Sentiment of a Witness

𝙱𝚛𝚞𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚜

Things had been different since the night of my seventh birthday, for better or for worse, I still can't say. My parents had been up to something, something... odd. They had more arguments, I had been seeing them around more, and they had changed my rules. I was now allowed to wander around the house whenever I wanted, as long as I made no noise and didn't interfere with anything. It had seemed like my situation might have been getting better. 'Seemed' and 'might have,' who knew these two words would practically explain my entire life?

We'd started going out as a family, occasionally, mainly to the houses of prominent members of the SUNRP, probably to show them that we were still there, still a happy family. Let's be honest – it was for my parent's reputation. We'd even been invited to the Stolls household for Christmas dinner with the rest of our neighbours.

Yeah... my parents were reluctant to go to that one – surely they hadn't heard any of the arguments, right? Did they still regard us as the posh, aristocratic neighbours? My mother had said to my father that Mrs Simmons had looked slightly shocked when the door had opened when she came round with the invite. Perhaps they thought we had moved out since we didn't go out as much as we used to? Quite frankly, we never went out after the doctor's appointment. Although I had noticed that my mother would slip out late at night and return just before the sun rose.

Christmas Eve rolled around, and of course we weren't doing anything for it – one year, we had gone to the city of Nevermoor in the first pocket of the Free State to watch the Battle of Christmas Eve. It was incredible, an experience I knew I'd never forget.

My mother left earlier than she had been on previous nights, and my father was brooding, with a cigarette, on the balcony where I was reading. As soon as he walked out, I could tell he was in a bad mood. Well, in an even worse mood than usual. Oh no, this won't end well, I thought as he took a drag on his cigarette.

He grunted when he finally noticed me, and I decided to finish the chapter I was reading – only two pages left, and it was one of those exciting moments where you can't just stop – before I go back inside to leave my father to himself.

Oh, if only things in my life could go the way I planned them to.

"Where's your mother?"

I snap my eyes up to my father, startled by the sudden question- no, demand. He wasn't looking at me; he was looking over the forest as he once had with me a year or two ago. Funny, isn't it? That within the span of a year, everything you know and love can be ripped away from you, replaced with loneliness and longing.

"I said, where is your mother, boy," my father span around to glare at me.

As I look back into his eyes, I realise that this is not the man I once knew. His bottle-green eyes were cold and harsh, leading into his broken and scared soul. This was not my father. My father had kind eyes and a warm smile. I was often told that I looked like him, and I suppose it's true – I had my mother's hair, eyes and nose, but other than that, I was practically a copy of my father. I had his warm brown skin, tall, slender build and pearly white and miraculously straight teeth.

"I-I-I..." I stammered, "I d-don't know."

"Hmp," he grunted and turned his gaze back to the forest, taking another drag of his cigarette.

He smelt of alcohol, I realised. I decided to put my book down with a page to go in the chapter and go inside – it wasn't safe out here with him.

As I got up and moved towards the door, my father spoke.

"And where do you think you're going, boy?"

"To my room."

He laughed. Not one full of joy and light, but a maniacal one, full of drunkenness and dryness.

"My wife isn't here, and the servants have gone home. I need someone's company."

At any other point, I might have been thrilled that my father wanted my company once more, but in this moment, I was too damn terrified to even think about that. He was drunk, he was talking nonsense, and he was right – there was no one else in the house.

I continued to go to the door, desperate to get out of the situation. I placed my hand on the wood to push the door open, only to have it smacked off. I dropped my book and looked up to see my father, absolutely fuming.

"I thought I said I wanted company!" He yelled.

"And I don't want to give it to you!" I yelled back, tears already threatening to spill over. I clasped a hand over my mouth, realising what I had just done, but it was too late. I had thought my father was angry before, but now he was just downright insane.

Eyes ablaze with rage, he pushed me into the door to open it. Once we were in the other room, I tried to escape what was sure to be one of the most painful nights of my life, but to no avail. He was there, every turn, grabbing me by the neck and throwing me back into the room. Eventually, I gave up my protest and allowed whatever torture I was going to receive to commence.

When I awoke, the sun was peeking through the unclosed balcony door. It wasn't very high up in the sky yet, barely making its way through the trees. I laid there on the cold, hard, marble floor, trying to work out why I was there. I sat up, realising I was in the library, only to lay back down due to immense pain in my head and abdomen/torso. It was then that I remembered what had happened last night. My father had beat me. I must have fallen unconscious at some point or something because I didn't, and still don't, remember him walking away.

With all the effort I could muster, I pulled myself up off the ground and crept back to my room. As I passed the living room, I found my father asleep on the couch with an empty bottle of beer at his feet and another half-empty one in his hand. He twitched in his sleep, and I dropped to the ground in a state of panic, hiding from the man I once called my father.

Reaching my room, I lay down on my bed, surprised that I wasn't crying again. I vaguely wondered where my mother was and if we'd still be attending the Stolls' Christmas Dinner. Part of me hoped so – anything to escape this hellhole of a home.

Written - 3 June, 2021

Published - 3 June, 2021

If there's one thing Study Sessions in Exam Blocks are good for, it's writing fanfiction. And studying, but mostly writing.