Checkmate (On Hold Until SFT and TSL are completed)

Chapter Two: Cold as Ice

I returned my laptop and headset to their original place before I took a single step out of my room, ensuring that each device was locked away safely. My father may have been an imbecile, but he was thorough. If he grew suspicious of my actions at any given time, my very own room would be the first place he would tear apart. Regardless, I tucked them away neatly and made sure I deleted and destroyed the voice file within my laptop, making it untraceable and unsalvageable. No evidence could be left behind. 

I then gathered my things, my cell phone, my car keys, and the like to prepare for the rendezvous. As I retrieved my purse upon my bureau a picture of the four of us caught my eye. My mother, my father, my older brother, and myself at about seven years old, smiling for the camera. We were such a different family then. We were complete. We were whole. We were happy.

A life extinguished all too soon was all it had taken to rip us apart. 

I flipped the picture over so that I would not have to endure the stare of my own once joyous eyes, that knew nothing of pain. Nothing at all of misery. And the other pair of eyes, boring into me accusingly. It should have been you. They said. It's all your fault. 

But I was numb. The sullen, insipid sobbing was no more. There were no tears left to cry. No forgiveness to be bestowed for the sins of an earlier time. There was no escape, no salvation. It was nothing more than a vicious, endless cycle at this point. 

Scowling at my own pitiful, tired reflection in the mirror I nearly ripped my hair out trying to get it to look presentable in a neat bun, a sudden bout of anger and despair holding me in a vice grip. I forced myself to think of something else, but the house was too quiet. Too empty. It was only a painstaking reminder of the past.

It wasn't long before I couldn't stand to remain there alone anymore. I longed for the solace of the fresh leather bounds seats, the exhilaration of the road disappearing rapidly beneath me, the knowledge that I could go just about anywhere I wanted. Somewhere where I wouldn't have to think about how lost I felt. Somewhere where the past didn't matter.

Shaking my head I forced those thoughts away and focused on getting into my car. I moved to the front door, about to dash over to the garage to make a prompt escape, but my mother was there. 

Intoxicated to the point where she could barely stand. 

She stood there in a gorgeous red cocktail dress and absurd, fire red, five inch heels. Her crimson lipstick was smudged and her mascara caused her eyelashes to stick together grotesquely, her beautiful cerulean eyes bloodshot. She had a dazed, sloppy grin on her face and she was giggling ceaselessly, as though I had missed a hilarious joke. She clung lazily to the elaborate white banisters beside the stairs, struggling to hold herself upright, her white blonde hair sticking out in eight different directions. If I wasn't so belligerent with her obscene capacity to indulge in alcohol at all hours of the day, perhaps I would have found the situation more amusing. 

"Hey baby girl," she managed, slurring her words together unintelligibly. I sighed and made my way over to her, helping her remain upright. She leaned heavily upon me. 

"Hi Mom," I said, trying to disguise the disgust in my voice. Luckily, she was unable to perceive the subtle inflection in my tone in her state. 

"I'm tired." She hiccupped, drawing out the word like a four year-old. 

I rolled my eyes, as she was incapable of seeing the action standing beside me. "Yeah, I know. C'mon, let's get you to bed."

"Okay." She relented, laying her head on my shoulder. I fought back a grimace as I practically carried her up the stairs to her room, moving at a sluggish pace due to her minimal contribution to my efforts. When I finally got her on the bed I left without another word, overwhelmed as I was with both revulsion and pity. She was already asleep by the time I was out the door again, locking the door behind me.