My life wasn't always like this.

My mother would always take my brother and I to go get ice cream after school on Tuesdays. We would laugh and talk about how crazy our day at school was. She would even bring us to the park after we finished eating, and we would all play on the swings until it was dark.

We were always this perfect little family in my eyes.

That is, until we found out my father had lung cancer and everything started going downhill at a rapid pace.

My mother had to quit her job to take care of our father and I had to look after my two younger siblings. We had some money left over so we would be able to live without a job for a while. It was a very rough time, but we were able to manage.

This went on for about a year, until my father reached stage 4. Deep down, we knew we didn't have much time left with him, so we stayed by his side at the hospital until visitor hours were up. We would take turns with him, my mother and Olivia would stay in the morning, while Jace and I stayed with him at night.

One night, when we walked through the hospitals doors, the atmosphere almost felt thick in a way, and I knew what happened before anyone told us the news. When the doctors came out, I immediately noticed pity swimming through their eyes. They told us he passed away in his sleep, just hours after we left. My mother fell to the floor, screaming his name while I held my siblings as they sobbed into my shoulder. It felt so surreal and I had no idea how I was going to continue living this life without my father.

It was months after he passed and my mother still didn't know how to handle it. She would be gone for days, never telling us where she was or when she would come back. I was 14 at the time, so having no choice but to take care of a 12 and 2 year old was too much for me to handle. I eventually had to get a job so I could support my family, knowing my mom wasn't stable enough to get one.

When she would come home, you could immediately smell the alcohol from her breath as she walked through the front door, letting us know how drunk she was.

This routine would go on for months. Our house was covered with beer bottles, and the constant stench of smoke made me want to gag. I was so mentally and emotionally exhausted, but I knew I had to keep fighting for my dad and siblings.

It wasn't until a year later when she would bring random guys into our house. She'd have a new guy with her almost every night. She continued drinking, as well as smoking, and some nights, you would even see her in the living room snorting a line of coke on our coffee table. I was beyond pissed at my mother, because Olivia would be locked up in her room for hours, scared to even come face to face with her. She was only four for Gods sake! No four year old should be scared of her own mother.

My mother would constantly say harsh things to my brother and I, but she never laid a hand on us. That all changed when one night I decided to stand up to her, telling her she needs to get her shit together for her children. She snapped and slapped me with so much force that I immediately fell to the ground. At that moment, I couldn't even recognize the person that was standing in front of me. I knew there was no way she would ever go back to her caring, and loving self, so I made a promise to myself that I would keep fighting to make sure my siblings were safe from the monster I once called my mother.

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