Page 75 of Vulnerate

My mother always looks at me when I speak.

The joy morphs into hesitance on the next block and the lips aren’t lifted in a smile but slowly dropping. The vines turn into thorns and the text alternates to the other side of the page.

Not to hear what I say.

Moving to the final block, I stroke the tears on the page like I can physically remove them when it was made by my hand and other peoples actions.The edge of thorns morph into chains and the text is bolder but still difficult to distinguish at first glance.

Waiting for me to.

I can feel the lump in my throat that I drew on the page, that same tightness in my chest and my eyes move to the side becoming the art as I follow the flow down to the lips.

Just.

Hard lines and a tear drop stuck to the cupids bow suspended in time.

Stop.

Like it could alter the world if it fell.

My attention is pulled back to reality when the door bangs. I expect it to be Val, but the clumsy footsteps wouldn’t belong to him drunk, and I poke my head out with a polite smile to tell whoever’s intruding to kindly fuck off. There’s a woman stood up with her back to me and I clear my throat forcing any memories away.

“Excuse me, the studio isn’t open.”

She turns at my voice, and I freeze.

I haven’t seen Carly in ten years. No communication or anything to even say she’s alive. Part of me made peace with her death, but she’s in front of me and I can’t say anything. Everything she’s done wrong, how she’s fucked me over and lied continuously doesn’t leave my mouth. All the nights I sat there planning what I would say if I ever saw her and I’ve become mute.

She’s meaner, cruelty written on every inch of her face. I don’t remember her features being that sharp and her tongue is worse.

“Leno told me about you and Valentin being together, I thought he was lying.”

My voice comes back at the reminder of what she did, and I can’t hide my disgust. “You’re a fucking rapist.”

She has never blacked out when she was high or drunk. She knew what she was doing whether Val admits it or not, the cunt took advantage of him.

Taking a step forward with righteous conviction, I look her up and down tallying her sins.

“Worse, a pedophile. He was a kid, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”

I’m not much older than she was, the thought of touching a seventeen year old, never mind fucking them, turns my stomach. She shrugs like she’s not a sick fuck and closes the space between us opening her rotten mouth.

“He looked like a man, fucks like one too. But you’d know now.”

She has no sense of shame, and it clings to me. I’m disgusted at the fact I’m related to the bitch. My hand moves whipping through the air and the crack against her face echoes against the bare walls.

I always had an image of a drug addict in my mind. The same one that’s portrayed in movies, someone who the world has torn apart and they destroy themselves to find a new one. Carly doesn’t fit that description, she had everything she could have wanted, and it appears she still likes her designer clothes. There’s not a hair out of place on her head, she doesn’t even have grown out roots. All that fucking care she possesses goes into her image.

She slowly turns her head back to me. Her cheek is red and her face twists becoming as ugly as her true character as she grabs a handful of my hair. Her fist lands in my stomach, knocking the air out of me and I don’t know this person spitting at me.

“Do you like being second best to me? Mom and Dad fucking hated you, now you’re playing happy families pretending that brat is yours?” My scalp burns as she pulls my head further back and I can’t control my tears with every cruel word leaving her mouth. “You’ll never be able to replace me, not then and not now.”

I’m not trying to take a place that’s not even hers. Even as children it wasn’t a competition. I just wanted a fraction of my parents time, not to take it from her.

I’m not a fighter, I tried once and got the shit kicked out of me. I’m weak and my excuse for her to leave is weak to my own ears.

“Val’s going to come back, you’re not supposed to be here.”

I’m clutching at straws hoping to fuck she’s afraid of them after the bruises that were on her face the last time I had seen her. My body sways as she drops her hold on me and laughs slapping her thigh like I’ve told a joke. Shaking her head, she sighs and continues being a cunt,

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