Unlasting

Prelude

Coming home late had been Katelyn's normal routine for some time now because of work, but today she decided she wanted to be home for her family, after all, she could use the break. Working in a pharmaceutical company, no matter the pay, was as stressful as starting a new company from scratch. She rushed out of her office, her new ash Land Rover Defender a few feet away in the parking lot, her leather Louis Vuitton bag held in hand like it was on showcase albeit no one in sight.
   As she embarked on the ten minutes drive home, all she thought about was the perks that came with being a millionaire at thirty-four. Apart from the late hours she pulled in the office lately, her life was pretty much great so far. Married to her college sweetheart with two lovely kids and designer clothes in every corner of her wardrobe, unlike her childhood, really put the living to life. She was so happy and so fulfilled, she felt nothing could take away this joy. She continued to revel in her joy, lost to everything else until she reached the last staircase leading to her bedroom. Her bag dropped to the ground so fast like she just realised it was infested with rats, as a teardrop she wasn't aware of came out of her eye. She couldn't believe her ears as the sounds of moaning got louder. She didn't realise she was walking towards the sound until her hands involuntarily opened it.

"Thank God..."

Her first reaction to seeing two naked people were those words, whilst the said naked people out of shock screamed and quickly tried to cover up, but the damage was done. When her brain came around to what was in front of her, her relief turned to horror.

"What's going on here, Brianna." She yelled.

"Mom, I uh... I can explain. Just don't freak out. It's really not what you think."

Brianna said multi-tasking her way out of the situation. She hastened the boy to get out of her room although he was completely naked while she got herself looking presentable for her mother, brushing stray strands of hair back into place.

"Saying I'm disappointed in you, is the least."

Brianna knew she'd messed up, but somehow those words didn't thug at her guilt-filled soul, rather it hurt and made her angry. You'd think she was used to how many times her mother described her with derogatory terms even when she was undeserving of it. She stopped trying to get her hair in a bun, although knowing how messy it looked, that was a bad idea. She stared at her mother real hard, but Katelyn was oblivious to what was happening even though Brianna added a little huffing and puffing in between stares.

"How could you be so shameless. Is this how I raised you? I can't even look at you right now. How disgusting. What would people think? What would they say?" She cried.

"Enough."

"Don't you dare use that tone with me. I'm not the one misbehaving like a spoilt brat, jumping from one man to the other."

Her voice fell gratingly on both their ears. The words came out before she could comprehend the gravity of the sentence she had just made.

"What?" Brianna said confusingly.

In five seconds her anger turned rage. Her mother had said cruel things to her before but she never called her a whore. Indirectly or otherwise.

All her life she'd lived being shut down and deprecated by her own mother, never understanding why. When she was younger and it was just the two of them, their relationship was stable, not the best mother daughter relationship but stable enough. Whenever she doubted Katelyn as her mother, like the striking resemblance wasn't evidence enough to dismiss that theory, she would tell herself that Katelyn was just being tough on her because of her own rough childhood, after all, the world was a big bad place that housed a lot of monsters in the form of men. She then decided to look at their relationship in a new light; tough love, but as the years went by, her mother's toughness only got worse and today, for the first time ever, her mother called her something even a pessimist would find difficult to say.

She knew that the situation wasn't a nice one being that her mother didn't just walk in on her having breakfast with a man and flipped, but she expected her to at least hear her out before jumping to a conclusion in the form of expletives. She was a teenager and she had urges, since her mother had forbade her from sex, this was the only way she knew to quench those urges.

"Are you even my mother? You scrutinize me every chance you get. What kind of a mother does that?"

"Don't you dare try to blackmail me emotionally. After what I just saw, you've lost every right to be mad. And stop that crying. I thought I raised you better."

"I'm nineteen, mother. I'm old enough to have sex, but I'm still a virgin because you control my sex life like it's a do over for the stupid mistake you made when you were fifteen." She yelled.

Brianna hardly finished her statement before her mothers' palms came crashing hard on her face. The expression on both their faces showed they were both surprised by the action. Katelyn may have been harsh towards her daughter but she'd never raised her hands to her before, and when she saw Brianna rubbing her red cheeks, her resolve almost crumbled.

"I'm sorry Brie..."

"What exactly are you sorry for?" She yelled, "is it for how you've treated me ever since my period came? Or, or, or, how you never told me you were getting married? Or how you lied and told your husband that I was your late sister's child. Oh, I know... how about how you stopped loving me and never cared to tell me why..." She cried.

"That's not tr..."

Brianna cut. "Help me understand why a mother that carried her child for nine months could ever stop loving that child."

She had held it in for so many years that as the words accompanied the tears, it felt like a heavy burden was lifting.

Katelyn fell quiet. She didn't know what to say. Worse of all, she didn't think even if she knew the words and said them Brianna would ever believe her, so she kept mute, a pained expression on her face as she silently fought back tears threatening to break free.

Maybe if she let it out her daughter would know how much those words hurt her, and most imperatively how untrue they were, but her long time pact with herself stopped her before the thoughts actualized. She stood like a statue watching her daughter cry, a part of her mind wondering why she wasn't going to console her. She knew standing there like that proved everything Brianna said about her true, but she consoled herself with the thought that it wasn't true and everything would be okay as long as she knew and believed it.

And she truly believed that.

"I'm leaving mother." She said, wiping her eyes dry.

She expected her mother to say something, but when she didn't, her last hope of reconciliation went down the drain.

"I'm leaving this house for good."

She thought her previous words may have gone unheard, but when she saw her mothers shocked face after what she just said, her heart gladdened. Her mother wasn't the heartless monster she was afraid she had turned into.

Once again the fire of hope was rekindled in her heart, but the words she heard her mother speak, quenched every fire that was and is to come. She walked past her mother out of her room.

Stopping, though still looking straight ahead, "I've lived long enough for you. I'm a virgin though nineteen and whatever I do with it or whomever I do it with, seizes to be your business from this day henceforth."

"And mother, I never made the mistakes you made, and I didn't let them say things like "like mother like daughter" because I knew it would kill you. I turned out pretty great because I had you to guide me... I thought you'd be proud but at this point I doubt anything I do will ever make you proud."

As Brianna left, Katelyn exhaustedly crumbled on her bed, sniffing her t-shirt, the tears she'd been holding in for so long came streaming down, as words she had only muttered silently and secretly for as long as she could remember, hurt her even more now.

"My daughter. My poor daughter."