When I'm With Them, I'm Free

Chapter Five: Love Is Forgetting... (Interlude)

Your mother always had a look of love in her eyes.

The shining look of love in her eyes. The one that is bright, white, and shown in flushed skin.

She was always warm (both literally and metaphorically), features always soft, and actions forever gentle. She was a kind woman; a strong woman as well, and the being of her family was the first thing on her mind.

If anyone was hurt, best know your mother always had the words "are you okay?" and the question "can I help you somehow?" tattooed on her lips and begging to jump from her mouth.

Even when your mother was in the ground crying from the verbal abuse your father gifted her, she always asked if the harsh grabbing your father would inflict upon you was okay.

It was always everyone else before her, even when bruises covered her face from the fights your father and her would dance through, and the bloody nose and broken bones. Always, was everyone else first.

She was a hero, a gracious woman opposed to your father; a man of lies, a man of cheating on tests and backstabbing men he swore he would help, men he promised he would save. But to your father, she was just as bad as him. She was a criminal, one who didn't care for people's well-being and hated the idea of heroes getting praise for killing someone just as bad as him.

You didn't understand the premise at the time, but as you aged and grew, it cleared in the slightest. You were still unsure of many things, still mind-boggled at the idea of your mother being perceived as a villain, a cheat, rather than as a hero, a good woman.

But unbeknownst to you, she really was a cheat, although the poor woman was also cheated. And all thanks to the damned hero commission, a company, a group of people created to save innocent beings, your mother was killed.

Murdered in cold blood; killed because of the lies that built society, and the same lies that drove your father mad; the same lies that forced his hand to bring down the rusted ax, slashing at her side, and mutilating her body.

Her poor body.

The hero commission was also the reason you sobbed at the sight of your unusually cold mother at age seven, and the reason nightmares still cast your body.

But that fact was unknown to you, a secret you'd never learn about. And a secret you didn't want to know, but a secret you also wanted to know all about.

You remember a lot about that night. Almost too much to be sane, but you honestly weren't surprised.

Everything was so vivid, and it didn't help hours of mental and physical torture followed those feelings of agony, those damaged images, the ones that flashed through your mind like a skipping record.

Her body. Her arms were cast to the side in a displayed manner.

Limp, broken.

The way her side was unwillfully ripped open, her insides spilling out, and blood like a full, red pool around her.

Splatters. Everywhere.

Her eyes. Oh her eyes.

How terrified they looked, and how saddened her relaxed expression was.

The tear; one tear was still desperately clung to the bottoms of her eyelashes. Well, at least until you jumped over to your mother's body, bringing her head by yours and causing the tear to slide down her usually warm cheeks.

It hasn't been long when you first stepped up to her, and you already missed her voice. Her stories. Her smile, her everything. Her soft eyes, her beautiful quirk, the way she giggled when you learned your alphabet, and the sparkle in her eyes when you'd sing with her.

But as she lay limp on the cold concrete, soaked in her red, the only look in her eyes was fear.

There was no more sparkle, no gentleness.

Just fear; a betrayed fear.

And even as nine years passed like a lone train... it was hard to forget, even though, 'the whole premise was forgetting about the bad'.

Because like your mother had always said in her saddened days—the days when your father would lash out in the slightest, yelling at everything and being harsh—she told you love is forgetting.

And it's forgetting even the worst. Even when it's impossible to forget. And that alone made love scary, made it something you promised to never get distracted by. Something that you promised you wouldn't ever go through, because quite honestly, you believed love shouldn't be forgetting the terrible things your partner pushed onto you.

And yet, that was the only thing you could imagine for yourself, love-wise. And to you, it was just as pitiful of forgetting in the first place.