Love, Scarlett | WATQ WINNER

07 | those bottles

FATHERS ARE SUPPOSED to be a daughter's first hero, her first love and the one man that she should be able to count without any doubt.

Fathers are supposed to be a son's first hero, his first teacher and a man he can look upto.

Fathers are supposed to be a family's bread earner, their back bone and the man they all can rely on.

But what if he isn't any of the above? What if you cannot look him even in the eye, what if he is the one that stabbed you in the back when you thought he was watching your back?

What he broke your family and even you?

That is what her father did.

Scarlett's father was the most sought after guy in his high school and college days. He was the one with the charming smile, an enigma of a personality that made you want to be by his side.

Teachers praised him, his friend circle was the largest and girls swooned after him.

And then there is a plot twist: he fell in love.

He fell in love that felt like there was no stopping for the falling. He was absolutely, completely smitten.

And so was she, Scarlett's mother.

Their love was the young kind of love, the one which made you keep yourself updated with their happenings. The one which was sure to last forever.

And it did, at least for a part of forever.

Soon after they got married in the most beautiful wedding that their financial status would allow, then had Scarlett.

Scarlett had an amazing childhood, filled with bear hugs and chocolates and what not.

But then the clouds over their house became dark and there was no more open laughter heard from their windows.

All that was heard was screaming and crying and the scrawny sound of glass cracking.

Scarlett was scared, she was absolutely terrified. Of her father, of what a monster he had become. She would sit on the last step of the staircase and listen to what words her dad hurled at her mother.

Every evening after he came back from the office used to consist of watching playing in their backyard, and bed time stories. Now the flowers in their garden wilted and her dad passed out each night in his own sweat, a bottle of vodka or whiskey or wine omnipresent in his hands.

He never asked how she was doing anymore, the talks at the dinner table was reduced to heavy, heavy, silences that crushed them all.

He blamed her mother for everything, for stealing him of his money, when in reality he bank statements only consisted of alcohol bottles.

He wasn't a dad, a husband or even a man anymore.

He was a monster, created from bowing to the lusts of life, the destruction that causes you to lose yourself.

Scarlett's father got lost in alcohol and was never found again.

Instead he left behind a ghost of himself to suck the life out of both the women in his life.

And thus there were no more bear hugs and laughter in the Young household.