Evangeline

chapter 1

-FLASHFORWARD TWO months FROM NOW-
I squint my eyes praying for my vision to squire,
The dainty night so lost so alone,
The only life is the echoes of angry gunfire.
Sadness and anger smears like paint across the faces of all life here,
A real smile nor a thought of happiness ceases to be seen here.
Death reeks and screams buried under the rapid ripe repetitive gunfire, even the kind old sun repels the needed love here.
Like the beaten dog we return indefinitely, no matter the cost of our being.
I return to him indefinitely.

Evangeline

I wake from the feeling as though someone is watching me. I check the clock at 4:14am. My eyes skim over the room looking for what lurks in the night, a creak comes from the closet I reach for the lamp light, it shines revealing…nothing. I’ve felt this way for weeks, the feeling of someone watching me, and a certain scent that lingers in my room. It's been this way every single morning for the last six weeks. Something haunts me and I intend to catch it.

I return to my sleep knowing that my tiredness and drowsy eyes need it, attempting to stray from the day to come.

Beeb beeb beeb, my alarm brings me back to reality. 7:30am. I sigh letting the breath leave my lungs and the thoughts of early this morning come back to mind. I let the cold air sweep across my cheeks as I swiftly leap out of bed trying to keep myself from crawling back into the sheets of my soft engulfing bed. “Today will be different” I mumble to myself, trying to convince myself it will be. Staring at the empty space, my thoughts wildly snap back to reality from a silent knock at my door. I make haste to make myself look somewhat presentable as I yell “ just a second” I reach the door pulling it open, my father stares at me blankly but almost in a shocked way? “Father, you look unwell are you alright?”
silence accompanied with more silence. He snaps back to whatever world he was in and looks at me with pity and a slight bit of anger.

“Evangeline… you know somewhat of the business I deal with” he sighs
“Father I don't…” before I can finish he snaps with poison lacing his tongue.
“You will need to learn to do well to hold your tongue child” he snarls, a look of disappointment along with it. I stay silent as he walks past me, his dark brown but still hints of gray hair creeping in, his short stubby figure slowly stepping lurking around my room as he scoffs at my audacity to interrupt him, once upon a time he treated me with kindness and love. What did I do to no longer deserve it?
“I fear you will not take well to what news I have to inform you of but before I tell you, you must remember that you are the only child in this family and the only hope for our legacy to carry on forward.” He sighs turning toward me, still far away but his belittling stare burns holes in whatever confidence I have, it's why I've never been able to stand up to him. I fear him.

“I have come to an…an agreement of sorts Evangeline” my eyes whimper up to meet his intense gaze “You are to be wed, you are old enough now 21. You marry him in a week and you meet him at our house party tonight at 7pm so do well to impress him, he has offered you a gift. It waits for you downstairs… this has always been your path, do not stray from it, you will be a wife and a mother that is all.”
and with that he leaves, shock and hate burns in my eyes as tears begin to fall. He can't do this no he cant I won't let him.
Oh but you will just like everything else he tells you to do, you will do it… indefinitely.
I hated the voice in my head but it was right, I would listen and oblige with a smile to anything my father asks of me not just out of fear but for the want no, the need for his respect. I know somewhere deep down I would never get it but I never seem to give up trying to. I wipe the stinging tears from my eyes and cheeks and walk toward the shower. I'm used to this and usually I can turn off the way that I feel like a switch but this… this cuts much deeper, almost skinning me to the bone.