Falling for red

{26} Childhood

 A/N TW: Mentions of abuse and rape, sorry if you're sensitive to this kind of thing.

"The simplest way to say it was that my dad was always a prick or should I say is a prick. I don't know what their life was like before I was born but ever since I could remember their relationship had been in shambles. Constant arguing and shouting. Until he took it a step further. He hit her. Except it wasn't exactly a hit. It was multiple punches. That's how it started.

He started to abuse her and she had to stay and take it. She would've been a single mother with no job. That wouldn't have taken her far. Besides even if she managed to get a job who could've looked after me. Ella had enough problems, so it wasn't fair for mum to just dump me on her. Ella was the only friend she had so we a had a limited amount of options. My dad provided for us, we had a roof over our heads, clothes on our back, so we couldn't just leave.

I think what hurt me was that there was no excuse for the abuse. I couldn't blame it on a substance or a drink because he was always sober. Completely sober. My mum tried to protect me as much as possible but sometimes her best wasn't enough. He never did anything major to me. Just a few hits, kicks maybe an occasionally punch. Overall, it wasn't as bad for me. The most I got was broken arm."

"How did it get broken?" He spoke up for the first time since I had been speaking.

"Oh. It was careers day at school. When you bring you parent in and they talk about their job. For some stupid reason I wanted my dad to be there. So I begged him to come, I should've listened to when he said no the first time. I threw a bit of a tantrum, acted like a bratty kid so he grabbed my arm and twisted it until we heard a crack," I said as if it was nothing.

"I thought you said it wasn't anything major," he scoffed.

"It's not."

"Of course it is. Listen I don't know what else happened but what happened to you happened and it was terrible. So don't you dare try invalidate it," he said maintaining eye contact again. I just nodded numbly as he sighed, not happy with my response.

I looked down fiddling with my hands as I continued, "He wasn't just physically abusive, it was emotional too. Making me feel like shit and putting these thoughts into my head. It was manipulation. He always tried to blame my mum after he beat her up. But it was him. It always was. And he sat their TRYING TO PLAY THE VICTIM. THE FUCKING VICTIM CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!" I said shouting at the end of it, anger clouding my feelings.

"Shhh," he whispered soothingly before bringing me even closer to him, to the point where I was sat in his lap.

"I remember trying to focus on the good things about my dad. Sometimes, only sometimes we would have these alright moments. It was like time would stop and just for a second we were a slightly dysfunctional family celebrating my birthday. Until it would all come crashing down and me or my mum would do something 'to piss him off'. Reality was he just wanted a reason to hit us, so he did. It was something that brought him joy you could tell just by the look on his face. He never tried to calm himself down or stop.

That's not even the main point of the story. That was just the backstory that leads up to a really fucked up day."

Now I hesitated and he noticed. "Take all the time you need Red. You know you don't need to tell me this."

"I'm gonna tell you just give me a minute," I said, my voice shakier than it had ever been. Feeling nauseous, I tried to swallow the lump that reappeared in my throat but this time it didn't go away. The taste of acid started to appear, in a flash I jumped off Carter and headed to the sink where I emptied the content of my stomach. I felt Carter hold my hair back until all that was left was the burn of acid in my throat. I jetted upstairs brushing my teeth and coming downstairs, feeling more refreshed than before.