When my mom is awake, she would always look at me like I’m a stranger, similar to the morning adjustments I have. Then when she realises I’m her child, her first words would be, “Get me a beer, my child”. I would fetch her one and she’ll say, “Mommy loves you, remember that”. After that sentence I knew it was my cue to go bath and get ready for the days duties because once she sees alcohol, I become someone she doesn’t know. Previous years, after that phrase, I’d go to my room and cry as hard as I could, but she’d come in and beat me cause I’d be wasting time and I’d be late. Should I lose my job, she’ll beat me even more and we won’t have food in the house. For her, food means alcohol.

When I’m done with everything at home, I leave the house and head to school. I’m currently repeating grade 11 because of the incidents that would occur at home, like mom getting sick etc. This resulted in me being absent for like 2-3 weeks at school to be with my mom in hospital. This year is a bit different, lucky for me. But its toxic for my mother because she has drinking buddies now.

At school, no one knows about my situation because my school is quite a distance from where I live, so no one knows my story besides Ms Adams. She only knows because last year she got concerned as to why I was constantly absent at school, and went out of her way to come home and see the actual reason. She found out I have a drunkard mother and ‘no’ father. She didn’t inform anyone about my situation because she understood why I often lied about my parents.

My getaway lie was mostly that my ‘parents are busy and they won’t make it’. I played the happy child at school to an extent where it became a habit: I have hardworking parents, who love me and would do anything for me. Whilst in reality, I’m a kid with a drunkard mom, a father who appears when he feels like it because he has his ‘family’ to take care of. He leaves a R100 for us that should last for two months, which mom would drink up in a few hours.

So Ms Adams gave me a job after coming to find out about the conditions that I live in. My job doesn’t have a title, but after school, I do anything she requires me to do, not in a bad way. I’d clean her class, her home, wash the dishes, arrange her marked papers, and through all that I’ve never got to see the assignments or tests.
After I was finished with the work, she’d drop me off at home, and pay me R120. And that’s every day, thank God for her. It’s funny how tiring my day always is, but I never want it to end. I never want to go home.

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