Page 1 of Knot So Broken

Chapter One

The sting of the slap across my face ached, but I knew the punishment would be worse if I made a sound. I had learned my lesson the hard way. Many times. It took me years until I finally learnt to not whimper during my punishments. Any sound made him angrier, my damnation always creative and brutal.

“You are a fucking disappointment, Kennedy.”

I curl in further on myself.

It was always the same thing.

A disappointment. An embarrassment to his name.

My father would always find any way he could put me down.

His insults used to crush me. But they don’t anymore.

I have become so used to hearing them, now I believe him.

I am a disappointment. I am an embarrassment to him and my mother. Maybe that's why she killed herself.

I can’t blame her. I want to kill myself too. Allow myself to be taken by the reaper. But I don’t deserve to be pain free. I don’t deserve thefreedom that death would afford me. After all, I’m the reason she is dead.

I was too much for her to look after. I cried too much. Asked for too much. My face offended her.

I’ve heard a multitude of reasons why she took her own life.

I have been terrorized by them.

Sometimes I imagine that it was the only way that she could escape him. I can’t remember much from when she was alive but I do remember the consistent screaming.

There were nights where I would have to hide in my closet just to find some respite from the fighting. After a while I just moved all of my bedding in there. One night it all just stopped.

The screaming stopped. The fighting stopped.

It was just silence.

For a day it was quiet.

Until the nightmare turned on me.

I take in a shuddering breath as I will myself to not react.

His spit hits my face as he continues to hurl insults at me. I block out his words allowing myself to crawl into the recesses of my mind.

A place where he can’t hurt me. That place he can’t find me.

I’m shocked out of my thoughts as I smack up against the wall. Pain explodes through my body.

“Fucking stupid Omega!”

I curl in on myself further again. The sharp pain in my side lets me know a rib is broken. It's not the first time he's broken them. Over the years I’m sure he has managed to break the majority of the bones in my body.

I suffer through each blow, waiting until he decides it's over.

I didn’t expect to be dealt a punishment for my first day of my final year of university but I guess he is just keeping up with tradition, just like he has every other year. I think the other students just expect me to come to class covered in bruises now. That's if they even notice me.

I have always faded into the background. I prefer it that way.

I’ve isolated myself completely that no one even pays me attention anymore. If I do have to interact with people, they are kind but they never dig any deeper. Every interaction is kept at surface level.

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