My first encounter with fear to a high extent was when I was six years old. I was riding in the car with my mom who was under the influence of alcohol. The fear that rushed through my veins made me think that something as horrible as death could happen. My older brother and younger sister were both in the car. We then pulled into the parking lot of a liquor store. My heart sank to know that my mom was consuming more alcohol to make her blood alcohol level rise. My mom stepped out of the car into the cover of darkness and walked into the store to purchase a fifth of whiskey. When she walked out of the store, I thought to myself that something really bad was going to happen that night. When my mom returned to the car, I looked deep into her eyes and asked her,
“Can you please take us home before anything bad happens?” She looked at me and said, while slurring her words,
“Everything is going to be okay.” I knew that everything was not going to be okay. My mom then started the car, reversed, and drove out of the parking lot of the liquor store to run over the island in the middle of the road. The car tilted from side to side and back onto the smooth road to safety. As I looked out of the window of my door with water filling my eyes, I blurrily saw cops drive past us as though we were invisible. Every part of me wanted to spring out of my car door and bring attention to the danger that was in the atmosphere. Every time a chance came, I let it slip by because I was afraid that my mom would scream at me. All I wanted to do was fall asleep and wake up in my comfy bed at home, but I knew that was impossible.
We had been driving for what felt like an hour but it was only five minutes. After I blinked the water from my eyes, I realized that we were in the parking lot of Papa Murphy’s. My mom sent my older brother in to go and get the pizza that she had ordered earlier that afternoon. When he returned my mom got off the car and walked over to a group