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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX all die young
⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:
FROM A YOUNG AGE, Nadine Vidal knew that the world was rough, callous. It chewed you up and spit you out, leaving you battered and broken and bloody and so full of rage. She knew that bright-eyed girls were stomped on, their lights shattered, that the only way to survive the cruelty was to fight back, to raise your fists and not let yourself get trampled. The world didn't mollycoddle you. It didn't stroke your hair, squeeze your hand, tell you everything was going to be fine; it spat on your gravestone and left you to rot. There was an evil, Nadine thought, that spread throughout Planet Earth, contaminating people and turning their eyes black. They saw the world through a funhouse mirror; warped, distorted, until innocent people became threats solely for the colour of their skin or who they loved or what God they prayed to. It was a disease, human hatred was, and it was a disease without a cure.
Nadine fought back anyway, teeth bared, hands bloody, determined to not let this disease drag her down with it. It seized her ankle; she pulled it away. It wrapped its hands around her throat; she clawed her way to freedom. She came home with an iron grin and her skin mottled black and blue, because she was a fighter. She didn't let herself crumble. And, though most didn't know it, all of that fight started with Louise Vidal.
Louise Vidal, who'd taken one look at her daughter and fallen to pieces. She had wanted a daughter, a child of her own, but she'd wanted a mimicry of herself, not some manic girl who could make the world her canvas. She'd wanted someone she could pretty up, not a girl whose knuckles were always split and her hands were calloused as sandpaper. In short, she'd wanted something unattainable. Wanted a girl who didn't exist.
On the days she quelled her illusions, Nadine thought Louise loved her, but that had never been true. Louise hadn't loved the person Nadine was, she'd loved the fact that she'd contorted her daughter into becoming a little more ordinary. A little more manageable.
Nadine was eighteen, and she was in the hospital, swept away by a nightmare. Her shoulder was freshly bandaged, and her face was contorted in sleep, sweat beading at her hairline, her blonde hair matted to her face. It had been a week since that bullet had pierced through her, and every night, she found herself reliving the event. It was like she was stuck in the same moment, frozen in time, and nobody had been able to pull her out.
Louise Vidal sat by her daughter's bedside, staring down at her dormant form. Nadine cried out in her sleep, a soft plea for help, shifting a little as she fought against her mind's demons. Louise found herself leaning forward at the noise, trailing a hand across her daughter's pale face, brushing her hair to the side. Under her fingers, Nadine was warm, and she was amendable. She wasn't her waking self; strong, stubborn, and a pain in Louise's ass. Looking down at Nadine, Louise could almost imagine another, easier version would wake up.
