For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1
Additional warning (sort of): this particular scene could be considered mildly descriptive.

Scene 7: The Wall
(Age: 10)

Kara's head was throbbing as she tried to focus on her math test but apparently the page was determined to remain a blur... an annoyingly bright blur. The light was hurting her eyes and she didn't really seem to be able to concentrate no matter what she did but --as was too often the case-- there was nothing she could do about it.

Sure, the idea of just closing her eyes and resting her head on her desk for a moment sounded incredibly appealing but Kara knew that was definitely not an option. To make matters worse, her thoughts kept drifting back to the night before, or what she could remember of it. Unfortunately in some places her memory seemed to be about as blurry as her math test.

Her mom had been beyond pissed --she remembered that much-- and Kara had the bruises to prove it... not that that was unusual. The thing was that even though she knew the previous night had been pretty bad, there were a number of things Kara couldn't quite figure out, starting with exactly what it was that she'd done to make her mom so mad in the first place. That wasn't good, it meant she couldn't be sure it wouldn't happen again. As best as she could tell she had either startled her mom or she had made too much noise, though the only thing she could really remember was her mom suddenly turning around, lifting her by her upper arms and slamming her back against a wall time and time again as she made her repeat that she was worthless.

It had been pretty scary. From the moment her mom had lifted her off the ground there had been absolutely nothing she could do. She had been nothing but a passenger and that had been terrifying but it had also been more than a little weird.

Kara was pretty used to her mom losing it and as a result she usually knew how to minimize the damage. How to roll with the punches was a lesson she'd learned early on, but the thing was that while she was being slammed against the wall the night before there had been one moment when everything had seemed to shift, just for an instant, one so brief Kara couldn't help but wonder if it had been something real, if it had happened at all.

She remembered the back of her head hitting the wall behind her, hard, and then all of a sudden --and against all odds-- the pain had disappeared. In that moment she had seen something in her mother's eyes, something she had never seen before. As she'd looked into her mother's eyes Kara had seen a gleam there that had made her wonder if she was ever going to stop.

That had lasted only a fraction of a second and then the pain had come crashing down on her with a vengeance but that fraction of a second had been more than enough. For the first time in her life Kara had found herself wondering if her mom was actually going to kill her... and not really caring about it. In fact, in that instant --as the pain had come back, totally overwhelming her-- she had almost welcomed the possibility.

That had been the weird part. It wasn't that the beating had been the worst she'd ever received --not by a long shot-- nor was it that she wanted to die, not really. It was just that the thought that her mom might someday actually go too far had never really crossed her mind before and that was the part that had shocked her the most, the part she couldn't stop thinking about no matter what she did.

What would have happened if her mom had actually killed her? That was something Kara had never even considered before. As dumb as it sounded, the idea that she might actually die was one that had never really crossed her mind. As for what would have happened if her mom had killed her, she didn't really know, she didn't really care, though there was one thing she did know for sure: it wasn't like anyone would have missed her... and that was fine with her.