Amor Rebelde

Chapter Six (unedited)

"I bottle everything up; I hide my emotions; I pretend to be okay. It's not healthy, I know, but I don't want to be a burden; I don't want to have people worried about me."

~Unknown~

"She's a monster!" a voice shrieked like a banshee. My mother obviously had not warmed up to the idea of a daughter after nearly eighteen years. She still saw me as a nuisance that took her partying lifestyle away. Not that it mattered. She was already reacquainting herself with it once again since my father was on his deathbed. What would her snotty friends think if she were a widow for a day longer than three? The horror! "How can you still consider her a blessing?"

Curling into a ball in the corner of my bed, I crushed my hands against my ears. Hoping to block the sound, I clenched my eyelids shut. Small pricks of pain tickled my scalp. Powerful blows rammed my stomach repeatedly at my mother's piercing phrases. Without knowing, cold tears stung my eyes until they slipped down my cheeks. I couldn't hear my father's words as he was too weak to talk loudly as my mother did.

"She's tearing us apart!"

My toes itched to walk away from all of this, but how would I be able to escape without one of them noticing? Trails of tears ran down my cheeks. Silent sobs wracked my body without mercy. My fingers dug painfully into my scalp until I was sure they created purple bruises. Curling tighter, I clenched my fists, leaning my head back against the pink wall. My bed creaked under my constant movement as I rolled my spine back and forth, back and forth.

Coolness kissed my bare skin, tears poured down freely like a tap. My legs were pressed against my body as if I were being shipped in a small box. Head resting on my knees, I let my greasy hair fall around my face. My hands were tense as I dug them into the cotton blankets and dragged them back, as if I were scratching a chalkboard.

"I can't care for her anymore!" her voice screamed.

A quiet murmur alerted me that my father had just spoken. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to decipher his words. But I did hear my mother's relentless, bitter comments that were thrown my way. She was yelling on purpose, hoping to break me. Hoping that I would make a tragic mistake. One that would tear my father apart. She wanted me gone so her life could continue like it had before I came along.

My heart slowly crumbled, hanging on by a lifeless thread. Blood barely pumped through from my unwillingness to live. What was the point if I was only hated, ridiculed, forgotten? My veins throbbed, blood rushed in my ears, chest constricted as if I were being choked by a snake. Breath shot out of my nose in slow, ragged beats. My head slammed with memories, thoughts, taunts.

 Gulping, I curled my toes underneath me as one final shrill cry filled the air.

"It's her or me."

Her...

Me...

My mother's high pitched voice scratched my ears, leaving open wounds in its wake. My eyes shut once again, tears falling like a thunderstorm. My throat felt as if I were being choked to the point of death, until the pressure was taken off. I was hanging between two worlds. Either had a terrifying fate awaiting me.

But, most importantly, both would be a place where I was forgotten like a speck of dust.

~~~~~~~~~~

Caws of birds surrounded me. The wind rustled leaves from the trees as my feet stepped lightly on the sidewalk. It was barely seven in the afternoon and the sun was already gone, devoured by the darkness, silence. From my peripheral view, I saw multiple, happy families sitting down to dinner or finishing off their last crumb. Even the pets received more attention in an hour than I did my whole life.