Undeniable

Chapter Two - Chrysanthemum

"Why Aunt Mary's?" I question immediately, wanting to know why I'd be spending god knows how long over there.

She takes a deep puff of her cigarette and immediately I hold my breath as she exhales, her smoke filling the room in a deep fog. As soon as it disappears before my eyes, I instinctively exhale as well. Not wanting to breathe in any of the toxic air that she was breathing out.

"There's better things out there for you, at least that's what she said." She mumbled as she continued to flick through the channels, not even turning to look at me from where she was seated.

"I don't need things, I need action. I need to do things, to steady myself. Not going around reliving hell just to retell what happened to me, I need change."

"And you're going to get it, by going to your Aunt Mary's." I look to her in bewilderment, her face a stone cold expression as I begin to feel my mind start to tear in the very center.

"She thinks what I went through was a tall tale, she doesn't even believe what happened to me. What makes you think that she'll waste money on me by sending me to a place to talk to people about something that she doesn't believe happened!" I'm standing on my feet now with my fists clenched by my sides, my heart pounding so loud I can hear it in my ears and feel it in the tips of my fingers.

"I don't know, if she's willing to take you then I'll let her. It'll give me a break." She turns to look at me finally, her empty and soulless eyes meeting mine for a millisecond before turning to look back at the bright screen.

"This is all a lie isn't it, you just wanna get rid of me for your own selfish reasons!" I yell, and she's silent for a few seconds. Before she takes another drag and coughs out a chuckle, looking down to the old ring mark on her finger.

"You were always so inquisitive like your father, seemed like the only thing he gave you when he left us. Left me." She let out a deep sigh and I couldn't help but roll my eyes, so far into the back of my head I swore I saw my brain in those fleeting moments.

I'm at a loss for words and there's nothing sitting on the tip of my tongue to spit back at her that might change her mind, there was nothing that was going to change her mind if it wasn't going to benefit her in any way. I was going to go with Aunt Mary and I had no say in it whatsoever, I was to be trapped with that woman for who knows how long.

"What's going on?" A sudden voice comes out of the shadows and causes me to jump from where I'm sat deep in thought, Matthew. He's standing in the doorway, peering at me with those red-rimmed eyes from the darkness of the dining room. He isn't happy to see me, and I'm not happy to see him either not in the slightest.

"I'm just telling her about the plan for Aunt Mary's babe." Mom mumbles as she takes another deep puff, not even turning to look at him as she lets the smoke pour out of her mouth like water in a great stream. I resist the urge to fan the smoke away from me, holding my breath again and waiting until it disappears from sight until I inhale quietly again through my nose.

He nods silently from where his tall figure looms over the atmosphere, hanging heavier than the smoke from my mom's cigarette. His eyes bore into mine as he steps into the living room and sit's beside my mom on the couch, slapping a hand down on her bare knee. She's emotionless as a statue as he gets comfortable beside her, throwing an arm over her shoulder and trying to grow as comfortable as possible.

"We'll finally get some time to ourselves, sounds fun huh?" He smirks as he squeezes her shoulder softly, and she gives a stiff smile back. Void of all emotion that vanishes as quickly as it appears, turning back to the neutral expression that I know all too well.

"Yea," she numbly agreed "just you, me and the tv." She sighed with a smug expression on her face. It was disheartening to see her like this, the woman sitting there was someone I no longer recognized as my mother. Just a hollow and dark form slouched in her crevice within the couch, all traces of the maternal figure I had grown to love, long gone with no sign of ever returning.

This is what my father did to her, my real father. Not the beast with his arm wrapped around her as if she were his property, nothing more than a source of income to fuel his unhealthy habits. My mother never told me what really happened, I wasn't here for what took place. I was in the basement of a cabin in the middle of the woods. Whenever I tried to bring it up, she'd shut me down right away with a cold and icy stare that chilled me down to my very bones. She told me only what she thought I needed to know, that it was all my fault.

I constantly tell myself that she's lying, that she's only telling me this to make herself feel better because of what happened. But deep down I kind of feel like it's true, that if it wasn't for me, life would have been a paradise for the three of us to live in together. That if it wasn't for my stupid mistake, I wouldn't be standing here watching this man suck the life out of my mother with each passing moment. I wouldn't have to be the audience to behold the smoke that constantly pooled out of her mouth, I wouldn't have to worry about going into her room in the morning to find her lifeless body curled up beneath her bed sheets.

"Do you want something?"

I jump where I stand to find Matthew glaring at me, a predatory stare finding its way into his eyes. Matthew never liked me, and I never liked him either so it was completely fair in my eyes. I was fairly good at reading people, knowing the emotion brewing behind their eyes as if it were a tea bag steeping in a tall cup. I saw how Matthew felt, I saw how he felt about me within those fleeting moments we shared eye contact. A sudden chill rushed over me, a frost that began to numb the tips of my fingers and toes. His eyes. They looked just like-

"No, nothing at all." I gasp out before speed walking out of the living room and leaping up the steps, racing towards my bedroom door to escape from him and his eyes. His eyes. His eyes. His eyes. The look he gave, it was like I was there again. Like I was sitting naked in that basement, with nothing but the darkness to comfort me. It was too dark. There was never light, like the hallway I'm racing down this very minute. My heart is pounding so loud it takes over the sound of my thundering footsteps, the closed doors within this hall haunting me with their bare emptiness.

I run through with my hands stretched out in front of me, searching for that familiar door handle that led to the only safe haven I had ever had. I grasp the doorknob earnestly and shove my way into the room and into the blinding light, causing the darkness that constantly followed to recede back into the hall. I pant as I trip with the force I had used to bust open the door and fall to my knees as I turn back to the doorway. I look into the darkness of the hall I had just escaped from with fearful eyes, watching the darkness stare back into me with nothing less than malice. I kick the door closed with my feet as I sit on the floor of my bedroom, willing myself to calm down and realize where I am. In my room. My sanctuary.

I look around at the familiar area I had been in since after the incident, the one place I had called home. Plain beige walls with three large windows greeting you as soon as you walked into the room, the eyes of the house glaring back out into the world with what I wanted to believe was anger. During the day I tied the curtains up into a knot and allowed myself to tug the blinds all the way up to the very top of the window. Not allowing a single ounce of sunlight to be wasted, and with the snow packing into the earth the sun reflected its wondrous glory tenfold to those willing to behold it. Most would draw the curtains together tightly, not wanting the blinding light to assault their eyeballs more than needed.

But for me, the darkness was something I wanted to be willed away with all my might. To be in it was something that drove me into hysteria, a panic attack that couldn't be qualmed until I was bathed in the light yet again. The sunlight was something to be rejoiced, admired and not taken advantage of. Something I did all too much the years before it happened when it was only the darkness and I for an entire year. Best friends, never to be without one another again.

I shakily stand to my feet from where I'm sat on the floor, my stomach still turning within me as I steady myself. I walk over to the window and peer out at the world coated in the frozen tears of the angels, or whoever was up there watching over us. If there was anyone up there at all. I walk over to my dresser as I shrug off my thin jacket, looking to my reflection in the mirror and letting out a deep sigh. It had been two years and my hair wasn't showing any signs of turning back to normal any time soon. Due to the trauma I had experienced under the cabin, I had acquired what they called Marie Antoinette Syndrome.

My hair had turned as white as the snow falling from the sky, and even after all this time it hadn't faded in the slightest. Or reverted back slightly to the thick chocolate brown I had been born with. I had given up all hopes of trying to make myself presentable to those around me, I had nothing to lose but so much to gain. And trying to push myself out into the world, dressed head to toe in the fake facade of a girl who is completely put together was the very last thing that I wanted to do.