Chapter One: Existing
Dirty blonde hair. Eyes as blue as a clear sky. Clear, pale skin that never darkens. A life almost completely alone within a small, two-bedroom apartment. No friends. Perfect grades. Hours to think about what's out there, and what's not in here.
That basically sums me up. Minus my name. Most people look at my father before they see me, anyway – tall, intimidating, handsome, and working for the greater good. His employer? MNU. He worked to eradicate the prawns' existence in our everyday lives, and also worked to learn of their ways of life: their weapons, their planet, and the mother ship that hovered over Johannesburg. Everyone saw a beautiful façade when his or her eyes rested upon him. Everyone thought he was a perfect gentleman, an important part of society.
Only I saw the truth. The anger, the drinking, the verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse. My mother had died years ago, leaving me alone with a slowly deteriorating and overbearing control freak. My father spoke my name as if it was garbage rolling off his tongue. "Keely, you filthy, lazy whore!" A dinner plate broken on my skin. A thousand stings. Only because he was still hungry. I hadn't put enough on his plate.
That night, I cleaned up the bloody pieces of porcelain, made another plate without getting my dripping blood on it. I bandaged myself, and cleaned up the drops that had leaked to the floor. My arms ached. So did my eyes.
My father was often gone, though. I rejoiced in the days when I was asleep before he was home. I would often travel to a nearby field of wheat grasses and wild flowers, too. Other girls about my age would flounce around the nearby males, go shopping, get piss drunk and ruin themselves.
I wasn't a normal eighteen year old. I was suppressed and broken. No one saw beneath the careful collection of lies my father and I had both built. But I was drowning in them.
The field was my place away from pain. If heaven did indeed exist, it would look like the field. I wouldn't have to think about pasty, off-white walls, neat and immaculate, nor the laundry, cleaning, cooking, and caring that I did for my father. Red-faced, meaty handed father, who never said thank you or gave a smile. The itchy carpet would be off of my mind, and my meager collection of possessions would be burned along with my sadness and loneliness. I didn't want any reminders of what my life was when I went to the field.
The only thing I felt a connection to was a picture of my mother. We looked so alike it was shocking – only, her expression was happy. Loving. She looked like she would have been a good mother. She was gone, though. Always had been. And I had learned, very early on, that love was something I couldn't deserve, or earn. It was given unfairly to those who underestimated its value, while those like myself groveled their entire lives. Hoping. Wishing. All for something that made bile rise to my throat for how much I hated it.
Another thing to add to the list that was just as small and insignificant as my existence: Keely Ardal despised and detested the very thought of love.