My parents’ marriage is a beautiful disaster held together by a thin string that I am careful not to trip over. My father’s words cut into my mother’s skin like shards of glass, ripping at her flesh until she is nothing more than blood and bone. Slamming doors and clocks ticking down the last minutes of their marriage echo throughout the house that I once called home, threatening to ruin everything my childhood used to be. I sit alone in my room, suffocating from the nightmare of reality.

A month everything was different. If I try to think about anything that happened before that one month my head starts to spin and everything around me no longer feels real. Sometimes I wonder if it was even real, or if it was only a daydream that occupied my mind during a forty two minute math class. Regardless, no matter how long I question my perception on reality I know that one thing is for sure; I will never forget what happened in May.

It was warm and sunny out when I awoke Monday morning. My bed sheets were curled around my legs from a night of tossing and turning, and the alarm clock next to my bed was blaring an overplayed pop song. Even though it’s been so long, I can still remember the beat of the song.

After wiggling into a pair of skinny jeans and throwing on a t-shirt I headed down stairs, guided by the welcoming smell of pancakes and maple syrup. My mother was standing over the stove, a spatula in one hand and a bowl of pancake batter in the other. Her thin brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and loose strands of hair were tucked behind her ears. She was humming a Michael Jackson song, occasionally swinging her hips to the tune.

“Morning darling,” she chirped, glancing over my way.

I gave her a smile as she flipped a couple of pancakes onto my plate, drizzling warm maple syrup on top. I watched as the thick brown substance rolled down the pancakes, dripping onto the white ceramic plate. Every morning she made pancakes and smiled at me when I walked into the kitchen. I miss those mornings.

School sucked because all my friends hate me and no matter what I say, it never comes out sounding nice. When Abbey Tower asked me if I thought she looked fat in the size small dress she was wearing (she clearly wears a large), I told her that maybe we could go to the gym together after school (she declined my invitation). After lunch, when Carly Daniels asked if I could walk slower because she could barely walk in the six inch heels she was wearing, I suggested that she wear flats instead since its school and not the Jimmy Choo runway. Some people have a knack for thinking of the right things to say in their head, and when they say it everything comes out sounding all wrong and offensive. I would consider myself one of those people.

After school, my mom was busy getting ready for dinner. She was making stuffed peppers and rice since her cousin decided to stop by, and was frantically cutting open a red pepper next to the stove. “Honey,” she called, not bothering to look up from the peppers she was busy dissecting. “Jim likes some of that real nice whiskey your father likes, could you go grab some from downstairs?”

I glanced up from the book I was reading, the thought of having to force my legs down the steep basement steps made me want to throw myself off a cliff. “Where does he keep it?” I asked, deciding to be a good daughter for once.

She started stirring something that was sitting on the stove, the large wooden spoon she was holding clanking against the steel pot. “It’s in your father’s lair,” she said, nodding towards the basement. “There should be a key underneath one of the loose tiles outside the door but don’t tell your father that I told you.”

My dad was really weird when it came to his lair. In the back of the basement was an old wine cellar that my dad had transformed into some sort of man cave. He would hide out in there to do bills and watch the Yankees game without any distractions, but lately he had been spending a lot of time down there. He told my mother and me that it was his private sanctuary; therefore he hid the key to the room somewhere where my mother and I supposedly didn't know. We would joke over the dinner table that he could be hiding a bunch of hostages in there and we would have no clue.

I crouched down outside of the pale wooden door to the old wine cellar, searching for a loose tile on the floor. Sure enough, one of the faded white tiles wobbled when I jostled it, and I quickly pulled it up, finding a single brass key lying underneath. I pushed the key into the doorknob, and then pulled open the door, revealing a small, dark room.

The walls were brick and the floors bare, except for an old rug that sat underneath a beat up couch. Pressed against one wall was a wobbly steel desk, and the only light was coming from a dim lamp that stood next to the couch. I spotted the bottles of whiskey, which were lined up against the floor on the other side of the room. I made my way across the room, careful not to leave any evidence that I was down here.

After grabbing a half drunken bottle of whiskey I stood near the couch, my eyes glancing around the room. It was weird being down here, in the only room I've never been before in my house, the room where my dad spent all his time. I wondered what he could always be doing down here, in the cold dark wine cellar of the basement. There wasn't even a TV for him to watch the Yankees on.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was making my way across the room to the steel desk that was pressed against the brick wall. I took a breath in, my hands finding the handle to one of the desk drawers. I pulled it open, not knowing what I expected to find. What I did find, though, was nothing what I expected.

Pushed towards the back of the drawer was a clear baggie full of white powder. A faded American Express card lay next to it, and a frame-less mirror was placed near the front of the drawer. I felt my heart speed up, thumping against my chest and making my entire body vibrate. A million questions raced through my head, circling around my mind and squeezing my lungs. With a shaky hand I reached for the bag of powder, holding it up to eye level.

The powder looked like sugar, and for a moment I wondered if that was what it was. I jiggled the baggie, watching as the fine white particles hopped up and down, flying around the inside of the clear plastic. If this was what I thought it was, wouldn't there be something to inhale it with? I peeked into the drawer again, but there was nothing inside but the mirror and credit card. A tiny burst of hope spiked inside my chest, but my legs wouldn't stop trembling.

I carefully placed the bag of powder back into the drawer, making sure it was in the exact place I found it. The bottle of whiskey felt like a thousand pounds as I ran towards the door, wanting to get the hell out of here. Before I shut the door and pressed the key back into the knob, a slice of red caught my eye. Across the room, towards the dimly lit lamp, was a red piece of paper that was rolled into a hollow cylinder. A single piece of tape held it together, and I felt my heart drop to my feet with a final thud.

I didn't eat my dinner and I couldn't look my mother, father, or Uncle Jim in the eye. I clutched my stomach as it twisted and turned, as if the knife sitting next to my plate had injected itself into my appendix. Was my father a drug addict? Was that why he was always hiding down in the cellar, so that he could snort cocaine, meth, or some other drug while my mother and I lived upstairs? How could he hide that from us?

I watched my father from across the table, as he pushed his stuffed pepper around his plate with the tip of his fork. Lately, he had stopped shaving. His chin was cluttered with dark scruff and he had faint red bags underneath his eyes. It was strange that I had never noticed this before. Was I too absorbed in my own life to notice this or had I never thought to look? How long has he looked like this?

After dinner my father disappeared to the basement and my mother walked Uncle Jim to the door, reminding him to drive safe. I paced across the kitchen, feeling as though my pulse was deteriorating with every step. Was my dad keeping any other secrets from me and my mom? How long has he been doing this? By the time my mother returned to the kitchen there were beads of sweat sprouting on my forehead and dripping down the back of my neck.

“You don’t look so well,” she said, a concerned look crossing her face.

I pointed towards the basement door my father had disappeared down, my index finger shaking. I leaned against the counter, watching as my mother’s brow furrowed with confusion. “He is-,” my voice cracked. “You need to get him.”

My mother looked at me questionably, but reluctantly disappeared down the steps my father had twenty minutes ago. I made my way to the kitchen table, sitting down and pressing my head against the cool wood. I heard knocking that turned into banging drift up from the basement. Eventually, there was yelling and then crying and questions; lots and lots of questions. I figured most of them my father had left unanswered because when my mother returned upstairs, her face was pale and a red mark on her neck.

She motioned for me to follow her to the garage and get in the car. Screeching out of the driveway she took her phone from her purse, dialing numbers and then pulling into the parking lot of a nearby Burger King. She had grown calm since we left, and I listened to her solemnly answer questions on her cell.

“My husband is a drug addict,” she said, leaning her head against the seat and closing her eyes. “No-I don’t know. He’s by himself at home. Yes. He hit me, but I’m okay.”

My eyes flew to the red mark on my mother’s neck and I gripped my knee caps, trying to breathe but failing. I listened as my mother calmly recited our address, and then nodded and gave a few “yes” and “no” answers. My life felt like it had been struck with lightning, and that everything and anything that I had once knew was no longer intact. I was trapped in a whirlpool, spinning in circles and being sucked underneath the water, drowning.

At first I was mad. I was mad that I found the bottle of cocaine in my dad’s desk drawer and I was mad that my mother called the police. I was mad that my father had to get high to be happy and I was mad that he would rather sit in the basement snorting drugs than tuck me into bed or take me out to dinner. I was mad when my mother mailed divorce papers to his rehab center and I was mad when he signed them. I was mad, mad, mad, and mad.

I didn’t want to speak to my father and I didn’t want to visit him at the large brick building full of therapists and nurses. I didn’t care that he had to sleep in a bed with scratchy white sheets and share a room with a heroin addict. Why would I care? He had taken everything good out of my life and then ripped me and my mother into shreds so small I wasn’t sure we still existed.

My mother begged me to call him and she tried to convince me that he couldn’t control his addiction. She told me that I didn’t understand what he was going through and how much pain he was suffering through. How ironic was it that she was telling me that I didn’t understand his pain? I knew pain. I knew nightmares about discovering my father’s secret stash of drugs. They woke me in the middle of the night and I would take a freezing cold shower until my skin was numb and it was impossible for me to feel anything. I knew how it felt to be betrayed by the man whom I had trusted for so long, and I knew how it felt to be second choice to a chemical that was nothing but terror.

Pain no longer existed. Anger no longer existed. It had fled to the corners of my soul and now sadness was the only emotion with enough courage to exist inside of me. I loved sleep because it was like dying. I didn’t like the nightmares I got, though, and eventually I couldn’t decide if I liked sleep anymore. My mother no longer spoke to my father, except when he called to ask if I would talk to him. I denied every time he called, even though he begged my mother to give me the phone.

Months later he was released from rehab and I didn’t trust him. He loved cocaine more than he loved anything else, and because of that I wanted nothing to do with him. A few more months passed and eventually I met him for breakfast. He told me he was sorry and started to cry, explaining how he wished this had never happened and how if he could take back everything he did to us, he would.

I’m still working on forgiving him and I understand that he is a slave to the feeling that cocaine gives him. I try not to think about how neither my mother nor I could make him as happy as sniffing a white powder was able to. My parents’ marriage went from a beautiful disaster to a beautiful waste, and sometimes I wonder if I might have been the one who tripped over the microscopic string that held it together.