Disowned.

Teeth cleaned, bed ready, bag packed. I was ready to go to sleep. My sister comes into my room. "There's someone at the door asking for you." This is at 11 o'clock at night, what would this happen? Who goes to someone's house at this hour, let alone ask for me? As I stumble down stairs to find out what was going on, I discovered a broken boy that was my friend Tom. Head down, bag slumped over his shoulder he whispers under his breath to me, "Can we go outside?"

Tom is one of my best friends, but he's troubled. He is Asian, and I don't mean to offend or anything, but he comes from a cliché sort of Asian "Why-you-no-doctor-yet?' family. He is an only child and his parents unleash all their pressure on this one poor child. Tom does his best, I can vouch for that, but nothing is good enough for his parents. I genuinely worry about him, I fear for him.

So here he is, outside my house in the middle of a Wednesday night. His parents wouldn't let him in his house. They would just ignore his bangs on the door, they refused to answer his calls and they completely locked him out of their night. He got home at 6:30, after spending time with a friend he hadn't seen in months. 6:30!? This is even before Home and Away starts and apparently this is "too late" in the eyes of his parents and requires a lock out of the house.

I have never been sure what to do with Tom. He's told me stories before, at first it was unbelievable the things he would say. "My parents confiscated my door from me," he said with a smile one day at school. But then it got to a point where everyone would say "That's Tom's parents," as if it was expected. He does not exaggerate. Everything he tells me is true. It's gotten to a point where I just don't know what to do. What does a friend do in such a situation?

After banging on the door for a good fifteen minutes, he decides to set up camp in the patio behind his house. He got out his iPad and started doing quizzes for Uni. BANG! The door swings open. Vietnamese is screamed at his as he watches his dad fling his iPad into the garden and his phone scatter across the brick. "Disowned..." That was the only word Tom says he can remember from the out burst. Disowned.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened to Tom. But where do I start on the other stories? He's been told to walk home from Church, a good 7km away from his house. While he was still attending, his parents sometimes decided not to take him to school. His dad even walked out of his high school graduation because he didn't recieve an award.

One chilling story that still haunts me to this day, Tom was telling me, he was having a...well let's just say 'heated argument', when it reached a point where he screamed "I WANT TO KILL MYSELF" and the only word that his dad could muster was "Good".

I told Tom that he was staying the night. He unpacked his uni gear that he'd be lugging around the neighbourhood for 2hours trying to find my place in the dark and then I gave him something to eat. We tried to forget about it, played music and what not. We were gunna start to get some alcohol into us. But then as the clock flicked over to midnight a car beeps his horn and I hear half English, half Vietnamese being shouted from the driveway. I think my brother summed up the situation quite nicely when he muttered, "The fuck?". Reluctantly Tom left. Head down, eyes directly to the ground he shuffled his way to his dads car.

It's a sad moment when you realise your friend doesn't even have a 'home'.

Tom you're always welcome at my house.

I just don't know what to do. You're my friend; how do I make it all better for you?