𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐍𝐨 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 ~ 𝐇𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞𝐤𝐚𝐡

19. Everything Is Foreign

[⚠️ TW: small mentions of blood/self harm towards the end, read with caution]

REBEKAH drove home, weary, zoning in and out of her own conscience. Her car came to a sputtering halt in the driveway, the exhaust coughing in protest as she turned the engine off. She sat in the now-motionless vehicle, reflecting on earlier.

It must have been at least ten minutes of Rebekah sitting, dead-eyed and still. Wandering the complexity of her mind before she tuned into reality and went inside the house. It was huge, practically the size of both Chloe and Hayley's house's combined.

Entering the foyer, Rebekah heard the clanking of dishes and the television blaring from the living room. Her mother, Rayne, was half doing dishes, half watching a british drama on TV.

"Who is that?" She called from the kitchen.

Rebekah gave a sigh, muttering under her breath, no one, just your only daughter who still miserably lives here. She then headed upstairs to her room before answering aloud, "It's me, I got back from school."

"Bekah, come finish these. Your brother can't wash a bloody cup if it saved his life. And hurry, I'm missing my show."

Rebekah dropped her bag and hoodie mid-hallway as she trotted back downstairs and into the kitchen. "You know, I just got home."

"Mmm hmm, not soon enough. I've already missed the first twenty minutes of Downtown Abbey."

Typical. With Rayne, there was never any,

"How was today?"
"What did you study?"
"How are you feeling?"

Never. She acknowledged her own daughter the way coworkers who secretly despised each other would, backhanded and curt.

There was no use in debating any of it, instead Rebekah simply attained to her task. As she felt the cold water of the sink pour onto her hands, she unwillingly caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of a pot turned upside down.

"God, are you that miserable?" She spoke to herself before shutting her eyes, regretting her own sight. While Rebekah felt a deep part of herself leaving, she was pulled out of her head and back into reality once again, now facing her mother's disgust, "What was that you spewed at me?"

Oh boy.

Rebekah stood in what felt like a threshold of her own sanity and opposing self as she looked into her mother's eyes. While Rayne was never the type to swing, her words did all the abuse possible.

"You leave for hours at a time, not a word in, not a word out. Living like a ghost in a mansion that isn't yours! Now you storm into my house, no greeting, but you expect me to do everything for you and grace you like the queen you think you are... who the hell are you?!"

That was just it. Not even Rebekah knew. She had lost track of the amount of faux faces she wore both in public and at home. While Rayne wasn't the aggressive type, it was rather fitting because Rebekah wasn't the emotional type. Her mother hated that; how she could rant and rage in front of her daughter but never manage to cause so much as a tear in Rebekah's eyes. At least not openly.

There Rebekah stood, too casual wearing a unfazed expression that read, are you done? as she turned her attention back to the sink that had been pouring for at least two minutes straight. Rayne's sour words of scorning never lingered in Rebekah's puzzled mindset.

Amongst deciding which version of herself she wanted to be and whether or not she should allow herself to feel, Rebekah finally forced her legs to move, dawdling out of the kitchen and up the massive two-set staircase towards her room.