Page 17 of Contention

Kara presses her head on his chest and sighs when his arms come around her, cuddling her in his lap as he watches the news. She can hear his heart beating steadily, loud and calm. There’s not a better sound in the world, she thinks, listening.

When he laughs at something, probably someone’s misfortune, there’s a rumble in his chest that Kara nearly falls into, feeling warm and safe. She doesn’t focus on the fact that her mother is emitting broken sounds in the kitchen or the fact that her father is the reason for those horrible little noises.

The next morning, she wakes with her mother sitting on the wide ledge of her bay window, staring at her with haunted, empty eyes. A dark, purple bruise circles her left eye, leaving it swollen and puffy.

“You always forgive him,” her mother sneers, her beautiful faced marred by the imperfection.

The dream shifts, becoming something darker, more drenched with red and shadow. Tasting of dread, like a shiver of fear thar she can’t escape. Her father comes home late and Kara doesn’t notice the warning signs, the stiffness to his mouth. In her excitement to tell him how she landed a part in the school play, she doesn’t notice that he’s having one of those days.

She should have known. She should have remembered the rules.

At the top of the stairs, she corners him with a huge smile that he takes in with dead eyes, eyes as dark as her own. She excitedly tells him how well she did, how she landed the lead, hoping for him to congratulate her.

He doesn’t.

Because the achievement of someone else doesn’t mesh with his view of the world.

Instead, his eyes go nearly black as he sneers, “They chose you because they probably didn’t have any other choices, you worthless little parasite.”

Her eyes widen and she knows then that she’s broken the unspoken rule. Never brag to him. Never tell him how successful she is. He doesn’t care, he can’t care, he’s the only one in this house that matters and his ego is the only one that needs to be fed.

Her bladder evacuates, because she knows where this is leading and there’s no escape, no one to help. When the rage strikes him, nothing will stop him.

Her mother is missing (hiding) when he grabs Kara by the hair, dragging her kicking and screaming down the stairs, hissing his cruelties at her as he does.

In the end, he allows her to stay in the play. If only to brag to the other parents that her skill comes from him of course. She didn’t do well on her own. She owes it all to him. She’s an extension of him and his excellence. His object, prized here and there. How easily that can change, how she becomes nothing to him when she’s a disappointment and he forgets how to love her, if he ever really did in the first place. He smiles and grins, pulling all the other parents in with his charm and his stories of his own stint in the theatre as a boy. All lies of course.

But Kara nor her mother will utter a word of correction.

Because ruining his illusion of grandeur will get someone’s face broke in.

Chapter 7

It’s still dark when pain wakes Kara up.

This pain comes with the slow awareness of no longer sleeping, a fast throbbing in her temple. Her skin feels flushed and overheated. Her eyes aren’t even open and she mentally groans; she’s one hundred percent wrecked and it’s all her fault.

The time must be early, as there is no sign of dawn in the sky yet when she opens her eyes blearily. She curses loudly, groaning, her stomach rebelling violently.

Here it is; another reminder of why she keeps a lid on overindulging in alcohol.

It takes a few minutes for Kara to convince herself to get out of bed. Her body feels like a rock, a rock that is in a lot of pain, if that’s at all possible. She stumbles to her kitchen and grabs a glass of milk to protect her stomach as she downs two migraine pills, hoping to drown out of the agony before work.

Grabbing an ice pack from the freezer and a water bottle from the fridge, she grumbles miserably and makes her way back to bed, flopping down despondently with it on her forehead, praying for the medicine to begin taking the edge off.

It’s hard to find rest again, her stomach rebelling violently.

Just keep it down, keep it down for another twenty minutes. After that, it’s all fair game.

A storm starts outside, rain beating against her window. The fan above her bed spins, mixing with the sound, slowly easing her into a state of calm. The pain fades into a dull ache, no longer a knife in her temple.

I shouldn’t have drank like that. I enjoy drinking my feelings away far too much. And the end result is always the same.

I’m never quite perfect enough. I’m always flawed.

Two hours pass and light slowly peeks through the windows. Nothing bright, but enough that the room illuminates. The rain continues on.

A dreary day to pair with a dreary mood.

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