Life was full of happiness before my parents got divorced. The family used to be an exhilarated one that consisted of my mom, dad, and me. I was nine when my parents split, that was eight years ago and that was also the time that my life fell apart. Now life is utterly different. My mother started to drink every night and now she always sits in front of the television smoking her cigarettes. The only way we both actually are able to keep our one bedroom apartment in New Jersey is because of my two jobs and child support check from my father every month. I have been trying to keep my mom and I from becoming homeless for the past couple of years and that is not an easy job. At times, I felt like purposely running into the middle of the street and getting run over by a car because of all the drama going on in my life with my mother, school, and job as a worker at Chucky Cheeses which deals of annoying little four year olds that for some reason think that my shoe is a bathroom. Now everything has changed all over again and this time the change is me. I am 17 years old and I’m going to tell you about the day I died on September 8, 2009.

It all started with my fight with mom. It was 9:00 in the morning and I had woken up late for school. As I was quickly packing my bag with all my school work and getting ready to leave the house, mom walked into the living room. She took one look at me and started lecturing to me about the fact that I was a lazy bum for not making her breakfast. I was not in the mood to have someone lecture me for something that was a total false accusation, so an argument started to up rise.

“Who are you calling lazy!” I yelled at her while giving her my best death glare.

“Young lady, don’t you dare talk to me like that!” she yelled back returning my glare.

“Well, I sure do have the right! I’ve been trying to keep you and me alive for the past eight years and I have never heard a thank you from you or even a single praise. But no, what I do get is a whole lot of yelling from you because I forgot to do the laundry or in this case, cook you your breakfast!” I retorted knowing that I was right.

At first, mother just stood there in complete shock. I had never talked back to her like that; I had always just simply replied “yes” or “no” to her questions or simply stayed silent. Finally, when she recovered, she came up to me and her right hand came into contact with my left cheek. SLAP! After a few seconds, I felt a huge sting coming from my left cheek and knew that it was going to swell before I made it to school.

“I am your mother, Allie Thompson. Don’t you ever for as long as you live talk to me in that way,” she said sternly looking me in the eyes. “You also live under my roof so don’t you dare talk to me in that attitude of yours.”

“Yeah right,” I retorted glaring at her why cupping my left cheek. “You practically live off my checks and child support. Heck, this apartment is probably even coming from my money so what are you talking about that I live under your roof?! It’s more like the fact that you’re living under my roof.”

“Excuse me!” mother replied more shocked then ever. “You have absolutely no right to say that I live under your roof just because I don’t have a job and you do. You just don’t understand, Allie. Don’t say stuff that you’re not 100% sure of.”

“Ha-ha, who’s talking,” I replied. “You're the one accusing me for being a lazy bum when you do know that it’s not true.”

“And your point is? You are a lazy bum for not making me my breakfast when all it would take is probably three minutes of your time,” mother replied oblivious to the fact that I was late for school.

“Yeah, three minutes more late to school you mean,” I answered knowing she probably didn’t know anything about my life and how I was about an hour late for school.

“Well, that’s your fault for being late for school, not mine,” mother replied.

“You probably didn’t even know that I was late for school until I said it,” I retorted.

“So, it’s not my job,” mother replied giving me a shrug.

“And that might be the exact reason why dad left you,” I retorted pissed off at her. How could a mother not know what time there daughter woke up for school?

“Allie, don’t say stuff that you are not 100% sure of,” mother repeated getting pissed.

“Fine, if I have no idea why you two are divorced, why don’t you tell me?” I questioned.

“That has nothing to do with you,” mother replied. “Now you better go to school before you’re really late. This conversation could be postponed to when you come home.”

“Fine, whatever,” I retorted grabbing my bag and walking out of the building making sure to slam the door real loud.
“Who is she calling lazy?” I thought to myself. “Why don’t she take a look at herself for a change?” As I was walking across the street ranting about my mother in my head, I didn’t see the fast moving Toyota turning the corner and speeding towards me at about 45mph.
The next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the hard cement road with a bloody liquid seeping from my chest. I was paralyzed; I couldn’t move, talk, or let alone take in a breath. So as everything around me started to turn pitch black and my life was slowly slipping away from me second by second, I saw my mother run toward me with tears in her eyes screaming for me to hold on, but I never felt her touch or what she said afterward because I was already gone.
?•?

As the following days preceding the incident, I was a ghost to my mother. She couldn't see me, but I saw her loud and clear. As she sat on her bed looking at photos of our family that was what used to be a happy family with tears in her eyes, I stood in front of her simply looking. I had learned not long after I found out that I was a ghost that I couldn’t communicate or even touch anything that was solid or living. I was only allowed to watch. It seemed that I was in what people would call the between stage of death.

As mother sat on her bed crying over my death and everything in her life, the doorbell downstairs rang. That was a very common thing lately, so mother didn’t make a move to get it. After a few seconds when we both thought that the person downstairs had left, the doorbell rang again. Mother still made no attempt to get it, but after a while of continually ringing, she placed down her photos and headed to the door. What was very surprising though was the fact that the person on the other side of the door was no other then father himself.

“What do you want?!” mother asked not in the mood to talk to him.

“I’m just here to help you out, Jane. I know this time is very hard for you,” father answered a look of concern on his face.

“Ha-ha. Like you care what I’m feeling. Why don’t you head back to your wife and kids,” mother replied practically sneering the words wife and kids at father’s face.

“Jane, no need to get pissed, I’m just here to help since Allie was my daughter after all,” father replied not letting mother’s words get to him.

“What’s going on?” I thought watching the scene from behind mother.
“You know that I don’t want to see that face of yours ever since that new wife of yours told me she was pregnant with your child,” mother responded replaying that time in her head and feeling a pang of pain at how shocked she was when she found out.

“I said I was sorry, Jane. What else do you want from me?” father asked sighing.

“Nothing you cheater because what I want is to have my life back, but that’s impossible now that Allie’s dead and your off with your wife and three kids,” mom replied pissed. “Do you even know how hard it was for me to hear that and have it be true?”

“What is she talking about?” I thought to myself completely confused. “Why is she calling dad a cheater? What phone call?”

“Jane, could we at least talk about this inside the house. You’re going to wake up the whole block,” father replied looking around.

“No, we may not,” mother replied blocking father of all entrance into the house. “I don’t want to get my things dirty with your fake sympathy. I’ve already had enough of you in my life. Life isn’t easy for me and that’s all because of you.”

“Jane, I’m not faking anything and could you stop making fun of me for a few seconds? I thought we handled that issue with the divorce,” father replied not wanting a fight.

After that, I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. “Dad cheated on mom and that’s why they divorced.” This sentence just kept repeating over and over in my head making me feel more awful every time. I had told mom just minutes before I died that dad probably left her because of that attitude of hers, but the true reason all along was because of father. “How could I have been so mean to her all this time, but never actually questioned why she was like this?” I thought to myself horrified. “Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since the divorce and I’ve forgotten how mom was like before the divorce or maybe because I was so caught up in my own problems that I didn’t even bother to think about her.”
No matter what, I regretted my last words to her. I had yelled at her and said things to her, but I never actually stopped to think about her. I was angry and being selfish. Now I regretted it all hoping that sometime soon, she would forgive me for what I said. I regret not being able to tell her how sorry I am for everything I did and said to her.