december 8th, 1977
THE CALIFORNIA AIR was tight within the suburban home of the Hargrove family. Down the street, only houses away, parents were lifting up their children to place the star on top of the Christmas tree. Kids were eating the chocolate out of their advent calendars. Adults were climbing ladders to attach bright, colourful, flashing lights to their gutters. The month of December was finally settling in everywhere, everywhere except for the Hargrove household. Christmas barely existed to their family.
A glass smashed against the floor. Its shards flew across the tiles, spreading its risk of pain as Aven's mother gasped into the night. The young girl watched as a transparent splinter of the sharp material slid past the kitchen door and into the hallway, stopping in front of her feet. She glanced down, eyes wide and lips trembling. She pressed her side closer to the wall, a shudder moving throughout her body as her parents continued to shout. She swallowed.
A hand gently grabbed onto her shoulder, causing the girl to jump and widen her eyes. She expected the worst, waiting for a push or a shove or a kick to be sent her way, but nothing of the sort happened. She blinked to herself, letting out a slow breath as she turned around. Her father was out there, inside the kitchen with a broken glass at his feet, as his face reddened with rage and he pelted audacious words at her mother. He couldn't be behind her.
"What are you doing?" Billy whispered with a frown, eyes soft and lips downturned. Aven looked up, her damp eyelashes batting away the oncoming waves. She sniffed quietly.
"Listening," she said, her voice barely being audible against the frustrated yells in the background. Billy looked behind her with a clenched jaw, catching sight of the light reflecting off the broken glass, before he gently pulled her back. Instead, he stepped in front of her and curled his hand around the door frame, his skin taut and knuckles almost protruding.
The ten-year-old twins kept their ears pressed to the wall as their parents hurled painful words and sometimes objects at one another, the childrens' names often forming in the mix.
"The kids, Neil! The kids will hear you!" Their mother would shout, only to be pushed back into the counter angrily.
"I don't care about the kids!"
"Go back to your room, Aves," Billy muttered. Aven looked up at the back of his head with furrowed brows, the silence causing him to glance over his shoulder at the girl.
"But-"
"Aven," he said as he turned around completely. He placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I'll sort it out. Everything will be fine."
She failed to move for a second or two, merely staring into her twin's eyes with a narrowed glance. She picked apart its colour, trying to find any source of falsity or anxiety in his stature, but there was nothing. Nothing. So she nodded with reluctance, sending him a final look of worry, before quietly walking back down the hall to her room. Just as she was about to close her door, she peered back through the gap she'd left. Billy had turned back around, his tense back facing her, and she sighed, her face falling to mush. She closed her door and pressed her forehead against it, a single tear finally falling.
She stayed leaning against the door for a few minutes, listening to the echo of her parents' fight. Each word sent a shiver down her spine, and each sound of a clash or clatter made the girl jump against the wooden door. After she realised it wouldn't end for a while, and noticed the shadow of her feet was visible from beneath the door, she stepped back and fell against her bed, stomach pressed against the pink sheets.
She drew open her lace curtains, as was routine on a night when her parents fought. The moonlight fell down the street, cascading through tree leaves and weaving through Christmas lights. Her eyes found the house across the street, the front illuminated by patterned string lanterns and perfectly cut grass. Then her eyes flickered down to her own front lawn. Except for the small garden bed outside her window which she tended every morning, there was no plant life. Everything was dead.
The curtains to the house's living room across from her own were open. It was light inside, a warm yellow atmosphere filling the section of the room that was visible. She propped herself up on her elbows, tilting her head as she made out a silhouette of a face. That person moved closer to the window before they sat right in front of it. Aven, even with a tear stain soaking the skin of her right cheek, felt her lips tremble up into a soft smile as she noticed the grin adorning the man's face in the room across from her own.
The child watched as said man patted his lap eagerly. Her smile slowly fell away, her eyes squinting, as she watched a young girl jump onto the man's lap. He wrapped his arms around her torso and opened a book, beginning to read aloud with a smile as the child bounced happily in his lap. Aven's mood quickly diminished once more, the light in her eyes due to someone else's happiness dimming to nothing. She wondered what it would be like to have that.
Just as another tear dripped down her face, landing on her hands beneath her, movement from her front porch caught her eye. She frowned even further, shuffling on her bed to sit up and lean against her wooden windowsill. Her blue irises glimmered as the moonlight caught her flushed face, her lips drawing in as she sucked in a breath.
Her mother clutched one small bag closely to her side as she hurried down the crumbling porch steps. She turned back countlessly, sparing terrified glances back at the aching house. Just as she neared the end of the pathway to the bright street, she looked back a final time. Her eyes locked onto the window, her window, and she frowned even deeper as she locked eyes with her daughter.
Aven sat up even more. The light from the Earth's natural satellite illuminated her mother's face, illustrating her flushed cheeks with droplets of water carrying her pain unconsciously cascading down her face. The woman's eyes softened entirely, her lips forcing themselves to create even the thinnest of smiles. Aven frowned. She was only a child, which her mother knew. Sadly, Aven pushed her hand up against the glass, hoping that she could reach out far enough to bring her mother back. Her mother smiled, letting a tear run over her lip.
I love you, her mother mouthed. Aven struggled to hold back a sob, because even at the age of ten, she knew. Aven knew her mother wasn't coming back.
The child swallowed before removing her hand from the glass, instead pointing her finger towards the sky.
Her mother nodded, her smile maintaining establishment. To the moon. Then she left, leaving Aven and Billy alone.
Aven didn't bother to notice the sound of her door slamming open. She squeezed her eyes shut as she was pulled from her bed, the sound of her father yelling at her being muffled by her pounding brain. She could barely make out the sound of Billy running towards her, only for their father to push him back. His head hit the floor, causing the room to spin through his eyes. He groaned.
"She's gone," Neil yelled, his face inches away from Aven's. It was then that she broke, cracked in half like a wall holding back a dam.
"I know!" She shouted in return, her mouth wide as she let out a strangled sob.
Neil's nose twitched in anger, upper lip curling into a snarl. "This is your fault," he hissed, his voice quiet yet so powerful it shook the inner depths of the child's core. His grip tightened on her shirt. "Your fault."
As the girl stood there, trembling in her father's grip and waiting for the contact of a hand on her face, his words repeated within her head. It was her fault. Then the physical pain crashed over her.