Mr. CEO's Maid

Chapter 65- Your Pain is my Pain

Evelyn's POV

My mum died when I was barely an infant. Like my mother once was,I always felt that I was nothing more than a baggage to my father. He would never look at me lovingly, his eyes always beholded a disdainful scrutiny as if I was a bothersome insect he wanted to trample upon. How much I hated myself for that? How much I would try to win my father's attention? How many ways I tried just to gain his love? Everyday I used to point myself at fault because of my father's ignorance. I always thought I was useless,good-for nothing person and that was why my father shunned me.
He used to blame my dead mother for making his life miserable. He claimed that he hated me yet he would never discard me because I reminded him of mum. I was downright stranger at my own house but the happier days were coming.
One day, an extremely cheerful lady came into my life. Apart from the mother figured maid-Hannah, I had no any other soul to confide in or share my sorrows. But, after Theresa came as my step-mother,she lightened my life with bright colours. There was only so much Hannah was allowed to do for me because she had many others chores to complete but,Theresa,she played with me all day along. Even took me out secretly to many recreational place which I never knew existed. I always took Theresa as a reincarnation of my dead mother whom I had never seen. She wanted me to her call her 'mum'. She wanted me to me love myself and never underestimate my self-esteem. She wanted to openly address my fear regarding my father. 'Dave isn't so bad,' She used to keep telling  me but I think it was more of a consolation to herself. I didn't know how her  relationship with my father was,I had seen them be lovable to each other once or twice. However,I had no clue that my father had started to treat her very badly after a span of time. Sometimes I would see her crying to herself alone,sometimes I would see raw scars all over her hands. She would always cover it up with her beautiful smile. Days passed and she had shrunken into a frail, sickly looking woman.
'You're going to have a sister to play with soon.'
I had seen her indefinitely happy after ages.
'I wish she would look like you,my darling.' Every night she would whisper me in my ear after bedtime stories ended. I was immensely happy as well.
Alas! The happiness was too short-lived. Theresa had suddenly vanished from the house one day without any word. I searched for her every where. I had even mustered up all my courage to ask my father.
'She is in a good place.' He had said with a sinister smile. It was the first time I saw him smile such dreadfully. Weeks passed and she hadn't returned. Like always,I used to spend hours nearby my window peering at the solid golden gate afar,hoping she would come back to me. However,one day everything looked eerily unusual after I woke up from a nap. There was not a single person in the house. Workers,maids no one. Not even Hannah or my grandmother was present. Wandering around,I came across the hallway that ended up at my father's bedroom door. I heard some abnormal sounds of screams and grunts coming from inside. Never in million years,I would've had the courage to go for the door if not for the familiar female voice I heard.  My young eyes saw something gruesome that day,something a child of eight years would never imagine seeing. My father was hurting her,his hand were wrapped around her neck while she was gasping for breath. Theresa's skin had lost it's colour,turning into a ghostly pallor,spit foaming in one corner of her mouth. My tiny brain hadn't conceptualise the situation. All I knew at that moment  was that Theresa was no longer the same Theresa and she will never be. My father had something sparkling in his eyes,something monstrous as he smiled at her lifeless body. I had turned immobile,sweat beads dripping with every beat my heard pounded.
When those cruel eyes landed on me,he turned ruthless. He dragged me by my neck across the hallway to my room.
'You're never going to tell what you saw. Do you understand?' He had bellowed in my face. I nodded hysterically out of utter fear. However, assurance of an eight year old child wasn't enough for him. He started to beat me everyday after that to 'seal my mouth'.The abuse started to turn more severe each day. Even if, I was about to say something that was totally unrelated to her death,he would turn paranoid thinking I spewed  everything. He,then started to lock me inside my room for hours and only open it during dinners or breakfasts. His men used to drop me and pick me up at school also. Not only I was insanely affected my Theresa's death,my father's new abusive side had made my life miserable. Sometimes, he would starve me,sometimes he would hit me without any reason. At other times, he would lock me in my room for days. I wasn't allowed to make any friends. I wasn't permitted to talk to anyone from the outside world. Few years later, he brought another lady home,Ava. This time,his delusional self made sure that I would only have a least amount of interaction with her. His abuse were silent and minimised to some extent because he didn't want Ava to see it anytime soon,but it was still there. Some times later,she also disappeared  like Theresa. I couldn't envision or even think as to how he had murdered her. His sadistic side had only been enhanced. I used to hear about those girls and their relatives getting disappeared and I  knew all too well that it was my father's deed,every one of them.
Thinking it was too much, I had ran away from home once but he quickly found out about it.
That night he had locked me in a dark,rancid smelling basement,bolting my hands in chains. I couldn't exactly remember how many days I was jailed but by the time I came out from that dank room, I couldn't walk for weeks properly.
'I hope you would never perform such irrational behaviour again,' he had kissed my forehead. His abuse had mentally distressed me. I would get dreadful nightmares,being in the same room with him suffocated me. There was no end to his violence and torture.  I had started to give in. I even tried quitting my life several times. Once, I tried asphyxiating myself with a plastic bag but quickly put a stop to it. I couldn't kill myself at all. I was only a child of thirteen years devoid of any knowledge regarding killing oneself. Again I tried something my father did to Theresa,I started smothering myself and it didn't work at all. I let go of my neck after choking on my spit.
I even cut myself up hoping to die yet that didn't work as well. Seeing my self harming side, my grandmother and  Hannah,they would reprimand me seriously,trying to cheer me up. It would work for some time but after my father's beating my self harming side would always return back.
I wanted to think that I would be happy some day that there would be end to this all. I did no longer want Dave to love me like fathers do, I would've been fine with him ignoring me. Anything would've been okay than the torture I had to face every single day.
'You can't kill yourself,no you can't. You cannot die this easily. I won't let you,you've so much to pay for,my sweet child.' He had said with a sadistic smile to me once . He even threatened to take Hannah's life if I did anything suicidal.
'You'll go but she'll have to suffer for you. You don't want her beautiful flesh carved,her eyes gauged out,her head decapitated.' There was no limit to his harsh words. Like Theresa,my father took every source of happiness away from me. He made sure I suffered.
The days were full of exploitation and torture,but Nathan came into my life and for once I felt everything was going to be okay but it didn't at the end. My father killed Nathan. The SUV that had  slammed the car we were in,my father was inside it.
'I bet the revenge was sweet. That is what happens when you leave me.' My father had contemptously spat on my crippled state. I was turning more and more immune and lifeless to his abuse but the fear never went away. I was living with a crippling timidness. I became a puppet after that I did whatever he told me to do,I obeyed everything. He had married another woman again,this time a sour-mouthed woman however I could care less. It wasn't  until my father fixed my marriage for his own benefit,my inner rebel exploded. I couldn't take anymore of it. I didn't deserve any of that. I could no longer be locked just to hide his masochistic ways with people. His dark,hideous side would do the same to my intended fiance and his family,I was sure of that. I didn't care about it at that moment but now I am glad to not agree to my fabricated marriage because I met him...