I was only ten years old when my mother and I were involved in a fatal car accident while walking home from a New Year's Eve party with some of her colleagues. The streets were slippery and covered in a layer of black ice as light snow began to fall in the crisp, cold air. Five years have passed since then and I still remember hearing my mother scream as she slid into a nearby telephone pole. The impact threw his still intoxicated body out the window, shattering the glass and landing on the frozen, dusty ground nearby. Cars passed as I lay next to my mother's unconscious body, bleeding steadily from the mouth. At least half an hour must have passed before I heard the faint sound of sirens in the distance. The paramedics took us to the ambulance and immediately began treating the mother. However, his pulse became too weak due to significant blood loss and he died silently a few hours later. I was lucky enough to walk away with only a few painful bruises left from my seatbelt. My grandparents, who were the ones who took me in, said she died because she was a sinful human being. I never understood why nor did I ever understand the tension in their relationship. Often, when they talked on the phone, I would hear my mother screaming and crying downstairs in the unfinished basement of our house. When we rarely stopped during the holidays, Mom kept her distance, sometimes even taking a short walk in a nearby lifeless park. Regardless, my grandparents believed that my mother's poisonous ways would one day find their way into me. From the day they claimed me, I lived a very unusual life compared to the other children on my street. Dad and grandma practically isolated me from the center of the paper... a stupid, absurd mistake. I soon managed to convince myself not to worry about it. I was able to teach myself that no matter who you are, there will always be someone there to judge you. That's how people are, especially when it comes to high school. As this idea took shape, I made friends without the fear of my name being talked about throughout the district. I was hanging out with a group of guys who evolved around the rock, metal and punk music genre. Drugs were a commodity within the clique, so when someone brought them out, I would sneak away without anyone noticing. Even though I promised myself not to touch these substances, I was not entirely innocent. I began to resist my grandparents' strict household rules. I stayed out more and more past curfew. I neglected my phone and missed many angry phone calls from my grandmother.