Of Pain | COMPLETED

Chapter 4

I felt tears streak down my cheeks as fear and anger pulsed through my veins. I lived my life in fear and pain. I have been living like this for far too long. I hated seeing Mum crying in pain. I hated seeing her breaking down like that. I hated seeing her so small and fearful of the man that seemed to hate the both of us.

I hated him.

With that anger fuelling me, I raced even faster. The drive from the rink to my hell was around fifteen minutes. If I took the shortcut and ran at this pace, I’d be there in six minutes flat. I’d be able to be there faster and protect her from his wrath. Fear was riding solo in my chest but better me than my Mum.

He can vent his anger on me.

I can’t let him touch her. Not anymore.

I burst into the back door and dropped my bag, making my way towards the living room where I could hear the soft whimpering. Mum was on the floor with her nurse uniform on and she had tears running down her face. I had never felt so much anger in my life but I toned it down, rushing over towards her to cradle her in my arms.

She burst into more tears as I held her, whimpering and clutching me tighter to her. My heart broke hearing her cry, I couldn’t stand it when she cried, and it was making me cry too. I took a shaky breath and murmured to her that everything was going to be okay, that I would be there for her.

I can literally hear my heart breaking.

Her sobs and her pain were so much for me to bear. How can you deal with it when you hear your own mother crying? I tightened my hold on her and felt tears running down my cheeks, too broken up on the inside to hold in the tears any longer. I told her softly to stop crying, my voice breaking a little at the attempt to speak.

She whimpered again and that was when I hear the car engine screeching, its tires breaking. My heart clenched tightly, Dad was home. Mum seemed to have realized the same conclusion as her hold on me tightened and she seemed to even shrink smaller in my hold. He burst into the house like a man on crack, shuffling his feet and making his way towards the living room.

I watched him look at us with rage in his brown eyes.

I flinched and tightened my protective hold over her. This man used to look at me with love in his eyes, smiling at me and telling me that he was so proud of my achievements. He was there for all of my ice skate events or my softball matches. He was the once proud father. I didn’t know how it happened but it did.

Instead of love coursing through his veins, it was replaced with anger. Full-boiling rage was in his blood. It was like nothing is enough for him, I don’t really know actually. He lost his favourite job and had to be stuck with this other job that he hated but he made no move to quit it. Instead, he fuelled his anger even more. Wanting to lash out at the two people that made his life hell.

He made it seem that everything that had happened to him was our fault.

He towered at the doorway to the living room, rage and anger burning inside his body. I don’t know what else he can feel other than rage because I had never seen him being happy or sad or some other emotion. He was always angry. Always unpredictable and that scared us. We may never know when he might hit us.

‘So there you are,’ he started speaking; his voice was full of malice and loathing as if he hated looking at us. As if we were trash to him. As if we were a burden to him.  ‘I don’t want you spending time at the rink anymore Allison. No more ice skating.’ He spoke my name like as if I was a slave, full of sarcasm and pity.

No more ice skating?

‘No,’ I whispered at him. I will never quit something that I loved just because he says so. He doesn’t have the right to rule my world and he doesn’t have the right to stop me from doing what I want just because he hated it.