Who says I have mother issues?

When I was a young girl, my mother said she'd blow my brains out.  She didn't know I was home to hear her say it; she thought she was alone with the grandmother she'd tried to kill the night before.  My sister and I had jumped to Grandma's defense when she came after her with a Maglight, trying to bash her brains in for refusing to give the drunken old whore more cigarette money, and we had to forcibly throw her out of the house.  I don't remember where Dad was--stoned in the basement, probably.

Some rights reserved by Shirin K. A. Winiger

It was the night of my 11th birthday.  I pretended to be sick the next day to stay home from school, a trick I used a lot in those days (hell, still do if I'm being honest), and she didn't know I was there.  She came into the house, walked into my grandma's room across the hall from my own, and told her that she'd blow our brains out--mine and my sister's--if we ever touched her again.  She denies it to this day, but I know what I heard.  And I've hated her ever since.