Hello! Just thought that I should clear up that I don't own any of these characters besides the ones that I think of myself. Please enjoy, and review at the end if you do! Thank you!
One: Mindless
"What did I tell you about writing those fool stories, lying around all day! What did I tell you, you stupid girl!" Charles yelled, holding his large fist over my head. I backed away against the wall, holding my small hands over my face for what little protection I had. Thinking as quickly as I could, I grabbed the book off the shelf against the wall, shielding my face. He laughed a gruel laugh and pushed my shoulders against the wall. My back arched with fear, and instead of it hitting the wall, my shoulder blades caught me.
"Charles, please, we can let this go –" I started, but he rattled my entire frame before I could speak again. All I saw in his eyes was pure rage. I was surprised that his eyes weren't fully red.
"How many times do I gotta tell you, you're never going to be anybody! You're no one! You cook, and you clean for me, do you got it? You listen to me. You will serve ME. You will play your role, and nothing more!" he grabbed me by the throat, holding me against the wall again. His hand constricted around my airway, ceasing my ease of breathing for a second. I panicked, gasping to try and inhale desperately, but no air came. I tried to speak his name, as if he were some higher source, a king in a robe and diadem, if he would just let me breathe. I would do anything he asked if he let me breathe again. I was beginning to forget what air tasted like. How did one breathe? Was breathing really that easy?
I gasped as he dropped me back down onto the floor, feeling the air hiss into my lungs, sweet, sweet air that I would never take for granted again. I heaved on the floor for a few more moments before he grabbed my arm again, picking me up with one of his strong arms.
"You listen to me, girl, you will not sit around writing those damn stories all day when there's work to be done. Or next time, you might not breathe again in time. I let you off nice this once." He shoved me against the bookshelf. A few books toppled out of it onto me, along with the vase that always sat atop it, breaking in shards on the wood floor. I shielded my face for protection, and thankfully no glass injured me. I finally conjured up the strength to lift my head up to see his face.
I suddenly was seeing stars, my head upon the floor again. I knew this feeling. This feeling of my head spinning around and around, like a classroom globe .Like when a child would spin it so quickly that it was a blur of continents on the sphere, and the latitude and longitude lines were all just a fermented grid.
"Don't. Look. At. Me." he growled and turned so his back was all my ascending vision could see. "I'm going out."
All I could manage to do was blink and try to make out the slamming door as he stomped down the steps outside. I could hear him trudging farther off of the gravel walkway. Maybe he wouldn't come back. At least for a day or so, it happened before, and I had enough time to pull myself back together. To conceal the bruises on my face and arms, make myself look presentable while he drank himself silly.
I realized a few stray tears leaked down my cheeks. Lifting my hand to my face, I felt the tingling spot where his large hand had come into contact. I then checked my throat. His hands still felt like they were there, suffocating my trachea like a bubble desperately trying to make it to the surface. It popped just in time.
Now, this moment, I wished to gather my things up and run away. To escape all of this. The constant torture, the beatings, the anger. The evil. Charles actually used to be quite nice; he was even a gentleman at times. He held the door for me, I'd hang up his coat, and he would even set the table. When he'd asked me my hand in marriage, I had accepted, believing that though I barely knew him, we would in time grow into love. How wrong I was… everybody would scoff and talk about me – I was getting a little old for marriage, and the remarks were getting less and less subtle. My parents and sister would just flat out tell me that I was too old, and needed to settle down with a husband. Blushing was something I did often whenever they brought the subject up; it was a touchy thing. My mother's sour looks were the worst when she spoke of my lack of husband. She constantly told me that I didn't need to be in love to marry, and that learning to love was a good skill to learn. I knew that I should already be married by then, but I wanted to move West to become a teacher. Of course, my parents wouldn't allow it. They always said I should be perfectly fine and content living here. But I wasn't, entirely.
Marrying Charles Evenson was no more than a task at hand, so my parents would approve of me, so I could make something of myself. I never was quite like the other girls. While they were off fawning over boys they were eligible to marry, I was climbing trees and eating apples, drawing and talking to myself. Never did I have a true friend. Some of them came and went, but they married much before me, and were whisked away with thoughts of love, and children. I was never the type of girl to imagine what my wedding would look like someday. I didn't even think about marriage – I much more enjoyed running with my brother nonstop, being myself. But occasionally, my mother would shove me into a corset and fluffy skirt, usually for a holiday, and I'd find myself imagining what it would be like to be one of "them", just for a little while. Upon my imaginings, I'd usually be taking the bows out of my red hair. Because I was youngest, Mother always thought that I just looked darling in braids with bows tied at the ends. I was always the one to disagree. Bows get you a lot of cheek pinching, and "oh, how darling!'s", and I never liked it. I was about seven before she stopped trying to lasso me with the bows, and yes, my hair was red up until I was about sixteen. It lightened up a lot, and so did my freckles. My grandmother always used to tell me that I better pray that it lighten up as I got older, because no man would want such a red-haired, freckle-faced dimwit. My grandmother was never the nicest person.
I curled in a ball on the floor and pondered the thought that it didn't have to be this way. Right then, as I laid on the floor curled up, I imagined how horrible it would be to still be a young maid now. There weren't that many downsides.
Cold was seeping into the room like frost on a winter's morn, and I lifted my hand to my watering eyes to inspect the tips that had turned a frozen red color. I was still only in my underclothes, just as I was when Charles pulled me from the bedroom. I was redressing, because I'd smeared flour all over my apron. It was an attempt to try and be a good wife to him; the cookies had turned out fine, but for some reason, I always managed to spill half a bag of flour on myself. I'd gone up to change when he charged into the room and grabbed me by the wrist. His face was filled with pure anger and hate, and I gasped as he pulled me down the hallway, shoving my halfway down the stairs. I vaguely remembered my limbs twisting up from under me, and I'd fallen down to the first landing, hitting my face on the banister. I looked up to see his hot, fuming face, the vein emerging from his neck.
"What did I tell you about writing this – this garbage!" he exclaimed, shoving my cluttered papers in my face. My etchy handwriting, I could make out from where I was struggling to stand up, trying to cover myself up in front of him. It was my journal, he had ripped the pages out of the spine with his huge, forceful hands. It made me want to cry, all of my work crinkled up in his hand. He ripped one random page up and held it above his head to read it.
"Charles, please… give it back… please!" I begged and jumped for it desperately like a child. He still played keep-away, holding it where I could never reach on my own. I would do anything for him not to read my work. Partly because it was private, and because – because he just couldn't take things from me. I hated it when he always took away my belongings. My paintbrushes that were a gift from my brother, the money I'd received from him as well. It seemed that Charles took almost everything that belonged to me.
"How many times have I told you, wife… you do the cooking, cleaning, and we share the bed, you do nothing else!" He then proceeded to open the front of the fire stove, shoving the crinkled pages in to dilapidate in the licking, hot flames.
"No!" I cried, trying to reach for them like I could somehow save them. He shoved me back, and that was eventually how I ended up on the floor. Helpless and throbbing, like I often was. I never seemed to do anything right. I burned his dinners, I hung his clothes out for too long, and they became rough. Or they weren't out long enough and they were slightly damp. I didn't dust well enough. The picture on the wall was crooked, and of course it was my fault.
I'm not saying I was faultless. Charles used to be quite nice to me. But when I ever imagined getting married, when the slight idea even popped into my head as a child, I always wished my husband would call me something nice, like darling, or dear. Never once had he called me anything other than Esme; occasionally, he would call me 'wife', or something along the lines of 'wench'. I tried to call him nice things, but he always blew it off and sometimes snorted, saying something like 'save it for the bed, Esme.' His abuse wasn't always verbal, it turned physical. It didn't always use to be that way; Charles was sweet to me in public, or when we first were married. He brought me home the graceful black and white cat as a wedding present, and when we were in public, he often held my hand to lead me. But he was always in control. That was what started off the abusing. His constant need to feel like a king; that I should serve to his every need and see him as the highest possible creature in my life. When I did not, or refused to do what he said, I was beaten.
I said nothing to the people around me for a while – it was too difficult to explain, so I tried to hide the bruises the best I could. I wore long sleeves, making an attempt to hide the marks, and I didn't make an appearance in public when I had bruises on my face. Many would talk about me, how I was so antisocial sometimes. What they didn't understand was that I was trying to give Charles another chance time and time again. Once my sister discovered a bruise on my arm, and then fully inspected me from head to toe and found many more, I had to tell the truth. Of course, then my mother found out, and I had to tell her too.
She encouraged me to keep quiet about the beating and cruelness. I couldn't believe it for a moment, believing that I heard her words wrong. But then she continued to go on about how a little beating isn't bad for you, and maybe I was the problem. On the verge of tears that my own mother didn't listen to me, she finished off by telling me that I should keep quiet and be a good wife. Hadn't I been trying to be a good wife? Hadn't I cooked his meals, did his laundry, gave him everything he wanted!
The cat he had given me suddenly nosed under my arm, curling itself up to my side. Barely moving as tears streamed down my cheeks, I sobbed into its fur, hugging him to my body. He was the only thing I had. I had no friends. My brother was gone, moved away, and even he told me to try and see the good in him. All of my old friends were married with children now, barely wanting anything to do with me. My mother and sister were more interested in their own lives, much too invested. All I had was this little cat, and an invective husband that was probably off drinking himself sick.
Scooping the cat up weakly as I finally dragged myself up, I carried him to the bedroom where I barely slept, carefully setting him on the bed. He shook out, shaking his thin body side to side as I pulled on my gown. Hopefully Charles wouldn't be back soon. The cat curled up on my pillow, as near to me as possible as I pulled the covers up, praying for dreamless sleep.
Soooo? What did you think? I know that this chapter is sort of short, but it was just sort of the starter chapter… her thoughts of Carlisle are going to come in later, I promise… please review if you liked… please do if you didn't, any feedback it good for me! I can see what I can do better… oh, and I was trying to decide if I should name Esme's baby or not, eventually, so if you have a good name, and you want me to use it, puuhleeese put it in the review! Thank you! More will be coming soon!