From Fat to Phat

|51| Life story

TRAGIC

/ˈtradʒɪk/

1.
causing or characterized by extreme distress or sorrow.

Jacob's POV

My father had always hated me for as long as I could remember but I never understood why. It was only later on when I discovered the reason but even then I wasn't old enough to grasp the depth of his hatred.

But my mother loved me enough for the both of them, Eric was never around to begin with, he buried himself in work in order to see less of his family and the few times I saw him he always seemed like a cold individual it frightened me so I used to always keep my distance even as a small kid I knew better than to cross paths with him. He was an individual who hated everything and everyone but of course that didn't include Thalia and my mother his cold persona was always directed towards me. It was as if every time he saw me it pained him but just like me my father isn't good with emotions as such pain, sadness and regret it all was engineered to take the form of anger and hatred instead.

My parents rarely fought unless it involved me. At times they looked happy but as I grew older my father would pick on the littlest of things just to start an argument with my mother. And she hated it. She didn't want my sister and I to grow up with parents who fought so she tried her hardest to shield us from it all.

I remember one day I was running around the house. I think I was about five with a water balloon in my hands. My mother had told me to play with it outside and my excitement was beyond imagination. I just had to rush outside. Without looking where I was headed I bumped into Eric just as he was about to leave for work and the balloon splashed all over his expensive suit. The flash of anger I saw in his eyes when he looked down at his ruined attire but when he looked at me his eyes softened. He looked as if he had seen someone who wasn't me because he had never looked at me with such a loving expression. "I-I- I I'm sowy d-dad." I said with so much fear and the word dad sounded so foreign because I barely said it. But as soon as I spoke it was as if whoever he had been seeing was gone and the cold stare I was used to came back, he lifted his hand and hit me, the impact forced me to fall down and the ringing in my ears began my throat began to hurt and I heard screaming it took me a while to realize that it was coming from me.

"Cucciolo, quello che è successo?" I could faintly hear my speaking Italian, cucciolo was a nickname she had for me. It meant cub she usually called me when I was being clumsy or misbehaving. She had just asked me what had happened whilst descending from the stairs but nothing had prepared her for what she was going to see. Me crying on the floor with my father towering over me. As soon as she discovered what he had done she rushed towards me and gathered me in her arms.

"Eric what the hell." She screamed "Cucciolo, are you ok?"

"Teach that damn brat some damn manners, look at what he fucking did!"

"That's your reason to hit him? Eric he is your figlio, your child." (figlio- son)

I don't remember exactly what they said next but they kept yelling and I remember Eric saying "I told you Rebecca not to have this child, I never wanted another child I never wanted to replace....." he didn't finish his sentence he couldn't say the name. In an attempt to shield me from what my father was saying my mother covered my ears but I had already heard everything.

Now I had an idea of why he hated me, he never wanted me to begin with. Thalia walked in from school and when she saw me she took me from my mothers arms and carried me away from our fighting parents. I couldn't stop crying not from the pain my father had inflicted but because of his words. Why did he hate me so much? Was I the reason my family couldn't be happy? Maybe if I wasn't there, the three of them would be happy Eric, mamma and Thalia.