It All Started With Hate

lock | part 1 (e)

It was something my psychologist had helped me confront and control long ago. It was something I was so ashamed of admitting, along with much else. It took me an entire year just to open up to her about this part so that she could help me with it.

Despite how painful it was, I recounted the past two decades, and erased the parts that my father had tried to make fit his own narrative. And, I was back.

My father was still talking, I realized at the sharp piece his words left behind in my ears. It wasn't until I felt his hand on my thigh that I was forced back to reality.

"You should have just accepted it," he offered a sweet smile that was everything but that. "You lost, Maggie. You lost before I even stepped into this house."

His words made the rage ignite inside of me from the bottom and on up. It controlled my next actions.

My hand wrapped around his goatee until he winced, and by it, I yanked him closer until we were to eye level.

My eyes narrowed at him. "Look at me when I say, swear, this shit to you." My hiss was low so that the words would only pierce his ear, "No matter what happens today, you didn't win. You didn't. Not then, not now, and not ever."

His dark eyes felt like looking into an endless cycle of evil. "Are you sure about that, Maggie?"

I was. I was more sure of it than anything else in this world.

I never dropped my eyes from his as I inhaled. It was the most freeing breath I had ever experienced.

"I lived," I said my words steadily. The honesty in them and my heart were identical. "And, I loved. I was loved. I lived, I loved, and I learned in a way that you and your fucked head could only dream of." My words only bit at his glare. "I want you to know that nothing you do, nothing you have done, and nothing you will do, will change that, or anything else."

Images of Luke, and everything he had found in me, and the appreciation I had of him letting me see and love them in him. My grandmother. My brother. My friends. They were the reason I only had honesty in swearing that to the man who had thought he took my ability to say, do, any of this.

If he were to take my life, right now, then that would be it. My soul and my heart, though. The ones that I had rebuilt from the ashes, with the people, the man and the soulmate that had loved the worst pieces even harder...they were mine. I wouldn't lose that.

I released my father's beard with a shove, causing him to stumbled back. His façade cracked right along with it.

In between the lines, anger and frustration struck him, because he knew that no matter how this day ended, he would never win if I didn't let him. And, I wouldn't.

I nodded to confirm it, a mocking smile settling on my face. "You lost." I gulped down the swell of emotion in my throat to mark the most honest thing I knew, "I won."

I took his shock as an opportunity. I had a decent right hook already from my self-defense classes, but Luke had taught me his own ages ago, something that was deadly with the right wrath behind it.

My free hand tightened into a fist, and I swung as hard as I could. It wasn't the best with my position, but once I heard the pop, I silently screamed a thank you to Luke for it.

He stumbled back, a hand to his nose. "Shit!"

Before he got too far, I lunged, again, this time with the hand holding the knife. Aimed at his side, I tried my fucking hardest to let it sink as deep as it could.

From his scream, I knew that it worked. I had stuck it deep enough to make the fabric of his shirt stain red in seconds.

I shot up from the sofa, despite the sting in my body, and slammed a hand in the same spot I stabbed him. His screams nearly turned into howls, but I couldn't wash in the satisfaction, right now.