Saving Scout O'Brian (REMASTERED)

Three

Scout

I tried my absolute hardest to remain calm as I drove home from the grocery store, leaving Ms. Thornton behind. When she explained that she had been good friends with the woman who's house I now lived in, hence the reason she knew who I was and what I looked like, I knew I had to get the hell out of there before I lost my shit. I didn't anticipate that Kate would've told anyone of my moving into town, and obviously I knew what best friends were. But the woman I just met didn't exactly seem like the type to have girl time with well, anyone. Annoying personal vendetta aside, I found her utterly resistible and could not get her silver gaze out of my head. 

Like wet concrete, I sunk into her gaze, a monster descending into hell. 

The meanness in me urged to wrap my teeth around her throat and bite. Like the snakes tattooed on my leg, the ones in my belly writhed and hissed. I hadn't been so affected by someone since before him. 

"Mommy?" Char yawned, giving me a much needed escape from my mess of thoughts.

I glanced in my rear view mirror, a smile hovering over my lips at her sleepy expression. "Yes baby?"

"Can we go to the beach today?"

I slowed to a stop at a red light. "Of course, but after dinner okay?"

"Okay." Her little face wrinkled in a cheesy grin and we made goofy faces at each other and sang songs the rest of the way home.  

I focused on the light she brought into my life, even as my body turned to stone and my knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. The punching bag I'd set up in our garage last night called to me. I boiled with the need to erupt, destroy, and desecrate. 

Char ran into the house as soon as we got home, and I put the groceries away, my arms loaded with bag after bag until I stepped back and smiled slightly at the sight of a full fridge. Deciding some light cleaning was in order, I set up my Keurig, relishing the scent of earl grey tea as water poured into the mug, steaming in the chilly salt-brined air. 

The thin curtains snapped from the open window, drawing my attention to the sea. I saw myself in the thundering waves, a wild thing, crashing into the hard packed sand without mercy, blood in my teeth and a snarl on my lips. 

Pain and brutality bleeding from my skin.

I smiled into my mug, a brittle, broken, curl of my lips. Retribution was slow to master, but it was coming. 

The smooth ceramic warmed my hands, but not my heart. Long dead, the blackened organ pumped like a haunted symphony, each beat a little slower than the last. The waves crashed again and I sneered, the sound reminiscent of my body across his desk, limp and drenched in the scent of weed and whiskey. I shivered, bare foot in my kitchen but my body and mind somewhere else. 

The only thing that kept me going was my daughter. For her, I would face every sliver of darkness that hell had to offer. 

Forcing my lead-filled body away from the window, I reluctantly started on our early dinner. Fettucine Alfredo was Charlotte's favorite, and I needed to give her that after today. 

When it was ready, the scent of garlic bread permeating the air, she came screeching into the kitchen, eyes wide and mouth forming a little o of surprise. Though it thinned into a pout as I spooned carrots and broccoli onto her plate, alongside her pasta and bread.