Cahira

Chapter 2 - The Beginning of a Nightmare

  I got out of the school and start walking to my house, the smile Dominic left me with long gone as the thoughts of my parents' reaction when I get home fill my mind. I'm so dead when I arrive... My mother will give me one of her lectures about how I am wasting my capabilities and everything else while my father will stare at me, looking disappointed, which will result in me starting to feel bad even if I didn't regret my actions before.

  I don't need to be genial to know that there's no way in the world I'll be able to convince them to let me go on a date tonight. But tomorrow... With the right sad expression and a lot of apologies as well as the reference to my deal with Mr. Foster maybe, just maybe, I can convince them to let me go tomorrow.

  I am still scheming what I am going o tell them when I reach my house, gulping as I realise that both my mother's and my father's cars are parked in front of the house. They are both inside. Ready to kill me. Just great.

  I open the door, expecting to see my father getting out of the living room holding my brother and tell me to go to the kitchen where mum is, so we can talk. But he doesn't. And the sane goes with my mother. And I can't hear my brother. In fact, I can't hear anything. A deadly silence fills the house, making me shiver as I immediately understand that's something wrong, extremely wrong. It's too quiet for a house where an one-year-old child lives... And the hall is a messy, lights on with no one here, jackets on the floor. Living with a lawyer for mother and a doctor for father if there's something that always exists in our house is order. They wouldn't leave the lights on nor the jackets on the floor.

  The fear starts growing, making me tremble and my heart starts thundering inside my chest. I take a deep breath, trying to control myself. Relax, Kiara, relax. Everything's fine. The jackets fell and no one noticed. My father and my brother got out to a little walk and forgot to turn off the lights. But then why are their jackets here? I shake my head. It's not cold outside, there's no needing of a jacket. Everything is okay, I am just overreacting. Everything is on my mind, there's nothing wrong.

  I keep telling myself that as I walk towards the kitchen. But the fear doesn't fade away, my heart keeps beating faster than it should, my hands keep trembling and I feel them terribly cold. The kitchen door is closed. It shouldn't be closed. It is never closed. Never. My hand is trembling while I raise it to grab the doorknob.

  Everything is alright. Everything is inside your head, control yourself. Open the door and find your mother cooking the dinner, so you can stop that nightmare you are creating. Keep calm. But saying that mentally is not working anymore, it's doing zero effect. Probably it is even making me more nervous. I just need to open the door and end that. Just open the door.

  It cracks, a sound that scares the hell out of me as it echoes through the silent house, so silent house. I involuntarily close my eyes, when the door is finally open, awaiting to hear my mother's voice before I open them. C'mon, mum, look at me and start scolding me. Please do that so I can open my eyes without fear what's in front of me.

  I stay here, eyes closed, hand still touching the doorknob for what seems like hours but my mother says nothing. Maybe she is not here. Maybe we are going to dinner in a restaurant. She wouldn't be in the kitchen, then. She would probably be in her study, working on something. And that's why my father took my brother out. So my mother could work. And she didn't hear me entering and that's why she didn't come yet. I am going to open my eyes and face an empty kitchen and start feeling stupid. I know I will. I just need to find the courage to do so.