edited :)
*Exaggeration of the concept. More reasons for unhappiness/less obliviousness.*
"Babe, I think we should talk-
"Since when do you think Kaycee?" he laughs cynically, his chest puffed up with irritation at the tone in her voice, "besides, I don't have time for you."
He says this on his way out, his hand pulling behind him the handle of his suitcase. He places a brief, pedestrian kiss to the crown of her head, lifting away before he even really makes contact, and turning before he can notice her flinch in response.
He did this pretty often.
Made biting comments in passing under the guise of it being a joke and then leaving. Always leaving.
She couldn't piece it together but she thought that maybe in his head, this routine made sense. Out of sight, out of mind; for any of his behaviours that could be misconstrued as hurtful.
"Sean, please, I really think-
The door slams behind him with a resounding thud and she deflates like air leaving a pricked balloon.
Always leaving.
"Fuck."
The cauldron of anxiety bubbles over, reacting sporadically to the heated sheen of her skin and the pounding in her ears.
"Get a grip, Kaycee," she bites, nails biting into the tender flesh of her curled palms, "you're perfectly fine."
She wasn't. Fine, that is.
She was tumbling headfirst off a cliff into oncoming traffic, the thin harness holding her back from becoming roadkill was looking increasingly threadbare.
Her movements are both erratic and slow, like trekking through mud as she stumbles into the kitchen. Desperate hands pilfer through the pantry in search for a remedy, for something to smooth the edges and settle her heartbeat. She grabs the first bottle in reach and slams it back, eyes screwed shut against the familiar burn of the liquid.
Some days it felt like all that was keeping her alive.
She laughs. The sound is grating, bitter, and leaves behind an acrid taste in the back of her mouth that has nothing to do with the vodka. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she opens the messaging app and types a sloppy train of thought.
To: Kylie 🥰
Can'anymore. H e gone gain. 9:45 pm.
I dk why I even tru. Sorry for bein sdisapointment 9:49 pm.
She'd missed another opportunity. Like an amateur who couldn't read the gibberish plays set out for her, she'd stumbled and screwed the game for the whole team. She hated feeling this way, hated being this person.
"Where did I go wrong?" she whispers, her last word a whimpered cry.
These days, she felt as though her entire existence was centred upon being an extension of him. The part that was a little less intelligent, a little less cool and a little less than good enough. God, she couldn't even leave him properly.
It hadn't always been this way.
She liked to think herself smart enough to have recognised the red flags early on if that had been the case. But the changes had been so gradual, too imperceptible to catch early on like a case of a frog in hot water. He had seemingly overnight gone from being her childhood sweetheart to the stranger in her bed who used words only to degrade her. Otherwise, it was as though she had ceased to exist.
It was a rare occurrence where he noticed much of anything about her these days, let alone cared. But he'd once been attentive. Once looked at her as though she hung the moon. And it had all faded like an aged painting, until she eventually blended in with the background, a forgotten toy only brought down from its shelf or acknowledged when it was convenient for him.
For the longest time, he had been enough for her. And then, when she eventually grew tired, the knowledge that she, at the very least, wasn't alone kept her warm when being with him no longer did. But now she didn't even have that.
Allowing herself the momentary weakness, she feels the tears pool over and fall, the droplets striking her cheeks. Tightening her hold on the bottles neck, she enters the guest bedroom she'd slept in for countless months. She places the bottle on the edge of the nightstand and climbs into the waiting cocoon of blankets, forcing them up and over her head.
"You're nothing without me" he yelled, pointer finger jutting outwards accusingly, "do you hear me, Kaycee? Nothing."
She whimpers. Tucked into the corner of the coat room, like a wounded animal completely defenceless in her inability to mollify this man. In her inability, as he so often reminded her, to make him happy.
"You know what, Kaycee?," he said, gaze openly venomous, "There's nothing I regret more than marrying you. At least when we were only dating you weren't an alcoholic bitch who moans about everything."
"Sean stop, there are guests here," she said in a futile attempt to defuse the situation, hands raised in timid defence.
"What? Do you think I give a shit?" he sneered, punctuating his words by swiping his arm outwards, taking the floor lamp with it, "fuck them and fuck you!"
Her throat had quit working. His anger, a tangible entity was thick and murky, suffocating her from the inside out as it spread like a virus through her lungs.
"Sean, please..." she started, stopping with a surprised cry when his hand shot out and gripped her wrist, jerking her towards him.
"What did I ever see in you?"
She wanted to be angry at his words, wanted to defend herself. But she had no anger left. Only fear and bone-deep fatigue.
"Sean, let me go," she said quietly, throat closing with every passing second. Swallowing, she felt tears hit the back of her eyes. So she removed them from his under the guise of looking at the wrist he gripped. When he didn't release her, she repeated, "please, let me go."
"Or what?" he hissed.
"You're hurting me."
There was a time where this would have stopped him in his tracks. Where it would have been a shock of cold water over hot coals, reducing his fit of rage into an apologetic mess, tripping over his words with what she had believed to be sincerity.
Those days seemed like a distant dream she was unable to reconcile with who he was now.
Despite what she now realised to be red flags in the beginning, she had never retaliated. Meeting his volatility with calm patience and forgiveness.
And now she had none left to give.
It took her by surprise, a gasp escaping her as her head snapped to the side with the force of the blow. Her mind processing only the splitting crack of skin against skin and the stinging pain left behind on her cheekbone. A shaking hand lifted to her cheek to feel the tender skin, flinching when the flesh protests the applied pressure.
The only thing she can see when she finally gathers her wits to look up is his back as he walks away.
She hadn't been strong enough to walk away after that. Realising you didn't deserve the behaviour you received from a partner was difficult, leaving was harder still when you'd grown to believe their idea of your worth.
So she had lived with the fear instead of doing anything about it. And her fear became fatigue. Fatigue was later joined with apathy.
Her bones ached with it, weary and tired. She felt ancient, muscles weighed down in a way that even a hundred years of sleep wouldn't help.
She still didn't know whether what they had, had ever really been love. And maybe at one point, it had been. But time had twisted things beyond recognition, making it a ugly. Something that sucked the life from her. The perfect image she had constructed of him had kept her occupied while he stole everything she held within, taking so much more than what he was entitled to.
But that wasn't love.
Love was freely given, offered in gently cupped palms. Oneself was given the same way. When it was done this way, one didn't fear or question it.
Why would she?
When water is plentiful it doesn't cross one's mind, a commodity taken for granted with the expectance that it will always be readily available. It is only when it is measured when we fear its removal, that we fear thirst. She feared the loss of who she was in association to Sean, for it was the only identity she now knew.
He was right, in that way, when he said she was nothing without him. Because he had taken everything and now there was nothing left for herself.
The clock had long since ticked passed 3 AM, and still, she lay awake. She couldn't look away even as he slept without worry. She wondered at his ability to sleep with the knowledge of what he was doing, what he had done to her.
Silently, she wills him awake with her gaze, wills him to laugh and point out the hidden cameras. She would take a 4 year prank over this, if it saved her from feeling this way any longer.
His immunity to her pain revealed the true lack of emotion for her. It made her sick to think that she was genuinely no more than a drive-by to him.
A ping sounds from the nightstand where his phone lay, notifying a message. Knowing she shouldn't, she rolls slowly from the bed with care not to wake him. Circling the bed, she stops in front of the phone, hesitation freezing her momentarily.
She didn't know whether she wished to acknowledge it, ignorance all of a sudden feeling close to bliss. Regardless, she pressed the power button and swiped at the screen, wincing when the device unlocked without protest. He cared so little about her feelings he hadn't even set a password.
The message has her locking the phone, returning it to the position she had found it in before moving back to her side, exhaustion settling in. The weight drags her under, sweeping her away with the monstrous waves as she falls into sleep, a single tear trailing down her cheek.
Her eyes are unseeing beneath the covers and despite the wrapped blankets, she felt cold. How could it still be surprise to her that he had left? He did so over and over. Leaving her behind again and again. Living his life without a thought for her, travelling the world for weeks to months without contact, returning only to spread his poison before leaving once again. And every time he did it felt like the opening of a new wound, joining the collection of festered injuries that never healed, out of which her energy leaked each day.
She was too tired to fight.
Ignoring the incessant buzzing of her phone, she remains a statue, senses hibernating as her mind blanks. If she had been paying attention she would have heard the knocking at the front door before it opens by key when the person gives up on waiting to be invited in. Would have heard the approaching footsteps.
But she notices none of these things, only realising someone had entered the house when a body settles on the mattress behind her and a hand strokes her hair.
"Oh, Kaycee..."
"What are you doing here Ky?" she whispers.
"I'm gonna help you do what you should have a long time ago" Kylie says firmly, sadness filling her at the sight of what remained of her baby sister.
"And what's that?" Kaycee asks monotonously, convinced there was little anyone could do to help her.
"I'm gonna help you leave him," she squeezes her arms around her waist in a tight embrace, "but most importantly, I'll help find everything he stole from inside you."
"Okay."
The hard part was leaving when you believed their idea of your worth. But she was ready for it.
A/N:
Hello, my lovely little ducklings.
I remember this was originally a wild ride for me to write, and in actuality, it didn't feel like a Sean and Kaycee oneshot when I did. It still doesn't. More like, as if the story is a jar and their names happened to be superimposed onto it by whatever parameters that be. We'll go with inspired though, as an ode to manufactured love.
Maybe it will change again in another year, who knows?
P.S.
I made a song playlist of what I listened to while writing this, here it is:
• Manufactured love - Michael Blume (ofc)
• Pray you catch me - Beyoncé
• Lover, please stay - Nothing but thieves
• Later - Aamal
• BRKN - Madison Ryan Ward
• My mind - Yebba
• How do you sleep? - Sam Smith
• Ghostin' - Ariana Grande
• Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi
• listen before i go - Billie Eilish
• July - Noah Cyrus
• Easy - Tayla Parx
• Out of Love - Alessia Cara
• Losing - H.E.R
And like always, until next time.
Hanna x