After mother came at me hitting and kicking me in the shower and the police left, I knocked on her bedroom door and told her the police had left. She just said ok and I stood there for a moment wishing I knew what to say.

We avoided each other all that day, it was easy enough to wait for the other to go back to their room after she or I had used bathroom or gotten something to eat. Late that evening there was a knock at the door and it was a female friend from school. We had gone on a few dates months back but since I was so obsessed with my mother it did not amount to anything. She gasped when she saw the bruises on my face and told me word was spreading that my mother had beaten me, apparently the police had come back to the neighborhood discreetly in the afternoon after they had seen the bruises. She asked if I needed anything and was going to be ok and said that her parents had said if I needed somewhere to go for a while that I was welcome there. I promised her I would seriously consider it, because at that time I was already thinking I would be asked or told to leave or else would do so on ny own because I saw no way this would get any better. She asked what had happened and I said it was my fault I had upset her. She surprised me by telling me to lift my shirt and show her the rest of the damage. I showed her and she looked horrified. She told me that people in the neighborhood had been talking because over the last months we had been seen holding hands and looking like we were on a date like we had been. She said people were gossipping and talking because they had seen me out with my mother far more than with friends or other dates. She made me promise again to think about staying withbher family for a while, and turned to leave then turned back and had tears in her eyes and told me that she would not say anything but she knew what was going on and that shebunderstood because my mother was a beautiful but lonely woman and that she cared about me a lot. I started silently crying and she left. I wnet back in to my room and tried to think about what to do but I was exhausted and ended up sleeping like the dead. Not like I was going to be visited by mother that night or invited to her bed.