The Truth About Happily Ever After

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

It’s dark. I wake up shuddering, struggling to breathe, with a splitting headache. Pain hums throughout my body, and I feel myself curling around myself, trying to ease the pain. The movement of my body causes even more pain, and I clamp my mouth shut to hold in my whimpers. Eventually, when I’m straight on my bed, the pain eases slightly, and I glance at the clock near my bed. It reads three in the morning, and I blink at it. Ignoring the pain to the best of my ability, I sit up, crying the whole time. As I sit there crying, the pain eases and I drift off to blissful, sweet, painless sleep.

Wishing I could continue sleeping, I climb from my bed. I still feel the pain from last night, but I’m also foggy-minded and my vision is blurry. My eyes are red from crying and lack of sleep. It had taken nearly tan hour and a half for the pain to go away, then I had slipped into sleep, for two pitiful hours. I slept for a few hours at best, and now I had to get out of bed to make breakfast. Pulling myself out of bed, I see the crumpled slip of paper, with scribbled numbers slightly blurred on the page. Picking it up, I gently set it on my bedside table, then limped out of the room. The yellow kitchen looks too happy to me, and I try to push away my bad mood. I limp around the kitchen, making a simple breakfast. When I’m finished, I eat as much as I can, which isn’t much due to the pain and nausea swirling in me. I wash my dishes, and sit at the table, waiting for another person to come down. Not long after, I hear the steps of my mother, and as quickly as I can, I load a plate and set it at her place. The coffee is still being made, so I can only hope she doesn’t ask for any yet. She looks tired, and if we were any other family, I would ask how she slept and I wouldn’t have taken a small bit of joy in the fact that her life wasn’t perfect.

As she was eating, I kept to one side of the kitchen, and didn’t move much. I refused to let her see how much pain I was in, how much pain I have to live with because of her and her husband. Soon, I heard the footsteps of Brandon, and I went to grab him a plate. He shook his head and took the dish from my hand, and loaded it up himself. I sent him a small smile, and he returned it, although I could still see worry in his eyes. Sensing he was making sure I was okay, I sent him a nod. Just as I was picking up my mother’s plate to wash, Eliza stumbled in, going straight for the food. The room was silent but for the sounds of eating and cleaning dishes. To my surprise, my mother didn’t leave the room after she was done, and instead sat there, staring at us.

Finally, her stare was interrupted by my father lumbering in the room, his brown eyes squinting and one of his hands combing through his short blond hair. I walked to the stove, gathering his food for him as quickly as I could, hiding my pain as best as I could. I could feel my mother’s blue eyes, so like my own, watching me as I slowly maneuvered.

“Where’s the coffee?” My father’s gruff voice grunted, and I looked towards the coffee maker, praying it was done. Luckily, one thing was on my side today, and I made his coffee the way I knew he wanted it; Irish. Placing it in front of him, I made some for my mother, and placed it on the dark table, where she was still watching me. With her eyes on me, I backed away, accidentally bumping into an empty chair, causing me to bite back a sound of pain. She sees the wince I can’t manage to hide, and I see worry in her features. I wipe away any emotion on my face and put up a mask of disdain and hate. Before she turns away, I see pain in her eyes. I usually only see rage or disappointment, so this is new for me. I look away from my mother’s eyes, and focus on the twins.

They are washing dishes and slightly splashing each other, giggling quietly. When father glances at them in annoyance and opens his mouth to yell at them, I quickly interject.

“Are you done with breakfast, father?” His command dies in his mouth, and he faces me before pushing the plate away from him and cradling his mug. I limp back to the table, sweeping his plate away and to the twins. “Quiet down a bit. You’re upsetting father. We’ll play later,” I whisper quietly to them. They instantly smother their giggles, and it pains me to see the need to make them not laugh.