me two years to understand that my mother was an addict. The reason? Me. She got pregnant at a very young age and thanks to the fact that abortion was penalized in my country, she didn’t have a lot of options but to give birth.
Things changed when I turned eleven.
“I brought my ball, let’s go outside and play”, said one of my classmates and everyone ran out of the room, bumping into my shoulders and swearing in my direction telling me to move out of their way. Once I came out too, I started walking in the other direction. I always liked to walk around the school, there was nothing more interesting to do while break time was over.
My stomach shrank and growled. I was used to eating once a day so I had to wait to get home; mother never really cared about giving me food for school, nor did we have enough money for me to buy something in the cafeteria. Whilst lost in my thoughts, I reached the end of the hall. In my intentions to go back, I saw through a door’s little window a table full of attractive plates with what I believed was food. After checking there was no one, I went inside.
I was way too hungry to even think if this could be someone else’s property. I didn’t even know what I was putting inside my mouth, the only thing that was going through my head was how exquisite it was.
With my full stomach and contented heart, I got back to class. As if it was a miracle, my mother never got home that afternoon, so it meant no food for me. Well, at least at home. She probably was at some bar drinking until passing out drunk or buying that weird guy those weird pills.
The next day, I took the same route to get to the lonely classroom. To my surprise, there was even more food than yesterday. With an enormous smile and pure happiness and satisfaction, I sat and ate the whole table.
One week turned into one month.
My mom never came back, apparently she had followed her ex boyfriend’s steps of leaving me hanging and raising myself on my own. That’s what I did my entire life, I could live without them! I had my daily meal at school and had nothing to worry about.
But, I started noticing that everyday that passed, the teachers had a worried expression on their faces and my classroom was less and less full of people. Where were all of my schoolmates? Had they gone sick? I heard there was a new virus flying around, I really hope it doesn’t get me.
The bell rang and I ran out of the room, rushing into my new secret spot. The food was there as always and my eyes lightened. I started eating from the first corner and when I got to the middle plate, I felt something cracking in my mouth. I spit it out and noticed it was a tooth.
What the…?
With my tongue I counted every tooth of mine, but they all seemed to be in their place, except for the ones that still had to grow. My stomach felt sick and I gagged, throwing up what I had just eaten. There was red liquid all over the floor and the flavorsome cooking now looked like guts.
I searched around for some water, but instead I found a note that was under the dishes.
“I apologize, the soccer bully had all of his teeth grown, it was hard to take them all off for you. Hope you enjoy the feast”
By Alejandra Castro, Step 10 Blue
