I sit and reflect, on what was and what could have been. I think of the people I met and the paths that I strode and the decisions I made. The only thing left to do now, is to say goodbye and hope for the best. I want to say that I can escape this but I know, in my heart of hearts, that this is the end. My feet dangle over the edge of the multistory and I know that I gave it my best shot. My body is in the present, my hands holding the bottle that warms in my hands with every second that passes. My mind however is throwing me back, way into my past. To when I was just 8 and that was the day that my life began to crumble.

Growing up, until I was eight, it was just my mother and I. My dad had left long ago, before I even knew I was born, and my mother never brought it up. The memories, I guessed, were too painful even then. Every day, my mother would meet me at the gates to the school and we would walk home together. If she didn't meet me, I knew to wait for twenty minutes in case she was late. If, after twenty minutes, she did not turn up I was to walk home myself and let myself in using the key hidden under the statue of a sleeping dragon in the front garden.
One day, I waited for twenty five minutes outside my school. Those extra five minutes, I thought, would just be double checking if mum was coming or not. They turned out to be giving her an extra five minutes to leave.

I think now that maybe if I went home after twenty minutes and didn't wait that extra time, if my mother would still be gone or if she would have stayed a little longer. I'd like to think that me coming home would have meant that she would still be around today, that I would know what she looked like or what her voice sounded like or even what her favorite perfume was that she wore every day. The truth is, she probably would have just given me a little more time to grow attached before running away anyways.

I let myself into the house to find it empty. This, I was not surprised to find considering she had come to pick me up. What I was surprised to find was a letter with my name on it on the kitchen table. Normally, if she were working late, she would just stick a post it note to the fridge with a hashed reason. She never left a letter, sealed with my name written on it in a hurried scrawl. At eight, I didn't know that when you came home to find a letter like this that it never came to any good. I opened it and as I read through the words I tried to make sense of them. At first, I thought it was a joke, some twisted game made up by my mother. I sat for hours, at home on my own, until I came to the conclusion that it wasn't a joke. She really had left me here alone. I wasn't really sure what was going on but I remember making my way to the front door and out into the street. Across the road, a young lady came out of her house. I'd seen her around a few times but I'd always been told not to talk to strangers.
I supposed, just this once, it would be alright to talk to her. After all, I was still just a kid. I needed someone to look after me and make sure I was alright, obviously my mother wasn't going to do it so I had to get help from someone else. The woman saw me as I made my way across the road to her and she squatted down as I reached her. She asked me what happened, I think she could see that something wasn't right. I told her, stumbling over my words like I still wasn't certain what happened myself, and her face became more and more horrified. She showed me into her home and gave me a cup of tea whilst she rang the police.
Hours later and they still could not track her down. They sent me to a care home, I wasn't expected to stay there long. Just whilst they found out where she was. That night, I did not sleep and kept expecting them to knock on my door and say there had been a big misunderstanding and she was back. She did not come back, it was not a misunderstanding.

Now I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't waited all those hours. Maybe, if I had been quicker to call the police and report it, they would have been able to catch her. Now, at 23, I still haven't seen her again. They never found her, I think they gave up after a few years even though they told me that they were always keeping an eye out. I take another gulp of my drink as I carry on thinking, I don't want to think but my mind just won't stop.

Notes