A Night For Change

Once I was able to fully comprehend what I had committed myself to, I wanted to go back out. Then I looked and people had looked at it already, and suddenly I had a promise to keep. It’s quite annoying having to talk about something that you haven't truly dealt with. For me, there are many things I have yet to deal with.  There are a few questions that I have faced though and I guess what you know tends to be the best place to start, even when you don’t want to talk about it. I truly still don’t know how to begin this story. Most of the best stories I’ve heard have all started with Once upon a time, so it seems fitting to me that a trope is always fun to play with and twist to fit your own story.

Once upon a time, there was a family who should have been happy. They had everything, decent jobs, decent kids and decent love, even if not perfect in this world there doesn’t seem to be perfect, but what else can you truly expect from this reality.

In this family, there was the father, Tony, who just tried to love everyone the best he could, but mentionably, didn’t have the best role model for a dad so he was also battling the horrors of what he knew he didn’t want to be. Then there was the mother, Crystal. Her family had never been normal; she had no idea what a mortgage was before the man that she married (which was only thanks to her taking a liking to a car at a gas station she worked at). She only tried to do her best, always knowing what not to do, such as don’t use drugs in front of your kids; that was the first note she made to herself when she realized that if she was ever going to have kids, she would do better than her parents, and hopefully they would do more than her. 

Then there were the kids. Sarah was the firstborn, a bit of a problem child who constantly had some issues. Whether it was not being able to process milk to crying all night long to not being able to use the restroom on her own, she had quite a few different issues. The next kid was named Sydney. There were multiple reasons for the name and the kid lived up to expectations. Sydney was Crystal’s favorite character, the main character in Alias. She grew up as the kid who immediately went to sleep, and slept through the night. She was the kid who tried to make everyone smile; a people pleaser to a fault. She began her journey as most kids do, looking up to their parents and seeing the world as the best place in the world, I mean, what else would she know. She got to explore the world with plenty of animals to surround her and a family who seemed to love her, whatever that meant. There were hundreds of bumps and bruises but every good childhood has so many of those. Then there were friends. Sydney didn’t really have any, for some reason there didn’t seem to be anyone in the area for her to hang out with but it never seemed to stop her from annoying her sister and her friends or even just hanging out with her parents, whenever they were home. 

There was one friend in particular that the older sister had, Taylor. She was the kid’s dad’s best friend’s kid. She lived right across the street from them so she became Sarah's best friend, and Sydney really tried to be her friend. Sydney always tagged along with the two friends and because of such, they ended up taking some pity on her.

There was one night in particular that the pity showed through. Taylor and Sarah were having a sleepover, Sydney was supposed to be leaving them alone. Despite what her Dad had told her to do, which was to play with her toys, she decided that she would wait for her mom to get home so she wouldn’t be alone. While she loved her dad, he was always outside in the cold working on his car and screaming mean words when he was upset. Her mom, on the other hand, wasn’t home very much anymore but when she was it was always Sydney's favorite time. She loved her mom even if she struggled to be home. Sydney had even been to work with her so she understood the stuff that her mom did. 

Sydney felt like she waited for hours until finally the door opened and she ran straight for the door. 

“Mama” she yelled as she propelled herself into her mom. She was engulfed in a huge hug and got attacked with kisses. It was almost 6 at night as the two finally got to talk. While Sydney didn’t have friends she had her mom and dad to keep her company, even though they didn’t like talking together much recently. 

As Sydney started talking about her new scrape on her knee the garage door swung open and slammed shut suddenly. It wasn’t uncommon for that door so Sydney didn’t even flinch, she only looked over to see if her dad had come in. He had but he wasn’t in the best of moods, he had that grumpy look where a line on his neck poked out extra on his neck and when he started to talk there was more emphasis on the weird overgrown tooth he had. 

“Sydney, why don’t you go upstairs and play with your toys, I wanna talk to your mom.”At this Sydney looked at mama first to check what she would say, as she was the one holding and carrying her. As her mom just got a look of annoyance on her face she let the kid go onto the floor and just said, “It’s okay kiddo, I’ll come up to play with you in a few”.

With that Sydney went upstairs and made sure her door could be heard shutting, it was the one thing she had learned, whenever the yelling was going to begin they always waited until they thought the kids wouldn’t be able to hear. After what felt like a minute or two Sydney got out her superpowers and started to work on what she always did. She was really good at sneaking out of her room with no one hearing her and watching the fights, it was also usually the only thing that stopped the fights when they saw her watching.

She slowed barely moved the door handle, just enough to crack open the door, then moved with it as she barely opened it then closed just the same. She started to crawl through the hallway, it was the best way to keep any squeaks from happening, then she got to the railing and started watching and listening about whatever was going on.

“Where were you? You were supposed to be home a least an hour ago, if not earlier.”

“I had to work extra, don’t worry about”

“Like I haven’t heard that one before. What are you gonna do next, you’re already an absentee mother, are you completely abandon your kids altogether?”

At that comment, mama lost it. It was like the entire world turned into a storm and she was just another wind in the flurry of everything. There was nothing she could do except to scream. “How dare you insinuate that I would ever leave my children behind. The only reason why I’m not around is so I can work to help pay for your problem of buying everything under the sun on eBay. You are pathetic even insinuating that bullshit.” 

Then there was a ring at the door.

“What, you're gonna get it like it’s even your house Crystal,” dad said as he started to move for the door.

Mama was closer to it anyway though, so as she reached the door and grabbed the latest package from eBay she moved towards dad.

“What you don’t want me to see another one of your new projects coming in? You complain about me not being here for our kids yet you just stay huddled up in your garage whenever you are home.”

At the battle of words seemed to go far beyond what it usually did. They stopped caring about the kids, the fact that there was a friend over or even the factor of where the youngest usually hide while they were arguing. Sydney by this point was blaming herself for all of their problems because what else would a child do when their parents are yelling about things they don’t understand. 

As Sydney began to cry there seemed to be one blink, one scream, one crash, and the chaos was over.

It all ended with one rash move.

Suddenly Sarah was out of her room to see what had happened and encountered a crying child on the stairs first. Went to comfort her then saw her father had fallen, or something onto the ground and their mother looking upset and shocked from across the room. 

“I I I didn’t mean to do that. I am so sorry Tony, are you okay”

“No stop it, I’m calling the cops.”

Everything seemed to go lightning speed from there, Sydney and Sarah and Taylor were put into the parent’s room. Sydney tried to calm down but couldn’t stop freaking out as she only saw a glimpse of what had happened. Crystal was scared for the future of her kids and her. Tony was scared for his kids and himself.

As the police arrived there wasn’t much to say, a box had been thrown. It was about the size of a tissue box but had some metal object in it that was thrown at Tony. Tony wasn’t sure what to do and seemingly had been talked down by Crystal so didn’t press charges. Taylor was scared, she didn’t know what had just happened only that the only thing she could do to help out her friends was to try to stop the child from crying. Around the time the Police arrived though, Taylors dad did too. Taylor had to stay to be questioned, everyone had to be questioned. The youngest didn’t know what to say, so she only told about him yelling then how she blinked and everything happened and she didn’t know what happened. 

She didn’t know what to do. So she went blank and tried to pretend it didn’t happen.

Suddenly she was shaken from her sleep and her mom had her sister already in her car. Sydney was grabbed up with her comforter and brought into Crystal’s car. They left that night, and everything seemed to change. One night changed the course of their lives for the family, all with one blink, one scream, one crash.