[ A WATTPAD FEATURED STORY ]
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❝We accept the love we think we deserve.❞
But what does that really mean?
This is Eva's story; a tale of a wayward girl who had a heart of glass and when it broke, forgot that light tends to creep in through the cr...
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It was around half past ten that night, following the painful aftermath of the disastrous meal, that Caroline Monroe's and Eva's lives took quite the turn.
Caroline winced as she examined herself in the bathroom, the beating she'd just endured taking more effect on her sore body with each passing hour. The redness of the skin on her chest where her husband's foot had landed promised a nasty bruising and it seemed to take a lot of effort for her to just breathe.
Walking into the living room after having cleaned the cuts on her neck caused by her husband's nails and washing whatever dishes remained in the kitchen sink, her small, fish-like eyes flickered towards the small figure curled up on the ragged, worn out couch, but she turned away quickly.
She felt ashamed of herself, weak even, to allow her daughter — her little girl — to watch such an ordeal and not be able to do something about it.
Caroline's eyes landed on little Eva yet again.
Her daughter's long, skinny legs were tucked underneath her, and her head was tilted listlessly to the side, her chin propped up by an elbow digging into the arm of the couch as her eyes blankly stared at the television screen. As if nothing caused her amusement anymore.
Caroline suddenly felt a jab of pain in her gut, and she knew it had more to do with guilt than any injury she could have suffered today.
It wasn't the example she wanted to set, but she couldn't expect any different either. Her father had been the same towards her mother, and now the cycle was repeating with herself and her husband.
She hoped it wouldn't continue with Evelyn. But how much of a hypocrite would she be if she wished for her daughter to take a stand one day while she herself couldn't right now?
The doorbell rang, a shrill, unwelcome sound piercing the natural silence of the Monroe household, and Caroline saw her daughter jolt due to it.
For a minute, none of them moved — neither one were used to visitors at this ungodly hour, or even at any other hour at all.
Tristan would just barge in, Caroline thought. Sue couldn't remember the last time he'd rung the bell. She frowned and glanced at her daughter who wore the same look of confusion.
When it rang again, however, Caroline swallowed and moved gingerly towards the door, the familiar creak of it still making her wince even after all these years. It sounded like nails on chalkboard and Caroline simply loathed it.
She didn't know what she was expecting — but it definitely was not this.
She didn't know how to react, didn't know what to think. Words seemed to have stopped making sense and her mind was a jumbled mess as she stared at the cops on her doorstep.
And then slowly, like the gradual rise of the sun in the horizon lighting up everything in its wake, her mind gained clarity. And then —
Relief.
A huge wave — a gigantic wave — of relief struck her smack in the gut that she forgot to breathe for a few seconds.
Should she feel guilty for feeling relieved? After all, she was married to the man for eight years now. Been in love with him for even longer.
The relief slowly gave away to a sense of helplessness though; until there was a bittersweet sensation lingering in the air.
And then it hit her at last — how was she going to tell her little girl? How was she going to break it to Eva that her father was dead? That he'd been walking drunk on the streets and met with an accident that took his life on the spot?
And thought she might have not seen it, that was the moment hers and her daughter's lives changed forever.
The moment their lives set upon a particular path that neither of them could have seen coming.
---------------------------------------------------------- Writtenon; 11th February 2016
