✔️ SLANDEROUS INTENTIONS | +18

Chapter 4

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HELENA

I feel like my life is tightly tied to a prolonged string, and it pulls at me, dragging me through a void of bad luck, drowning me in pain and impotence.

I can't breathe, as I feel this string of misfortunes I am cursed with wrapping around my throat. I try to take deep breaths, but I can't. My throat burns, as if it's on fire. It's dry, my voice robbed from me — I can only cough. I close my eyes, trying to calm down, as a flashback reflects in my mind.

Could my day get any worse? I hate my poor life.

I guess the cosmos heard my voice and decided to teach me a lesson for being ungrateful. I should be grateful for my life because it seems like it could get even worse. The irony is that I complained about being poor, and then came home, my father welcoming me with a rich match to marry.

Opening my eyes, I look out of the window from the ground. Closing my eyes made the day vanish. Time elapsed like a river — hours felt like seconds.

The sky is a deep shade of blue, like it's been painted with dark ink. Shiny diamonds adorn it like an expensive accessory. It looks seraphic. And I pray to the creator of this seraphic scene, asking for an angel to save me.

But no miracle happens, just like when I cried and screamed during that savage conflict with my father. Yet no resident turned on the lights or knocked on our door. They chose to be bystanders, not a helping hand for me. Surrounded by a crowd of people, I still feel like I live in isolation.

I come to the conclusion that I have to be my own miracle. I can't wait any longer for God to answer my screams for help or my struggle with despair. I am all on my own. I have to save myself.

I try to ignore the pain in my abdomen as I slowly get off the floor, but it feels like my stomach is churning. I cry out in pain, slump back down, and hold my stomach, feeling like I am dying.

I complied. I fulfilled his wishes. And that was my mistake. I offered him a hand, and he devoured my whole arm, down to the bone. I gave him love, and he drained me of all my vitality. And he wants more and more. But I can't give him any more of myself — not anymore. Because I feel like a living corpse.

I have to escape him and his slanderous intentions towards me, or I will remain a living corpse for the rest of my life. Taking a deep breath, I struggle to get up. When I finally rise from the floor, I hobble to my room.

Still, there's a fight within me. I don't want to leave him alone. I really want to heal him. But I am not his antidote. I am not. Like a deadly nightshade — so alluring for me with its beautiful lilac hue — he will poison me to death if I try to touch him again, trying to pull him out of his misery. He has to cure himself.

I won't get him back. That's a fact I have to accept: he's gone. I won't experience a father's love again. I won't feel the embrace of a protective father again. I won't experience a father's care again. I have to accept that I lost him when my mother died. That I became a full orphan that day.

I had to learn it the hard way, through pain and torment. And I lost so much because I was blind to reality — I was robbed of so much during my teenage years. My friends left me because I had no time for them, as I had to take care of my father. My leisure time was replaced with labor. I wiped tables while others my age had fun. My education was blocked. I am just a high school graduate.

But I could be so much more if he hadn't broken my backbone. His anger ate away all my confidence. Tonight, I grew it back a little, just for him to break it once more. And it's going to be ripped from my body if I don't leave. So, I have to leave.