Mother Tongue, Rafe Cameron

Mother Tongue

My mother tongue would always be an open
gash that never did close. My father was angry. It's the only thing I'll ever know.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆜 𓆞 𓆡
Mother Tongue, 2023.   
______________________

Finally, she had a sin worth hurting for.

Something to love tenderly, and not tender like a bruise. She had never felt so soft since the day her own mother hugged her goodbye, stroking her hair and kissing her forehead. Then she was gone like the wind. Was it her fault, or his?

Their father seemed to blame the both of them, two children's bodies were now buried in the walls of their decaying home. They weren't corpses but they were rotting. The Routledge siblings would fight tooth and nail with their father, until one day he too disappeared.

And then along came JJ Maybank, and a summer of love so sweet she chewed it up and couldn't remember what it tasted like. But he left a permanent mark on her tongue, and a child in her arms. She should've known he wasn't the one, but her heart was cold, and a fire was a fire no matter how close it came to melting her.

JJ would shout when he got too angry, and his daughters drawings of a happy home covered the holes he would punch into the walls. He had the same kind of anger his father did, violent and relentless. And it would linger for the rest of his little girls life. He was a blade that would never stop cutting and a scream that only got louder.

She only thing she learnt from her father was that enduring things is what she did best. Just smile and bear it.

Eventually, Mother mustered up the courage to flee in the dead of night. Alls she had was the clothes on her back and the child in her arms but she had never felt more free. She drove past her brothers house in the midst of her escape, and the sight made her heart sink. She didn't want to throw any more burden on to the boy, so she carried on driving, despite her skin being etched into the bones of the house.

To make money, she took up a job cleaning for Kooks, and it wasn't until she first stepped foot in Tannyhill that she felt tenderness from someone other than her daughter. She leaned into Rafe Cameron the way she wished she could've with JJ. The volatile blonde had grew a forest inside of her, and the Kook king soon carved his name into every tree.

Finally, she had a sin worth hurting for.