Brooke

Blake (p. 42-43, 50-53, 98-101) Loss of Innocence She closed her eyes and wrapped her small, pale fingers around the sharp

edge of the marble countertop. The cold surface stung the nerves in the tips of her fingers, slowly numbing her sense of touch. The loud, incessant ringing from the telephone bounced off the walls of the whitegrey bathroom like a pinball machine as she waited impatiently for an answer on the other end. The abrupt sound of the automated voicemail burned her ears: he still wasn't answering. She dialed the number she knew by heart again as the statement, please pick up, escaped her lips under her breath, as if those three words would make him answer, as if his simple action of picking up the phone could fix her mom's problems. She stood at the milky white sink, her vision was fixed on the leaking faucet while the painstaking events that had morphed that night of celebration into a chaotic illustration of the terrors that struck her family behind the cherry-stained front door rushed through her mind. Whispering tongues surrounded her, as the heat from the hibachi table

boiled her flesh and the glaring pupils painted her face a light shade of crimson. She was reluctant to raise her eyes, cautious of locking vision with one of the whispering adults who looked down upon her from their prominent high horses. Suddenly all was quiet, only to be followed by every voice within the restaurant singing in unison, "Happy birthday to you..." A cake too big for the occasion was placed between her and her best friend, with twelve burning candles sticking out of the brown frosting like gravestones. The unharmonious voices grew louder, becoming a 1

disoriented choir of false joy. The murmurs became more obvious by the second and the stares rapidly intensified into a state of complete oblivion. The adults no longer attempted to hide their gossiping lips, as they demonstrably lacked any sympathy for her. Such moments passed as the performance was close to reaching it's climax when the conductor of this horrific mess stumbled in; it was her mother. The slight rise in pitch at the end of her mother's statements made her blood

curdle like spoiled milk that had been confined within a fridge for months. The view of her mother attempting to do a task so simple as to walk shuddered her insides with horror. A ruined twelfth birthday could be added to her perpetual list of disappointments. It was embarrassing; it was unfair and upsetting: and, as she squirmed in her seat at the table, tears seared her somber eyes. How stupid she had been to believe her father would answer! She placed the

phone onto the countertop, attempting to make it sound like a slam, but she was careful not to break it. Hot tears burst from her eyes, erupting onto the soft skin of her flushed cheeks. She lifted the weight of her eyelids, squinting against the fluorescent lighting that shot into her pupils from the lucid mirror, accentuating the bags under her eyes that resembled small mountains. Her face of porcelain was adorned with blotches and streaming tears of salt water. Her whole body shook with terror and her hands clung to the marble to steady herself and she felt dizzy with the sensation of warm air inflating her skull like a hot air balloon. I don't want that woman driving my child, she recalled the words of

Kaitlyn's mom.

Well this is embarrassing, I can't imagine what it's like at home, Claire's

mom's statement resurfaced within her mind. They don't understand, she thought, wanting to scream at them all, wanting

to defend the woman who had raised her, wanting to defend her one and only mother. She doesn't know what she's doing, it isn't her fault, she believed. She believed wholeheartedly that her mother was unaware of her addiction and that she could not help it, that she could not control her own body. An abrasive knock shook the bathroom door like an earthquake, jolting her

back into reality: all of her sixth-grade classmates were outside the door disputing over which movie to watch at the sleepover she and her best friend had planned in conclusion to the hibachi dinner, both events marking the one night celebration of their twelfth birthdays. Brooke! Are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine, just talking to my dad! Okay, come out! The movie's starting soon. I am! One sec! She drew long, deep breaths, attempting to calm her nerves before facing the

mass of her fellow students. She grabbed the freezing, metal doorknob, twisting it slowly; at the same second the doorbell of the hotel room rang in a high-pitch, deafening tone like one of a fire alarm, like one that made people want to run for their lives. She yanked the door open as Claire skipped by her, opening the door to the uninvited stranger; he wore a hotel employee uniform, and in his strong hand was a silver platter with a giant wine bottle sitting upon it. The emerald bottle

towered over her, as if mocking her, from the waiter's high grasp; it was unreachable. Trembling seized her body, scalding tears brimmed her eyes of dismay, quivering, her translucent fingers clenched the edge of her shirt, as she came to understand that it was her mother doing this to herself, that everything was her mother's fault, that her mother had complete and utter control over her body. Was not being able to place one foot in front of the other not enough? Was having a repugnant amount of alcohol already pumping through her veins, straining her liver, not enough? Was ruining any chance her daughter had at a childhood not enough? The belief she had sustained for so many years was proven wrong in that one minute, when sixty seconds felt like a lifetime. Her blood seethed from her realization that her mother was singlehandedly writing herself the death sentence. To absorb this enlightenment made her feel as though she were watching

this scene play out in a film, as if it were someone else playing the role of the alcoholic's daughter, and in that moment she realized the extent to which she felt sympathy and vast helplessness for that poor girl; but the vile scent of her mother's breath, lingering with the aroma of white wine, soon filled her lungs and brought her back to the present, as she stood face to solemn face with what would become her future: a path of various endeavors to rid her mother of the addiction that would take her as a prisoner of her own body, as she attempted to use wine to paint a smile on her distressed face.