ftch11

Chapter 11

Mandi placed the phone back inside her purse and fought to control her screams as Robert kicked at the door harder and harder. He was almost there. Five more kicks, and he would be in.
She looked around frantically for some sort of a way out, but her eyes were only met with empty walls. Why wasn�t there a window in here? It didn�t really matter; he would shoot her if she tried to escape. He would shoot her either way.
She curled herself up tighter into a ball, her forehead resting on her kneecaps and her arms wrapped around her calves. Maybe if she closed her eyes really tight and concentrated really hard, she could be transported safely to the hospital room with JC and everything would be fine. She did, and she wasn�t. What else could she do?
She winced and squeezed her eyes closed as tight as possible when she heard the door finally give way and Robert�s evil cackle penetrated her ear drums. She hated that laugh. The laugh that said "I�m enjoying myself immensely while ruining everyone else�s lives." It made her sick to see someone do such evil things and enjoy himself while he was at it. It was disgusting and despicable.
But words like that would get her nowhere now. She couldn�t hide behind her words. It might make her feel good for a minute to stand up to him and to say exactly what she wanted to say, but it wouldn�t make much of a difference. In the end, they would still be just words, and would never hold enough power to save her life. Words were useless.
She needed action. She needed to show this man that she wasn�t just going to sit there and let him shoot her. That she was going to fight him with everything she had in her. That she wasn�t as weak as he thought she was. Her eyes raised upward and looked around the shower, searching for anything, anything at all that could be used as a weapon.
Her eyes landed on a small plastic razor and deciding that it was better than nothing, she stood up and grabbed it just before the shower curtain was ripped open and the barrel of the gun was pressed into her back.
"Put the razor down."
She opened her hands and the razor fell to the floor.
"Get out and go into the living room."
She walked slowly and calmly out of the bathroom and back into the living room, where she was pushed roughly on to the couch, cringing as pieces of broken glass that had landed there cut into her back. Why didn�t he just shoot her and get it over with?
"That little stunt you pulled is going to cost you. I had planned this to be quick and painless, but you blew that to hell with your trying to escape idea."
She sat silently, refusing to look at him, his words washing over her with no effect whatsoever. Words were useless. She closed her eyes when he began to scream more obscenities at her. Why couldn�t he come up with something new?
"This is what you deserve. You�re not worth loving."
Her eyes flicked open at that point. You�re not worth loving.
"What did you say?"
"You heard me, stupid whore!"
He kicked at her and she fell back, not bothering to sit back up. Closing her eyes once again, her mind began to drift away to another time in her life. She was a child. A young girl, only six years old. Her mother was dead.
Mandi could watch herself in her head without opening her eyes. She was watching Star Search, a talent show hosted by Ed McMahon. That had been a dream of hers when she was a little girl. A forgotten dream. To be on Star Search. Her eyes flicked around in her head, and saw the tiny New York City apartment where she had grown up. New York City, where she was as meaningless as the next person you saw walking down the street. Everyone was strange in New York City. Strangeness was swallowed up like it was nothing.
She heard the creak of the door opening and saw a man step into the picture in her head. He surveyed the area, and seemed to spot something that didn�t satisfy him. She could feel herself instinctively tense up when she looked at the younger version of herself, staring up at the man with wide and frightened eyes. She flinched when he spoke, as if his words were cutting her like knives.
"What�s this? Why aren�t the dishes washed? I told you to wash the dishes!"
The little girl stood up and walked backwards into a corner.
"I�m sorry, Daddy. I forgot."
"Oh, you forgot? I don�t give a shit if you forgot! You wash those dishes when I tell you to wash the dishes, you stupid whore!"
He took a giant step towards her and hit her hard across the face. Mandi put a hand to her cheek as if she could still feel the burning pain, and watched as the little girl in her head began to cry.
"I�m sorry, Daddy. I�m sorry! I won�t do it again. Please, Daddy!"
Mandi�s nose twitched. She could still smell the alcohol on his breath. She could still feel it as he spat in her face. She saw the younger version of herself being grabbed by the arm and thrown into a sobbing heap on the ground. She felt herself being kicked, over and over, in the stomach. She could hear those same words that he screamed at her.
"You stupid slut! You worthless scum! Why don�t you go kill yourself like your mother? No one would miss you! You�re not worth missing. You�re not worth loving!"
The sobs of the little girl echoed throughout the room, until Mandi couldn�t bear to watch any longer. She slowly lifted her eyes open, watching as the images in her head gave way to blackness, and the screams in her ears faded to silence.
"You bastard."
She didn�t even realize that her lips had spoken those words. Those useless words. She could still hear him screaming at her, but couldn�t tell if it was happening now or then. Her brain vaguely remembered that her life was at stake, but it was blocked out by harsh and intruding thoughts that wouldn�t go away.
Thoughts of revenge and feelings of hatred overtook her as she looked up at the man who was her father. The one who had extinguished the light in her eyes, who had taken the fire out of her limbs. And she thought of JC. The one who had revived the light, and started the fire back up again, the one who had given her frightened courage, and had reminded her of forgotten dreams.
Mandi was a strange child. For she still was a child. She would always be that little girl, the victim. She was caught in her past, unable to break free, unable to move on. That�s why she needed him here right now. She believed him when he said that he loved her, when he said those beautiful words, even when the echoing of her father�s voice in her ears made it almost impossible to hear him.
"You�re not worth loving."
She was strange because she couldn�t let go. She couldn�t pull free from the never-ending grasp of her horrible past around her wrists. Her eyes fell downward and caught a glimpse of her reflection in a piece of the shattered glass.
The light was gone. The fire was burnt out, nothing left but ashes. She had no courage, only fear. She had no dreams to realize, not even forgotten ones. She very well could have been dead or immortal, if it wasn�t for the love she still held in her heart.
She could see her strangeness peering back at her through the clouds of her eyes. It was still swallowed up by the city, but she could see it. It would always be there. It had only been covered for a while, but it was back.
"You sick bastard!"
Robert took a slight step back as the power of her angry shriek hit him. She even thought she saw worry in his eyes, until she saw him realize that he still held the gun, and therefore held the power.
"Look what you�ve done to me. Look! You�ve turned me into this empty person. You gave me my strangeness. You took my light away. You took everything away!"
Robert�s arms fell to his sides, shocked that she had the guts to yell at him when he could pull the trigger and end it all any time he wanted to.
"I only took everything away because you let me."
Her eyes became dark with anger and the distant, uncaring look in his eyes didn�t do anything to calm her down.
"I didn�t let you do anything."
He laughed that disgusting and despicable laugh and took a step towards her. Mandi stood up and backed away from him, refusing to let him get any closer.
"But you did. You didn�t fight, Mandi. You didn�t do anything to stop me. You didn�t give me any reason to stop. I wanted a challenge, and you didn�t give it to me. Do you know how angry that made me? Do you know how boring it would get, doing the same thing over and over, never any change, never any resistance?"
"Well then why didn�t you stop?"
"Because it was too easy. It was like stealing. As long as you don�t get caught, you keep going. It�s not until you get thrown in jail for a night that you get scared and you stop. You never threw me in jail, Mandi. You never threatened me, never fought back, and never resisted. You did everything I told you, and let me do whatever I wanted to you. How could you expect me to stop doing something that was so simple?"
The darkness faded from her eyes and was replaced by blankness and emptiness when she realized that he was absolutely right. As much as she couldn�t stand to admit it, he was right. She never stopped him. She never stood up to him, never yelled at him, never threatened to tell someone what was going on. She just let him do this to her. Just sat back and watched as if it was a movie of the week instead of her own life passing her by.
Why didn�t she stop him? If she had just stood up to him, just once, maybe things would be different. Maybe she wouldn�t be so strange. Maybe she wouldn�t hear that awful voice in her head every time someone told her that they loved her.
"You�re not worth loving."
Maybe she wouldn�t get that sting in the pit of her stomach when she smiled. Maybe she wouldn�t get that feeling of guilt all the time without ever knowing where it was coming from. She had almost given up and admitted that she was wrong and that it was all her fault, when she looked up and noticed the almost sinister grin on Robert�s face.
"No."
The grin faded slightly.
"No?"
"I won�t let you do this to me. Maybe I was wrong for not stopping you. In fact, I know I was wrong for not doing anything about it. But that does not justify what you�ve done to me. Not in the least bit. I�m not that little girl anymore. I won�t let you manipulate me into thinking that this is my fault."
Robert stared at her, not quite knowing how to respond to her sudden show of strength. This had never happened before, and instead of just shooting her, he found himself wanting to hear more of what she had to say.
"I never did a single thing to you, Robert. I never gave you any reason to hate me. Not one reason at all. You had your own issues and you took them out on me. What kind of a person are you? What kind of person abuses and hurts their own daughter? Their own blood? Look at me. Half of what you see is because of you. You�re my father! You gave me life! And now you want to just take it away. You know what, Robert? If you can give me one good, valid reason for you doing this to me, then I�ll stand here and let you shoot me right now."
Robert�s grin was gone and his body seemed to go limp as her words washed over him. Words that she thought were useless, words that had actually made a huge impact on him. What kind of person was he? He didn�t have that answer. Why had he hurt her the way he did? He didn�t have that answer either. He had never really thought about that until now. Why had he hurt her? Because he didn�t have anyone else to hurt. That wasn�t a good enough reason, not even for him. Definitely not for her.
For the first time in all the twenty-two years that Mandi had been on the earth, he knew that she deserved better. She didn�t deserve to be treated the way he was treating her. She deserved better than what he had given her. She deserved all of the opportunities that had passed her by because of him. She deserved to be loved. She deserved to have a family that loved her. A father that loved her. She was worth loving.
And he did love her. Deep down, he knew he did. She was his daughter. But he didn�t deserve her. He didn�t give her what she deserved, and he didn�t know if she would ever forgive him. And he knew that he didn�t want to stay around and find out.
Raising his eyes to meet Mandi�s, and noticing for the first time that hers were the same color as his, he slowly raised the gun to his head and watched her eyes get wide.
"No!"
She shrieked when he pulled the trigger and covered her mouth with her hands as she stared down at his body. She began to feel nauseous as the blood poured from his head and she realized that it was finally over. It was over, and she was the one who was still alive. And as she stared down at his dead body on the living room floor, she couldn�t help but think that she should have just washed the dishes.