Jade sat up in her bed, blinking quickly and trying to adjust her eyes to the dim light. It wasn't at all morning. It must've been two, maybe three in the morning and Jade could hear her mother thrashing about somewhere in the noisy house. She shakes her head and gets up, the cold brushing against her almost bare legs. The stairs creak under her weight as she pads into the living room, calling out for her mother uselessly.
"Jade, my daaarling," She slurs from the living room floor. Jade scoffs at her, shaking her head once again.
"You're a total mess." She says to her, taking the glass out of her hand. "You shouldn't even be trusted to take care of yourself." Jade looks her up and down, swearing not to turn out like her ill-mannered, alcoholic mother. She puts the glass in the sink, and turns to go back to her room and sleep. A shabby, dirty man grips her arm as she tries to. Jade's eyes bug as she tries to escape his grip.
"Mommy, help," She cries. "Mommy!" The man grips her harder and laughs.
"Don't be frightened!" He chuckles. "I wouldn't possibly hurt you." She cries and cries but it's no use.
"Mommy, I don't like it," She shouts again. He hits her and she passes out, falling to the ground with a thud.
It's morning and Cat doesn't know where she is. She wakes up bleary eyed and tired, and she's all alone. She's in a huge black room, with not much light and once her eyes start to get used to the light, she makes out just a window. She whimpers, but no one can hear her. She calls out, but no one can hear her. She cries – but no one can hear her.
She wants to go home but nobody's home , that's where she lies broken inside, with no place to go no place to go to dry her eyes. Broken inside!
Hot tears sting her eyes and drip down her pale face. Her curly hair gets in her face and she wants to tie it back – show mommy what a good girl she is – but she can't.
"Where are you, mommy." She whispers into the darkness, pleading more than asking.
She walks around, finding a switch. It's a light. She flips it and then slumps by the window. It's the crack of dawn – literally – but she finds that she's not at all tired, or weary. She's droopy with sleep, or the lack of, and wary. She sighs. Cat seems to sigh a lot lately. Her un-brushed hair is flat and dull and her eyebrows knit together when she sees anything anymore. Her bottom lip is in a permanent pout and her fingernails are stubs thanks to countless worries.
Jade remembers when her mother wasn't quite so bad. She was still terrible, but she went out to do whatever she did when she brought all of these people home nowadays. She used to enjoy the blissful hours of peace when she went out, and so she spent hours and hours just sitting, taking in the quiet and cutting up a magazine with her favourite scissors. Sometimes she'll just hold her scissors now, in fear of them getting taken or getting hit for making a mess on the not-so-white-but-had-to-stay-"white"-carpet.
Jade's finally made sense of everything – before she woke up, I mean. She's sore and grey bruises are forming all over her. The house is still packed, party in full swing, with her mother laughing in the middle of the room, forgetting about her "darling Jade" for now. She hates even being in her own home now – she doesn't feel safe. Even less so than before, now. She knows that now her mother has gotten a taste for a party, it'll never stop. She'll never be alone, never be just her and her scissors.
This used to be funhouse, but now it's full of evil clowns. It's time to start the countdown – I'm gonna burn it down.
She scrambles to her feet and runs out of the door. Tears sting her eyes and the slight breeze feels like the sort you get with torrential rain. It doesn't matter. She just wants to run. It's not quite that simple though. She's not naïve. She's just a child – she won't survive on her own. Tears are pouring now, and she's not even out of her neighbourhood. She leans on a wall. She's not even got any shoes on. That's not what worries her most though. She's forgotten the thing that she loves the most. The thing that she keeps close to her at all times. Her scissors. She cries and cries and cries, because if you think about it, she's just a baby. She can walk and talk and she can eat and drink, she can read and spell out words like m-a-t and c-a-t and she can write a wobbly Jade on her paper, but that's about it as far as her talents go. She sings herself to sleep at night, but she figures so does everyone else. Once she read a story aloud, making the troll sound grumpy and the good witch happy – but that didn't end well.
It's only been five minutes at most, but she goes home, sighing. She braces herself for hits and punches being thrown at her, but all she gets is a smothering from her mother. She runs over to Jade, cradling her close.
"Jade, where have you been?" She chokes out, exasperated. Jade's face wears a wary expression, her lips slightly parted as she looks on, not even speaking.
"Well?" Jade's mother repeats, fancying herself a miracle worker with children now, apparently.
"Get off of me," Jade says, slightly confused. Jade's mother doesn't take the hint. "Get off of me!" She shrieks, punching and kicking and biting and clawing like a wild animal.
"Jadelyn Rose West!" She shouts. "I am your mother and you'll hug me!" Jade is taken aback. Never mind that Rose isn't even her middle name, surely her mother has gone crazy, demented! Veins on her forehead pop slightly and her lips are pressed into a thin pencilled line – though the pencilled bit isn't on her lip much. She struggles to get free, but her mother gives up.
"Ha, you're an absolute wreck! Seven years old and-"
"I'm five," She says, holding her head high.
"Can you even look me in the eye?" Jade's mother says, taking Jade's face in her hands. It's not gentle. It leaves hand and nail marks in her face. Jade closes her eyes, a tear rolling down her cheek. Her mother pushes her face to one side roughly. "I didn't think so!" She cackles, pinching Jade's cheek. "Five years old, and you're already a messed up little kid."
Jade breathes out a shaky breath, her eyes closing once again. She swallows, though there's a lump in her throat, her breath catching. She won't admit it, but her face stings and her heart feels like its breaking. She should be used to it by now – it's normal for her mother to hurt her and make her feel small. She can't just get over it though. She always tries to not cry in front of her mother. It was drilled into her from such a young age that crying was weakness, that she just hated it.
She'd just fallen asleep after crying buckets of tears, and the door to the bleak room cracked open. She sighs in relief.
"Take me home, mommy….please." She's been there for ages now, it's way past morning.
Her mother opens her dry mouth, trying to make a coherent sentence form. She nods.
"Of course, darling…I just have to get something, you wait here," Cat jumps up.
"No, mommy, please, don't leave me again, please mommy, please…" The door slams as she tries to plead harder. She blinks, a little confused. Her mother looked disorientated, and confused; maybe even a little scared. Cat loved her mother dearly. There was no denying it. So she waited and she waited. She waited and waited and waited. It was getting dark and quiet. Cat wanted to still believe her mother was coming, so she did. She believes everything, sweet little Cat. Her hope is fading. She closes her eyes and rubs her head. She draws her knees up and rests her head on them. She watches the door as it all becomes a blur, the picture running down her cheeks with her tears. She wipes them away without really caring. Tears don't really mean much, do they.
Soon after, her mother returns. Cat jumps up once again, clinging to her mother.
"I missed you, innocent." Her mother says to her, using the gentle nickname she was almost born with.
"I missed you too, mommy." Cat sighs, burrowing her nose further into her mother's cardigan. She's sick and tired of being let down, she's sick and tired of the dark and she's sick and tired of lies. She just wants to go home. Home is where she feels safe. She walks with her mother to a car, where they drive home. Cat jumps out and goes into her home – her haven. She walks in and her mother follows like a lost puppy. Once they're inside, it all starts again. Cat sits at the dining table, watching her mother warily.
She picks up a bottle of vodka and Cat sighs. She even knows what they are now – she's only four. She can smell it as she hears her opening and pouring it into one of her funny glasses. They're tiny little glasses, but she usually drinks about twenty of them so Cat thinks she should use a normal glass. She comes into the lounge and sits down on the couch. She turns to look at her angel faced daughter, but for the first time, Cat turns around, away from her, disgusted. She shakes her head and laughs at her mother, a dry laugh with no whatsoever humour.
Don't turn around; I'm sick and I'm tired of your face. Don't make this worse you've already gone and got me mad.
Cat walks out, retreating to her room. Daintily, she takes the family portrait off of the wall. She stares at it intently. There on the photo, clear as day, is her happy family in all its glory. Or, former glory. There stands daddy, in his favourite shirt, holding his favourite (or only) little girl. On the other side stands mommy, holding Cat's hand with a smile present on her face that stretches right up to the special sparkle in her brown eyes. In daddy's arms is Cat, grinning a little too wide. Her eyes are looking at daddy and mommy is looking up at her like she's the best thing that's ever been placed on earth. Daddy is looking at mommy and Cat, his two girls. He's looking at them with such love in his eyes. Suddenly daddy's face is distorted, and his two girls become blurs. A teardrop falls on them, spilling down the page, trying to pull them apart. She looks and realizes that even if you tried, you wouldn't be able to pull them apart without tearing another person.
She moves along the wall, running her finger along the thick layer of dust. Another photo comes up, a sweet photo of a two year old Cat laughing at her toy horse. Her curly hair looks fresh and washed, shiny and pinned in place. Her mother is holding her from behind, her hands clasped at her hips. There are other photos on there, of after…after that happened. She can see the look in her mother's eyes have changed. She won't even look at Cat in the photos. She didn't put them up. Someone who used to come around did. Cat didn't know who she was. She had to call her miss, or lady, or maybe even madam. She did tell her a name, but Cat could never place her finger on it. It doesn't look right in the after photos. It looks like when a lady and a little girl are paired in an advert for television. You can pretend all you like – but that sparkle in their eyes is gone. Cat's wobbly smile and her mother's great grin, spreading across her face in a false façade, don't look right. Cat hates the smiles in that photo. It looks like they're almost teasing her from above her head.
Pictures framing up the past, your taunting smirk behind the glass. This museum, full of ash, once a tickle now a rash.
Cat feels like she'll never sleep in her own home again. There are too many memories and too much pain. She wants someone to tell her why; why her family has been destroyed and why she'll never see her daddy again. She wants someone to put her to bed and tell her that everything's fine. For now, though, she'll just have to settle with memories she once had to get her to sleep at night, and the fact that every new day brings one more chance to escape to get her up in the morning.
A/N:
So, this is the new chapter. Not too bad, I hope! :]
~Enjoy and review .