Chapter Two

“YOU'RE AN UNGRATEFUL CHILD. You don’t know how much I’ve sacrificed myself to keep you here! If I had my way you’d be sent off somewhere so that your father and I could actually live happily.” My mom yelled in one of her rampages before she smacked me hard enough to get knocked off of my feet. Sadly, there wasn’t a coffee table for my head to hit this time.

I don’t say anything, because I’ve heard all of this before. How she and my dad could possibly be happier if I wasn’t here. I think she’d be happier if I was dead instead.

“Get off your a*s and clean this place up. Your father will be home sometime after seven and I’m going out to see friends, not like you know what that is anyway.” She yells with a swift kick to my ribs with her pointed high heel shoes she loves the most because it inflicts the most pain on me. “I will be back in five hours so you better have this place spotless before I get back.”

And with that, she leaves and I can finally let out the groan of immense pain that I’m in.

Remembering the shape that the house is in, I whine loudly. There’s clothes everywhere, dishes everywhere -every dish is probably dirty anyway- garbage everywhere you can lay your eyes on. This is exactly what I get when dad is away for a week long business meeting in New York -or at least that’s where I think he went.

But really? Five hours to get this whole house done? This is impossible to most, but I’ve done it before. And she’s always home an hour or two early too, so I’m used to getting it done faster than that. And she knows that laundry takes so much more time than that. At least this only happens once a month when my father is out of town for business.

 

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“I thought I told you to have the house clean when I got back!” My mom yelled when I heard the front door open just to slam closed.

In actuality, I had everything finished except the laundry. It takes an hour in both the wash and the dryer to get just one load done. That and I’m not finished because she’s home early, like always.

“I just don’t have the laundry completely done. It takes two hours to finish one load remember?” I said from where I stood, because I know if I said that out there in her presence, I wouldn’t have been able to.

“You useless piece of s**t!” She barked, just before I heard glass crashing down onto the hard wood floor in our living room that isn’t covered with rugs. Oh please, no, she did not just break her expensive china!

“You didn’t clean this up! Nor did you clean in the kitchen like you were told!”

That’s when I heard her walk straight through the broken glass and into the kitchen. Just to break something else and all I could do was stand there in the laundry room. Feeling terrified of going out there because I just had this sickening feeling that if I did she’d break something over my head. But I’m already done folding the clothes that are dry, and the loads are already switched. So I don’t have anything else to stall my dreading moment of walking out there with the dragon.

Taking in a shuddering breath, I try to give myself some back bone and I walk out there. Glad that I’m still wearing my shoes because the glass traveled all the way down the hall from the living room.

I’m met with three plates from her china set shattered into tiny pieces on the floor just as I’m hearing a car door open and close. Looks like dad came home early as well, and she seems to have heard it too, because she’s rushing over to me. And just as the front door opens, she slaps me so hard across the face that I’m knocked back into the wall.

“What the hell is going on here?” My father yelled, appalled that she hit her own son like this.

“I was only gone for a couple of hours and I came home to him breaking my mothers’ china and there was already plates broken in the kitchen!” She tells him in mock surprise and fake horror. I knew I already lost this battle, just like the others.

“But I di-” I started saying to try and defend myself for once only to be slapped again just as hard as earlier.

“Leiah, slapping him is no way to solve the problem!” My father barked. “Now clean this up Koda, you’re grounded for a week and your allowance will be cut off until I say so.” And with that, my father, with my mom, went to their bedroom and left me to clean up her mess again and for him to calm down her fake hysterics.