Revenant

7| Alcohol and a Lost Father

ARABELLA'S POV

From a very young age, I believed that happiness was meant to be this big thing and the moment it would break open for me, it will change my life for the better and it will sweep away all the weight and burden of sadness and agony, the strain of which I'd been carrying on throughout the course of my life.

I had been in pursuit of it since forever, in the hopes to find it sooner so I could finally get mercy from the tyrant, that is life.

I have awaited for happiness to come and simplify my life, to help the unhealed wounds to recover so that one day my heart is not terrified anymore, and finally for once it could start to grow the warmth inside of it.

The times with my family were my happinesses which I couldn't realise till I didn't have them anymore and being away from them is when I understand that happiness isn't this magical thing that I kept waiting for, but it's something that I could get even from the smallest incidences in my life.

My decision has resulted in giving me another family but at the same time catastrophically destroying the other.

Exhaustion has filled me to the brim, but it's not the physical tiredness that kept my eyes trained at the ceiling, it's psychological.

I felt worn out and lost—

My soul is the one that seemed to be exhausted.

I feel like the emotional part of my brain, that I've worked two years to shut out, has started to unravel again which definitely isn't helping my anxiety at the moment.

I've learned to grow stronger, I've learned to block my emotions, I've learned to not let myself fall apart ever again but this moment felt like everything that I've learned just blanked out of my mind taking me down to fail in the reality of life.

I had been staring up at the ceiling as the sleep didn't feel like coming to me and I don't think I want it to come either, not after the incident that happened today.

My heart was filled with the stains of guilt that I couldn't seem to wipe off, not that I made an effort to scrape them off, because I knew I was the reason behind my family's heartbreak.

After my small encounter with my brothers, Alexander reluctantly took me to our dad's room, followed by three of my other brothers.

Surprisingly, he looked like he didn't want me to see Dad. He even hesitated to knock but after seeing my father's condition, I understand why.

I had just seen my father in a state that broke my heart in ways I could not have imagined.

Even seeing him today felt like I've lost him all over again—

He seemed to have become a prisoner of his own mind, he had let himself lost to alcohol and seeing him totally wasted and out of his wits shattered my world into smithereens.

The moment I took a tentative step inside his room, I was greeted with a strong scent of alcohol as the totally wrecked room drenched in its scent.

Dad was leaning back on his couch with a bottle of an almost empty vodka in his hands as incoherent words slurred out of his mouth while his gloomy eyes stared at emptiness right in front of him making him seem like he was in some kind of trance.

Seeing him after two years made me want to jump into his arms and cry my problems away but at the same time it made me want to stall our dreadful reunion for a little while longer.

My cold feet stood frozen in its place at the doorway of his room, as my wide frozen eyes kept training at my dad.

His words that finally started to get clear, left a ground shattering effect on my soul leaving a deep gash in my already broken heart.