Page 12 of Obsession
Mom approached us with a manic look in her eyes, one that sparkled with sick and demented pleasure. She loved to break me. This was no different. At the age of ten years old, I knew Mom took out her bitterness over her failures on me.
Her resentment toward the world.
“Mom, no,” I pleaded in a choked voice, but she gripped the handle tighter, her lips curling in a sickening smile.
“Do you know what’s wrong with the kitten?”
I shook my head to appease her, whispering a shaky, quiet, “No.”
“It’s weak. Just like you.”
The cat squirmed in my grip, its scratchy meowing splitting my heart wide open.
“It’s time you cut out your weakness, son.”
My eyes widened, and I lifted the kitten from the table and cradled it to my chest. I couldn’t let her do this, but I also knew it wasn’t up to me. Who knew when I’d be allowed to eat again if I didn’t do as she demanded? She’d hurt me. Beat me with my dad’s belt like she did yesterday, but this time, she’d used the buckle, just like she threatened. Self-preservation was all I knew—all I’d ever known.
“Put the fucking kitten down. Stop cuddling it like a baby. Do you think I want it pissing on our home?”
My head shook, and the tears I’d fought so bravely to hold back fell like a river down my cheeks. “Mom, please.”
It was useless. My pleas always landed on deaf ears.
“Put the fucking cat on the table and take the knife.”
With my heart in my throat and numbness spreading throughout my chest, I did as I was told, placing the cat on the table with shaky hands.
I wanted Mom to die. I wanted this nightmare to end. But I was a coward. Despite how much I hated my life, I couldn’t bring myself to end it all. Not when Mrs. Ashton, my teacher at school, would brush her hand down my hair affectionately and tell me she was proud of me for doing well on a test I’d had no time to practice for because Mom wouldn’t let me.
Or when Mr. Carson cheered me on for coming in second at track. I was always so tired, covered in bruises, and relentlessly teased for my greasy hair and gaunt face. But on that field, I channeled an inner strength I didn’t know existed.
Somewhere deep inside, I knew this would snuff it all out. There was only so much evil I could withstand.
Fed up with waiting, Mom grasped my wrist and forced the blade into my hand. Her sour breath heated the side of my facewhen she leaned in close, pushing my greasy hair off my sweaty forehead. “Make Mommy proud.”
The serrated blade glinted in the dim light pouring in through the cloudy window to my left. If my chest had ever housed emotions, they were now gone, replaced by an echoing silence.
An emptiness I could lose myself in.
“Do it.” Mom smiled against the side of my cheek before cuddling my neck and breathing me in.
I tasted sick in my mouth. The kitten squirmed beneath Mom’s grip when she gripped its small head and secured it to the table.
Desperate, it tried to wriggle out from beneath her tight hold, but fighting was pointless. I knew it.
The twisted softness in Mom’s cruel eyes took on a dangerous edge, darkening as she gripped my chin hard. “Do. It.”
Before I could respond, she screamed in my face, “DO IT, YOU LITTLE SHIT.”
The knife came down, cutting through fur and flesh.
“Again.” Mom’s eyes sparkled with evil.
The knife came down again and again, eviscerating something fragile inside me.
I couldn’t let myself see the damage I’d caused, and I couldn’t look away from Mom, who began to laugh maniacally. It was all a sick game to her.
“Pathetic little shit.” She took the knife from my sweaty, trembling hand and held it up in front of my face, forcing me to see the fresh blood. The scent of copper assaulted my nostrils, tangy and sickly.
