Spring is green | Kim Gyuvin

A visage of life (NAEUN LEE)

"Mommy?" I said with shaky voice as I looked at my mother who was crouched over, throwing up in the toilet. I was scared. She grew thinner and thinner everyday.... Was it my fault?

Suddenly as she reached her hand to grab me, daddy came home, pulling me out, bringing me to the corridor. I leaned on the big door as I heard my parents fight, I tried not to think of it, covering my ears as I listened with shaky breath.

This was not real, mommy loves me...
Mommy wanted me...
I did everything she wanted, so....why?

I heard her wailing loudly as my father yelled at her...

"Mingxia, have you gone mad?! Naeun's your daughter"

"I don't want her, I never did!"

"She hears us, Mingxia, she's hurting"

"I'm hurting too, aren't I?!"

"Can't we figure it out?"

"That monster, she's not my daughter! I hate her, I wish she dies!"

A loud slap echoed through the room, I covered my mouth as I saw them....mommy was on the floor, daddy widened his eyes, panicking.

Daddy kneeled down and tried to touch mommy's face "I'm so sorry...I- I didn't mean to-" he said as he looked at mommy with tears in his eyes. Mommy backed away from him and looked at me with those eyes....as if I was a monster.

She pushed the expensive ceramic vase and took a sharp part of it before screaming and reaching out for me when the maids came in front, dragging her inside her room. I looked at her as she fought, trying to get to me.

"Leave me alone, I'll kill her!"

I looked at her with tears in my eyes when suddenly daddy picked me up, he smiled softly "Don't mind her, mommy's just....sick" he said softly which I nodded to.

Mommy was like that at days, but some days, she'd pick me up as if I was the most delicate thing in the world.

I giggled as she twirled around the garden with me in her arms, "My pretty baby, my Naeun" she'd coo.

"Mommy loves you so much, my darling daughter" she'd say as she pressed kisses all over my face

"you're so beautiful, mommy!"

"tell me, would you love mommy if she wasn't so beautiful?"  She said, her grasp on me tightened, her face darkened, a red hue present in her eyes.

"mommy-"

"Tell me!"

The maids would grab me and take me away, immediately calling the psychiatrist to 'heal' her.

They always told me "Mommy was sick"

I was six then, I'm twenty one now....those days still haunt me...I never knew what to expect

I didn't know if I'd be called a monster of her darling daughter.

I wonder what he'd think if I told him this, a freak with parental issues? Ironic.

Would he like me like this....all this, was for me to survive, I became her favourite pawn, to survive.

And he was, all too good for me...

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