Fragments of Decay

5. Les I'm Miserable

July 27 2018

Alice does not tell her dad. She asks FRIDAY to print out the files for her and struggles through another bunch of override codes to make sure the AI won't snitch on her.

She's still reeling as she collects the papers into her room, box discarded on the living room floor. She leaves the majority of the file on her desk, taking only the last page and falling down onto her bed.

Her dad had always told her that her mom was devastated about having to leave her, that if she had any other choice she would've made it.

Had that all been a lie?

She chose her revenge over her daughter

She finds herself reading the last section over and over until she has it memorised. She's not sure whether she's glad to have found out. She knows the truth, but at what cost? Is it worth it? To know, if it means shattering everything she's ever believed about her mom?

The picture burns in her pocket. Her mom loved her, she realises this, at the very least her mom hadn't wanted her to be unhappy. How much of that is love, she does not know. Regardless it had not been enough. Did it matter then?

What is love, when put across revenge? Can she make that comparison? She tries to imagine it. Tries to imagine going as usual and being hit with the realisation that everything she's ever thought to be true was a lie, carefully fabricated in order to keep her believing.

She finds she doesn't have to try very hard to imagine. She realises she's being unfair. Being lied to was not the same as being kidnapped, brainwashed, ridiculed, and used for over half a decade. She can't imagine that and part of her feels awful.

How can she even try to make judgements about things she'll never truly be able to imagine? Her mom had been put through hell and back, she had been hurt in ways Alice can barely comprehend. Wouldn't she want revenge too?

But, a small voice in the back of her head says, hadn't Alice been hurt as well?

Writing letter after letter to Santa, begging to bring her mom home. Sitting all alone in a dirty holding cell, hoping against hope it would be her mom to come get her - even if only to lecture her. - Being told she could make a card for her dad instead of her mom when they did mother's day arts and crafts.

Hadn't Alice been hurt as well?

She would want revenge. She knows this, she cannot fault her mom for it.

Would she want it more than she would want to be with her child?

She chose revenge.

She furiously wipes at her eyes with her sleeves. No matter how much her mom had loved her it obviously hadn't been enough. She hadn't been enough.

Her mom had chosen revenge over her over thirteen years ago. She obviously wasn't coming back either way. She'd probably gotten her revenge and then realised how much easier it was to be alone, figuring she didn't really need to take Alice back.

She starts sobbing into her sleeves like a child. Breath coming in in harsh painful gulps as the paper crumbles in her fist. It hurts. She feels so childish, so immature. She doesn't care. So what her mom had to make a choice? So what her mom made some stupid book about how to take care of her? So what her mom loved her?

She's not here now. She hasn't been for thirteen years all because she wanted revenge. All because Alice was not enough to fill that hole in her.

The thought only makes her cry harder and harder until she's fully hyperventilating and FRIDAY is talking to her but she can't hear it over the thumping in her ears.

It had hurt to see all the other kids growing up, so utterly and completely adored by their moms. To stand by the school gate and see all the mothers waiting for her classmates, knowing she wouldn't ever have that, would only ever have Happy waiting for her.

It had hurt to have to ask ms. Pepper anytime she had a question about girl-stuff. To see the woman's pitying look as she tried her best to explain to this teenager that wasn't her daughter how much blush was too much or how a pad worked.