tell me you love me - todomomo

Chapter One: A Hellish Nightmare

Momo crashed through the seemingly endless hallways of her family's house. She stumbled around blindly as a haze of tears and sobs clouded her vision. Occasionally she would bump into  an expensive side table or an overpriced vase as she desperately attempted to reach the sanctuary of her room. 

Who would make a house so big? Why did her parents feel the need to have so much fancy furniture and such an unnecessarily large amount of unused rooms and hallways? Especially when there were only three of them and half the time one of them wasn't even there. 

All the way from the front foyer she could hear the slamming of the large oak doors. Her mother was always home first, and her father was always soon to follow. She knew that in a matter of minutes she would hear the hysterical screams of her mother and the retaliatory shouts of her father echo through the painfully large house. No amount of walls and hallways and furniture could mask that sound. 

Then came the next painful slam of the front door. Yelling ensued. 

Hurrying her pace, she felt along the walls for her familiar door. With each painful step she took, the shouts seemed to become louder, the commute to her room longer. 

She gasped in relief when her fingers finally glided along the smooth surface of her bedroom door. Hurtling herself into the unlit room, she slammed the door, not caring how loud of a sound it made, and slid down against it. She melted into her sobs as shrill arguments carried over hallways and floated through walls, unimpaired by the barriers.

"This is your fault! You never stop working! It's like you can't even stand to be around us. I practically raise Momo by myself!" 

"Yeah well who makes the money in this family? Because I don't see you stepipng up for that job! In fact, when is the last time you did anything except bitch?" 

"How could you say that?! I go and work nine to five every day, then bust my ass at home taking care of Momo. I make her breakfast, I make dinner, I clean the house, I do the laundry, I do everything around here and you have the balls to tell me I'm bitching!? Yeah, well, you know what, next time you come home at one in the morning, drunk off you're ass because you were "having a drink with your buddies", I won't bitch, I'll just throw you out on your ass!" 

And this was normal. On an especially bad day, they wouldn't even talk. Instead, they would just sit in stone cold silence until one or the other just up and left, packing their bags to go stay at a relatives. 

Momo covered her ears with her hands. She balled her knees up to her chest and begged the yelling to stop. She sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and the tears didn't stop. They just didn't. 

She let out heaving cries as she broke down in her own arms, utterly defeated. She was broken. Cracked like a vase and she didn't know if she could manage to glue herself back together if this kept up. More tears slipped down her face, running down her knees and mixing with the remaining rain that sat on the surface of her skin as she ran a hand through her wet, raven hair and let her head drop against her door. 

Eventually, when it seemed the she had no more tears to shed, when she was just dry sobbing into her knees and the satisfaction of tears never came, she stood herself up.

With shaky legs she stumbled over to her full length mirror, examining her reflexion. Her raven black hair was matted down and her clothes were soaked all the way through. She sighed as she stripped from her wet school uniform and tossed it aside, too tired to care about relocating them to the hamper. 

With tired, red eyes, her body aching, and her throat still burning from an hour of sobbing, she fell into the merciful throes of her bed, letting herself pretend for one moment that she didn't have to care. Just for that moment. Wouldn't anyone save her from this hellish nightmare?