Love Admits Deceit

Just A Dream

She jolted awake her heart pounding as though it might burst from her chest the sound of her own screams still echoing in her ears ,her skin was stick and cold sweat ,her hand gripping the sheets as if holding on for dear life ,the room around her was dark but familiar bath in the dim glow of moon filtering through the curtains for a moment she lay still disoriented,her breath ragged with shallow eyes darted around the tiny room searching for the figure that has hunted her seconds before the blood, her mother,the violent shadows of her father.

But they were gone.

It was just a dream. Just another nightmare.

Yet, it felt so real. The weight of it pressed against her chest, refusing to lift. Her mother’s blood-streaked face, the sound of the blow, the desperation in her eyes—it all clung to her, lingering in the room like a ghost she couldn’t escape. She could still smell the metallic tang of blood, still hear the whispers in the back of her mind. The dream had felt like something more, like a memory, a twisted version of reality that seeped into every corner of her waking life.

Her hands trembled as she rubbed them over her face, trying to shake off the vision, but it wouldn’t leave. Every night it came back, the same horrific scene replaying in her mind over and over again, as though it was trying to tell her something. She knew it wasn’t real—her father had never hit her mother—but in the darkness of her room, it didn’t matter. The dream felt real enough to terrify her, real enough to haunt her every second of the day.

She could never run from it. Not even when she was awake.

The fear followed her like a shadow, creeping into every thought, every moment of silence. No matter how hard she tried to forget, the images would flash before her eyes—the blood, her mother’s broken figure, the rage in her father’s eyes. It was always there, just beneath the surface, waiting for night to fall so it could claim her again.

Her heart still raced, her body too tense to relax. She pulled the blankets tighter around herself, squeezing her eyes shut, but she knew it was useless. The dream wasn’t done with her.It wasn’t just a dream—it was a reflection of the pain she carried, the darkness that had stained her life long before the nightmares began. Every night, the same scene would play out, but it wasn't just fantasy. It was rooted in a truth that haunted her waking hours just as much as it consumed her sleep.

Her father’s hatred wasn’t an illusion. It was something she had felt, something she had known all her life. The way his eyes darkened whenever they fell on her, as if her very existence was an offense. The tension in the room whenever he was home, the heavy silence that spoke louder than any words could. He hated her—her presence, her breath, her being. She could never figure out why, but she had learned to live with the weight of it. It was in the way he never looked at her, or when he did, his gaze was cold, filled with a quiet, simmering anger.

But it wasn’t just her. He hated her mother too. And her mother, though gentle and kind, was as much a prisoner as she was. She saw it in the way her mother flinched when he entered the room, how her hands trembled when she tried to comfort her. The whispers between them were no longer whispers of love or hope—they were filled with fear, with unspoken words too dangerous to say aloud.

In her dreams, the violence was exaggerated—the blood, the blows, the fury—but in reality, the pain was quieter. It was in the sharp, cutting words he used, in the coldness that suffocated the house. Her mother bore the brunt of his anger, absorbing it like a sponge, never fighting back, just enduring, as if she had resigned herself to this fate.

And so, the nightmare that unfolded in her sleep wasn’t just a dream, but a reflection of the life she lived—a life where love had never existed between them, where hate filled the spaces meant for warmth. In the dream, her father’s hand struck her mother, but in life, it was his words that cut deepest, the way he spat venom at them both, his disdain etched in every glance, every gesture.

Her father had made it clear, time and again, that he resented them. Resented her. She was the mistake, the one who should never have been born, and her mother was the one who let it happen. It hung between them like a curse, unspoken but known. She saw it every day in the way her father avoided her, the way he spoke to her like she was nothing more than a burden. There was a time, long before the darkness settled into their lives, when her father had been different—when their home had been filled with warmth and laughter instead of silence and cold stares. She could remember it in bits and pieces, like fragile fragments of a dream she couldn’t quite grasp. Her father had once been her hero, strong and kind, with a laugh that echoed through the house, lifting every corner of it. He used to lift her onto his shoulders, letting her reach for the sky, and she believed nothing could hurt her as long as he was there. And her mother? She was radiant, full of life, her eyes shining with happiness whenever her father was near.

They were a family once. Whole. Happy.

But everything changed on her sixth birthday.

She remembered that day vividly, as though it was burned into her mind. It had started like any other birthday—balloons, laughter, a cake with six flickering candles. Her father had smiled at her, a real smile, one she hadn’t seen in years, and for a brief moment, everything felt perfect again. She had wished for nothing more than that—for her family to stay like this, happy, loving, just as they had been.

But then, something happened.

She didn’t know what it was, didn’t understand why the light in her father’s eyes dimmed that day, why the smile that had once made her feel so safe slowly disappeared as the hours passed. She could still see the way his expression had shifted—how something dark, something unspoken had clouded over his face. It was as if a switch had flipped inside him, something breaking, something turning cold and hard.

It started subtle at first. He became quieter, distant, withdrawing into himself. The laughter that had once filled their home became rarer, the moments of warmth fewer and farther between. His affection, once so freely given, became strained, like it cost him something to show love now. She would reach for his hand, but he would pull away, offering only a fleeting glance, one filled with something she didn’t understand—something that looked like disappointment, or worse, resentment.

Her mother noticed it too. She tried to talk to him, to ask what had changed, but he wouldn’t answer. The conversations turned to arguments, the silence between them growing longer, heavier. The love that had once blossomed between her parents began to wither, replaced by a tense, uneasy distance that no one spoke about. Her father stopped looking at her the way he used to, and the home that once felt safe and warm now felt foreign, like it belonged to someone else.

She didn’t know what had happened, what had caused the sudden shift on that birthday. All she knew was that her father had changed. The man who once adored her, who loved her mother deeply, had become a stranger overnight. The warmth in his eyes was replaced by cold indifference, and his once-gentle touch became absent altogether. The hero she had idolized was gone, replaced by someone she barely recognized—a man who resented her, who resented the very family he had once loved.

Her sixth birthday had been the last day she remembered him truly loving her. Everything after that was different. The days turned into years, and with each one that passed, the gap between them widened, until the father who had once lifted her to the sky felt like a distant memory—someone she could no longer reach, no matter how hard she tried.

And every night since, she was left wondering what had gone wrong, what had broken in him that day, and why it felt like, on her sixth birthday, she had lost her father forever.