𝐮𝐧𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 | 𝐝.𝐦

𝟏𝟒

Kaimana Valencia | December 1982

Kaimana laid in her bed at her cottage home, hands covering her ears.

It was Christmas.

It was supposed to be a good Christmas.

But her parents didn't get the memo.

Well, her mother didn't get the memo.

Her parents weren't married. They just had a kid together during their relationship, and Kaimana's mum wasn't taking the kid seriously or the motherly life seriously.

Clearly.

Kaimana heard the muffled shouting through her covered ears and closed door.

It was only the afternoon, and her parents were shouting already.

Kaimana wished she went to school. She had been homeschooled by her father since she was three. She really didn't mind homeschooling, but this was the only part she didn't like.

The part where her mother came home, drunk out of her ass, and ready to start shit with Kaimana's father. Well actually, the cottage house was Kaimana's father's because her mother was never home.

From what Kaimana could hear, her mother was sober while they fought. Or she sounded sober. She didn't slur badly like she did when she was drunk. Maybe buzzed, but not drunk.

"Get the fuck out, Stephen!" she heard her mother shout.

"This is my bloody house, Aimee! It's Christmas and you really fancy another argument?!" her father shouted back.

"I am not starting shit! You have no right to be calling me out on things I do on my own fucking time!"

"All you fucking do is get high and drunk! We have a child, for fuck's sake! She's upstairs, waiting for Christmas to start, but you're here, buzzed, and begging for mon—"

Kaimana gasped when she heard a thud.

She heard more thuds, more muffles and screams of frustration and anger.

Kaimana shot up from her bed, her small feet pressing onto the floor as she rose from her bed. Without thinking, she raced out of her room and down the stairs of their small cottage home.

She walked quietly, creeping into the living room where the argument with her parents was happening. She heard the noise up close now.

They sounded like slaps and punches. She heard a grunt and her mother's shouts were ringing in Kaimana's ears.

She pressed her back against the wall, and slowly peered her head over the frame of the entrance.

Her father was on the ground, his arms shielding himself from her mother's hits and punches.

"Fuck you, Stephen!" her mother shouted and threw another punch. "You bloody bastard!"

Kaimana numbly stared.

It wasn't the first time she saw it happening. But it was the first time she was this close when it was happening.

Sometimes, Kaimana would notice her father had a swelling purple eye or a yellow bruise on his arm, or scratch marks on his cheek or neck.

He never hit back.

He only took the hits.

"What happened to your cheek, Dad?" Kaimana would ask, pointing at the raw scratch marks.

Her father would look shocked as he put a hand over the marks. "Must've scratched myself in my sleep I suppose," he would say with a nervous chuckle.

It had been going on since Kaimana learned to walk.

Kaimana's mother was a drug addict and an alcoholic. Ever since Kaimana could remember, she knew her mother was besotted with drugs. Adored them. Even alcohol.

Kaimana's mother was not a happy or friendly drunk. Sometimes she got so wasted, she started arguments for no reason. She was just so angry.

At what and or what?

Kaimana never knew. And maybe there didn't have to be a reason for her to be angry. Some people were just miserable and angry.

But she also knew that her mother did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.

So she always took the anger out on Kaimana's father.

The sound of glass shattering brought Kaimana back to reality.

She felt the tears pool her eyes when she saw a vase shattered, and her father limp on the ground. Out cold.

By the time Kaimana's mother fled the house after finding no money in the house, it was night time. Kaimana came out from where she fearfully hid in the closet.

She rushed to her father, feeling her feet get sliced raw from the glass shards her mother didn't pick up from slamming a vase into Stephen's head.

"Dad," Kaimana whispered with a tremble in her voice. She held his head on her lap, rubbing his throbbing bump on the side of his head. "Dad, wake up."

She shook him a bit, trying to stir him awake, and eventually, he woke. "Kai." He sat up and scooped her into his arms for a hug. "Are you alright, love?"

Kaimana hugged her arms around his neck and nodded. "Mummy left."

"That's alright," her father soothed, and hugged her the tightest she'd ever felt. "Mummy just needs to blow off some steam, okay?" He rocked his seven-year-old daughter from side to side in his arms.

Kaimana wasn't dumb. Far from it. But she just nodded.

Even though she could guess her father was in pain, he always made sure she was okay.

So that was what Kaimana did too.

She wanted to make sure her father was okay. Forever okay.

She was going to protect him.

So that was what she did.