novelxo Chapter Fear The Reapers: Prologue
I still remember the sound of his laughter. The deep timbre of a chuckle that was unmistakably his. I remember his scent too. Fresh air and earthy moss tinged with a little sweat from a long day on the construction site. I remember the feeling of jumping into his powerful arms as soon as he got home and the unease I felt in my belly every time I didn’t see his truck pull into the driveway at 5:35 PM.
“How’s my little bunny?” My father would ask, with a gigantic smile gracing his face.
I remember watching my chubby little toddler hands reach up towards his face, trying so hard to rub away the strange lines around his eyes. The ones that marred my dad’s otherwise youthful face. I hated those lines. I think even back then, I knew they were mocking me. Serving as a constant reminder that our time together was fleeting. That one day he would leave and I’d be alone… with her.
From an early age, I knew that my mother hated me. At first, I didn’t want to believe it. I mean, everything I saw about mothers told me that their job was to love their children unconditionally. To be the ones to kiss their wounds and make everything feel better. But making me feel loved was never my mother’s priority.
Carla Alexander hated me with every fiber of her being. Everything I did would set her off, but she especially hated when I drew attention to myself. Under her care, I quickly learned what wasn’t acceptable in her household. Every time I cried, she’d slap me. Every time I whined, she’d pinch me or pull my hair. Every time I expressed any emotion at all, there were consequences awaiting me. At just four years old, I learned to live in constant fear of the ticking time bomb that was my mother.
After a while, my self-image became skewed. I saw myself as weak and defective. After all, I was the one letting my feelings spill out. I was the one that was “acting out” against my mother’s wishes. There was something wrong with me.
I thought that if I could just do what she wanted and keep my feelings at bay, she would have no other choice but to love me. So I did just that. Day by day, hour by hour, I taught myself to feel less. I’d sit by myself for hours practicing how to bottle up my emotions until the day came where I stopped feeling them at all.
My father loved my mother, but he loved me too. It terrified him to see his lively and energetic four-year-old dwindle down to nothing more than a shell of a person. He’d beg me to tell him what was going on, beg me to talk to him, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. My father didn’t know my mother was hurting me. Carla left no lasting marks.
I knew that if I told my father, I’d be forcing him to choose. So I suffered in silence.
Despite the secrecy of it all, her hatred towards me still had a way of seeping into their relationship. Their relationship turned rocky and by my fifth birthday, they were fighting nearly every night. The fights would start out over something unrelated, but eventually, they’d find their way back to the most polarizing issue in their relationship, me.
My mother wanted to send me to boarding school in the fall. Her family came from money and she passed it off to my father as a family tradition she wanted to uphold. But my father grew up in a tight-knit working class family. He didn’t want strangers raising his daughter.
One night, during an exceptionally explosive fight, my mother finally acknowledged the elephant in the room. Her rage had reached a boiling point, and she confessed what my father and I had always feared.
“You stole everything from me, you vile leech.” She screamed, pointing an accusing finger at me. “My looks. My life. My husband. You are the reason I’m miserable. Giving birth to you was the biggest fucking mistake I’ve ever made.”
Her words shattered my tiny heart. I hoped that if I just behaved enough or if I just stayed quiet enough that she would learn to love me.
People in fairytales fell in love all the time. My five-year-old mind figured that if I tried hard enough, my mother could learn to love me. But there was no mistaking the conviction in her voice. She hated me. Earning her love was just a little girl’s naïve pipe dream.
My father never wanted to have to choose, but her brutal words left him with no other option. We left the house that night. He contacted a lawyer to start the divorce proceedings the next morning, and he never spoke to her again.
My father adorned me with the love and affection of two parents. He did everything he could to repair Carla’s damage, and though I could never quite show it, I loved the hell out of my father.
Before his untimely death three years later, my father made me make him a promise. One that I etched into my heart and carried with me.
“Bunny, I need you to listen to me carefully.” My father said as he wrapped his large hand around mine.
His skin was icy to the touch, so much colder than I remembered. I let out a ragged breath as I stared at our intertwined hands. I could do this, I could be strong for the man who stayed strong for me.
“The next words I say will not mean much to you now, but one day, when you’re older, you’ll understand.”
I nodded as I looked into the brown eyes that looked just like mine and took in a shaky breath.
He smelled different too. Still clean, but gone was the earthy muskiness I’d always associated with him. His scent carried remnants of the sterile hospital room they had banished him to for the last two weeks.
God, I was going to miss him.
“I need you to promise me that no matter what happens, you move on and you live.” He said, drawing out the last word with agony in his eyes.
Pain sliced through me as I replayed the words over in my head. He wanted me to move on without him. Live forever without him. Gnawing on my lower lip, I shook my head. I couldn’t promise him that.
“I don’t want to move on and I don’t want to forget you. If I live forever, we’ll never see each other again.” I mumbled, casting my eyes to the dull linoleum tiles beneath him.
“I want you to live, Bunny.” He said, squeezing my hand as hard as his weak body would allow. “It’s okay to die when it’s your time, but you have to live.”
“I don’t understand…” I said, searching his tear-filled chestnut eyes.
My head hurt. I didn’t understand his words, and I didn’t want to say goodbye. I wasn’t ready. I still needed him.
I escaped the wicked witch, and I had my happily ever after. It wasn’t fair that the universe was taking it away from me. Taking him away from me…
“I know, sweetheart.” He said, pulling me in for a tight hug. “And I’m sorry I won’t be here to explain it when it does make sense. But I need you to promise me. Can you do that, Bun?”
I gave him a soft nod. His words were confusing, but I could see the resolve in his eyes. I knew he needed to hear me promise, even if I hated doing it.
“I promise.” I said as I blinked back the tears stinging my eyes.
“I love you, Bunny.” He mumbled as he eased back into his hospital bed and closed his eyes.
“I love you too, dad.” I whispered, uttering the words he longed to hear for the last four years.
There were so many other thoughts going through my mind that I couldn’t bring myself to say. Things like…
I’ve always loved you, dad…
I’m sorry I’m so messed up…
Thank you for loving me, anyway…
He smiled as he pulled my hand to his heart and the crinkles were back, his pale, thin skin making them even more pronounced. I hated cancer. It was stealing the one person in the world who cared about me.
I held his heart in my hand until my legs went numb. Past his last heartbeat and past the moment my tears finally shed.
After my dad’s untimely passing, I had no choice but to go back to the monster I thought I’d escaped. Carla was the only family I had left and with no record of her abuse, the courts granted her custody.
It didn’t take long for Carla to move on. In the three years without us, she found herself a brand new life, complete with a new husband and a new daughter.
The rules in her house were the same, only this time, my father wasn’t there to protect me. I hoped that her new husband would deter her, but he didn’t seem to care what she did as long as her trust fund kept the cash flowing.
I always assumed my mother’s hate resulted from who I was as a person, but when I noticed the same signs of abuse happening to my three-year-old little sister, I knew it was a problem ingrained into Carla. I couldn’t let the cycle repeat itself with another innocent child, so I stepped in.
Our mother’s bitterness towards me was always stronger. It was easy to shift her rage my way. Whenever my sister, Alex, would make a ‘mistake’, I’d make a bigger one. Whenever she’d cry, I’d cry louder. Whenever she did anything that would trigger Carla’s rage, I did everything in my power to bring her attention back to me.
The day Carla overdosed on meth was the day I could breathe again. When I got the text in the middle of my ninth grade history class, I couldn’t even bring myself to cry. The reality of it was, even if I could, they would’ve been tears of joy. I didn’t mourn my mother’s death, I only wished it would’ve happened sooner.
With the loss of his wife and her family’s wealth, my stepfather jumped headfirst into the drugs that killed her. He and Carla had been hiding their addiction from my sister and I for years, and with Carla and her money gone, my stepfather had nothing left to lose.
Malcolm was the polar opposite of my father in every way that mattered. He never gave a shit about me or his daughter. He played the part of the dutiful husband when Carla was around, but once she died, so did his incentive to care.
At fifteen, life threw me into adulthood. Shackled with not only the responsibility of taking care of myself, but taking care of my nine-year-old half sister. I was in over my head and without loving parents to guide me into adolescence; I clung to my father’s last words and used them as my guiding principle.
I did what I needed to do to survive. Maybe that’s why when life threw me yet another curveball, I didn’t even bat an eyelash.
The choice I made kept us alive, even if it was the most reckless, idiotic, and senseless thing I’ve ever done…