The Rapunzels ONC 2024

9: Little Fires

 "If it's hell you want, you have come to the right place."

My cheek is smooshed against the kitchen table. I see a speckle of salt someone forgot to brush off. Tyrone is pushing my head down as if he's trying to push me into the maple top so that I become as invisible as the speckle.

Inside I'm wincing. Outside I am emotionless.

He is close. Too close. I have always hated the scent of Tyrone's cologne. It's something bitter, like chemicals and neglected embers left to wither in dirty fireplaces.

"I can and will make your life unbearable, Fia. But it's what you want, isn't it?"

I don't reply because I have too much hate I want to tell him about. But that would only make him madder.

With a grunt, he shoves my head once more before I feel him straighten up. His breath is a staccato beat pelleting the air around me. Before he exits the kitchen, he smacks me upside the head. The gain of salt bounces. I do nothing.

The floor is covered in flour and eggs – the last of the eggs he wanted to make an omelet – the ones I so sinfully used to try and make myself a cake since today I turn eighteen. I was going to share the cake with my sisters. And with the stranger still unconscious in the guest house I'd recently spent three days in.

There was no birthday cake for me when my mother and father returned from the Outside this evening. There was nothing more than a You're no longer a child now, Fia, from my mother, and a nod from my father that I could not interpret.

Lucky me though they did hand me a crinkled brown bag masquerading as a gift. Inside was a long silk scarf of the ugliest puke green I'd ever seen. I'm sure it fit around my neck perfectly. I could hang myself from it if I wanted but at that moment, I was thinking about how Tyrone would look dangling from it like an ornament.

I recall seeing that scarf in my mother's wardrobe years ago. I almost chuckle as I remember reflecting on how butt-ugly it was back then too.

The grain of salt is as stoic as I. I slowly blow out a breath and it tumbles over the edge.

Only when I'm sure my father has left do I get up. The skin on my face hurts. My head where he slapped me hurts. Even the roots of my hair hurt.

I have the urge to burn this place down. Start little fires and have them bloom like pansies until I have created a flaming garden. Maybe I do want hell. Maybe I do want an unbearable life. Maybe that's why I'm stuck here.

I reach for my hair and pull. I want it gone.

Strands come loose. They tangle in between my fingers like long blades of grass. I shake them free and watch them flutter down.

Eggshells crunch underfoot as I walk to the window. I push the curtain to the side and look toward the direction of the house. He lies inside – my stranger. I know my heart has not fled my chest for I feel it smashing under my ribs when I think of him. I close my eyes for a moment and breathe. Tyrone's cologne is gone. In its place is that of clean sweat, blood, and cinnamon. 

Cake or not, I will return to my stranger once Tyrone and Lilin have drunk themselves silly, danced in the flour my father keeps in his briefcase, and fallen asleep.

I find one remaining egg sitting innocently on the counter. I drive my fist into it and smile as it shatters. The goo on my hand is a trophy. I lift my fingers. Yolk trickles over my palm and weaves around my wrist. I grab a bunch of napkins from the nearby kitchen roll and then clean up the mess.

Once the kitchen is back to the way it was, all nice and clean and blah blah boring, I head up to find my sisters. I'm going to tell them that I'm planning on waking the stranger up to find out who he is. 

 word count till now: 8506

I did it! I've reached the second milestone!! :D