the madness is won
[the title is from crowded house's saturday sun]
Thalia sheds tears of fury as she stuff her little Eeyore soft toy into a faded green slingbag. The words she and her mother have just flung at each other echo in her head loudly.
"Stop eating so much, you'll get fat!"
"WORTHLESS!"
"I will never, EVER be like you."
"Never good enough!"
"I'm LEAVING!"
"You're never going to be anything if you keep acting like this."
The tears fall hot and fast. Her heart feels like it's clenched; like it's rolled into a ball. Like it's bleeding profusely and is desperately trying to mend itself. It's so used to being cut at with scathing criticism and harsh words that Thalia almost welcomes the feeling. It's something familiar, at least.
No, she thinks as she breathes in deeply and slings the bag over her shoulder. I am not standing for any of this any longer. I'm going to leave for good. I'm going to run away.
The reality of the situation hits her as she pulls a T-shirt off a hanger. This is her house that she has lived in for thirteen years. It isn't a home at all; just a big brick mansion that seems just as alien to her as it did when she was a toddler. This is all she knows of life. This is all she has.
I'm going to build another life, then. Another home. A better one.
She doesn't know how she's going to do it. She doesn't know if she's going to succeed. Everything is uncertain.
But Thalia has always been the one to take risks, to take a chance on anything. She's gotten through living with her mother for so long. She's gotten through losing her brother. She's gotten through countless nights, lying awake and sobbing into her pillow. She's been so lonely.
Not anymore, she thinks as she slams the door of her room.
"I'm not putting up with this! Thalia, show some respect! Get back here right now!" her mother screams at her as she watches her daughter march downstairs defiantly, her up-do messy and out of place. Her face is red with anger. "Thalia, I swear -"
But Thalia shoves past her and out of the house, with nothing but a green slingbag and hope.
She's gotten through thirteen years of life with her mother. She's going to get through whatever lies ahead.
"Goodbye!" she says with a tone of such finality that her mother is shocked into silence.
Goodbye.
She's going to rebuild everything.
Goodbye.
a/n - i'm back to writing pjo angst drabbles, apparently. review?