An Average Girl

Addicted To Your Touch

Sitting in the sterile white kitchen I munched on some baby carrots with ranch dip. The crunch of each orange vegetable kept rattling around my brain with no distractions to keep me sane. Despite all that, I couldn’t stop consuming them, it was like an addiction I was adamant to keep. It is not like stopping would have accomplished anything anyways, the grating sound of my white teeth gnawing away at dense vegetable was better than the emptiness.

Hey soul sister, hey there mister mister, on the radio, stereo, the way you move ain’t-

Without even glancing at the caller ID, I picked up my phone from the counter next to me. There weren’t too many people who had this number.

“Hello,” I breathed into the speaker, waiting patiently for a response from the other end.

“Hey baby girl,” the deep worn voice greeted. Every nerve in my body was electrocuted, my muscles tensed as if expecting him to be near. My eyes nervously darted around, fearing he was lurking around a corner, waiting for me. Was this all a game to him, did he enjoy taunting me?

My vocal chords refused to work. I had nothing left to say.  “Listen, just come home. I want to see you, we could go out for lunch or something,” he pleaded. He was broken like the wings of a butterfly after a sadistic kid has purposefully stepped on them. The wings would have healed, if its heart wasn’t broken too.

“I can’t do that. Don’t ask me to do that,” I whispered, afraid to hurt him more, petrified to be hurt myself. He already made his decision months ago, and there would be no changing the words he uttered that night, he can’t take back his actions no matter how much he tries. There’s not enough forgiveness in the world to make things right again. They will never be right for me again, so why should he get to live a normal life while I'm forced to suffer?

“Please baby. I’m your father, I love you,” he begged. Begging, he was begging for me to be his little girl once more. Did he want me to pretend we were a happy loving family? I would not do it, not for him. I have no imagination left to believe I was ever his princess.

“I love you,” he repeated desperately, but those three words only infuriated me, filled my body with such despicable vile, that I had no choice but to stand in indignation at his claims freeing my frozen muscles from their stiff cage.

“You don’t love me,” I harshly told him hanging up the phone before he could fill my ears with anymore lies straight from the serpent’s tongue. Throwing my phone on kitchen counter like it could bite me at any moment; I stared at the tiny black device, the messenger of the bad omen.

Pacing around the cold tile floor, my steps were swift and jerky, unsure of where I was heading. I wanted to run, but there was no place to hide where he would not find me.

Hesitantly I peered at the abandoned phone once more, worrying that he may try to call me back. Dread over-whelmed me like a nightmare too real to not be reality. The phone call struck a haunting chord inside of me, leaving me shivering outside in the rain with only the lightning for company.

The click of the lock snapped me out of my frenzy, halting my pacing and freezing me in place like a marble statue that was never meant to be moved. Was he here all along? Was the phone call just a formality before he made me come with him anyways? Slowly creeping backwards, my footsteps remained soundless as I attempted to hide myself amongst the cabinets. The clacking of shoes against the floor made me pause as logic tried to re-enter my brain once more. The person was getting closer to the kitchen, and we were on a crash course for one another, there was nothing to stop this collision now.

The outline of a frame caused me to scream, a small terrified shriek that sent my heart racing, each beat pulsing inside my body, the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Before I could run and grab the cold metal knife that was lazily seated on the counter, I recognized the person as my mother. My face flushed at my stupidity, the erratic beating of my heart slowing down.