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I had no one else though, and despite everything she did to me, I would still clean her up when she was laid passed out on the floor and covered in sick. I would put her to bed and try to clean our shitty rooms in a bid to please her. I would beg for money and food to take care of us. Even after that day, I still used my own wiles and skill to make sure our house had heat and food, and I never let her starve. She didn’t provide for us, she just laid around wasted.

I watched her when she was out of her face on a high, and I bathed her when she hit the sweats, shits, shakes and convulsions of withdrawal. I did my duty, and slowly over the years, all I felt for her disappeared along with her health and it became a burden instead. She taught me how to resent.

I didn’t have a childhood, I didn’t know what it was like to know affection or love, so even now I find it hard to give or receive that elusive emotion in a healthy way. Mico and Jackson are slowly c