<Despite the look on my face, you're still talking>
|Kian|
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
"MOM! MOM! Please wake up. That bad man is gone. Mom, please wake up! Open your—"
I gasped, eyes darting around as I woke up with a start. Searching. That voice. The fucking pitiful tone of a helpless child.
Where was he?
A sense of unease closed in on me, my body drenched in a cold sweat. Mom, please wake up. What on earth—
Fuck. I sat upright, cradling my aching head as realization dawned on me. I was that child.
Agony clung to my skin, the blood in my veins pounding furiously. The goddamn nightmares. They were back. In full fucking force.
I found it hard to breathe as I tossed away the sheets clinging to my naked body and padded to the restroom, misery choking my dry throat. Why were the horrifying dreams assaulting me? Haunting me once more?
The bitter memories of my dead mom had receded, fading away completely but recently, with the stress of every fucking problem in my life at the moment, they ran amok in my mind. Torturing me. A fucking pain in my ass.
"Hell," I croaked out, raking a hand through my tousled hair, a harsh sigh escaping my lips as I stared in the mirror. My reflection was a scruffy mess.
An evident aftermath of the nightmares, dark circles sat beneath my red-rimmed eyes, my chin spotting rough stubbles. Disgusted at that unkempt image that lay before me, I decided to brush my teeth and take a bath. Maybe, just maybe, I would feel better after that.
But I knew I was shitting myself.
As I slid a sponge over my wet skin, the cruel memories returned. Taunting. Mocking.
"See you after school, darling!" Mom called, lips in a wild smile, her blonde hair glowing in the sunlight. She sat in the car, waving her right hand at me.
"See you too mom." I waved back, grinning from ear to ear. "Bye."
"Bye." Then she blew me a big kiss before Kincade, her driver, offered me a tiny smile as he drove her away from me.
Forever.
I never saw her smile nor wave at me again. Rather, I'd arrived home to encounter her stiff body, blood pooling on the floor, tainting the rug, her skin ice cold to touch. Completely lifeless.
The sponge slipped out of my fingers, the tiled wall meeting my fist. Hard. A maelstrom of fury whirled in the darkened embers of my tarnished heart, rage bubbling through me as I punched the wall again.
Fuck it. That psycho driver. That black shit, Kincade, was the reason my mother was dead. Not only had he destroyed every chance I'd had to grow up with a mom, he'd ruined me. Transformed me from a happy, easy-going boy to this hulking, enraged beast of a man.
"Why me?" I whispered, bruised fingers clutched to my face, hurt evident in my tone.
I'd been a menace, my childhood, a merge of disasters. My father, the bastard who had never provided time for me in the first place, retreated into his cold shell when his sunshine, mom, was gone. Darkness had been infused in my life, the only dim light chasing away the shadows, that of my brother's and my ex-wife. Until she'd snuffed out hers.
"Why?!" I roared, a savage roar of grief. "Am I that hard to fucking love?! Am I?!" A pang sat in my chest, claws of woe digging in.
Knees buckling beneath all that whirlwind of raw emotions, I sank, the water washing away the tears that streamed past my face. Pain. Sorrow. Dejection trickled down my cheeks. Until there was none left to cry.
YOU ARE READING
On His Terms
Romance"You can have me, Kian," I whispered, elation that my plan was coming into play, making my voice low. "Are you sure? Because you don't know, Jade. You," a deep groan escaped him, the rumble of his words vibrating against the arch of my throat, "don...
