Father's Favourite

Monster

This isn't a happy update to this story. Not really.

The monster in this story played an insidious part in me growing up to be who I am today to be sure, but it is not my father. This is not the removal of that dark and horrible stain that coats me like tar, no. This is something different entirely. Someone killed the monster that had lived in the dark and under my bed, killed the monster that took something from me that could never ever be replaced or given back.

On Christmas Day in 2015 my mum forwarded me a news article, similar to that very top one, she said she had heard rumors that it was someone we known that had been murdered. Someone who had hurt me deep inside in a way that couldn't really be healed, not truly. Someone who has taken what I had left after my father.

Tom.

I pushed aside the article, not wanting to look at it or read it. I wanted nothing to do with him, wanted to see nothing about him. I hide inside myself, never wanting to acknowledge what he had done, not wanting to pull apart the wrappings I had put around myself, not wanting to expose the raw wound that lay underneath it all. My father had coated me in sludge, made me untouchable and made everyone resent me but Tom had trapped me inside myself, a terrified little girl too scared to tell an adult no. She was hurt, bruised, with her soul bleeding, and I couldn't stand to acknowledge her, couldn't stand to look at her so I wrapped her up tight and pushed her away.

A few hours later my mum forwarded me an email. It was confirmation that Tom had been the victim of the murder.

On Christmas Day, 2015, someone murdered the man who molested me as a child.

And I was happy.

I remember telling my mum that it was the best Christmas present anyone could have given me. I remember telling her that I was happy for it, that I was ecstatic that he was gone. I saw it as karma doing its work.

He was never punished for what he did to me. There was no justice for me. This man had destroyed me growing up. He broke me in a way that not many people can experience and nor do I wish them too. He had hurt me in a way that cannot be fixed, that will linger with me for the rest of my life. And he was never punished for it.

I was forced to sit in his presence, giving him 'yes, sirs' and 'no, sirs' and watch him live in my life without punishment while I was crumbling on the inside with no one to help me through. I had to watch this man exist in my life with impunity, forced to live under his rule when all I wanted was to scream and rail against the world that it wasn't fair. I had to lock that up, wrap it up tight, keep it hidden, so no one could see because you never spoke back to your elders. He stood as the man in the house and I wasn't allowed a voice to say no.

So I viewed the murder as a type of karmic retribution for him. One that I was happy in.

I had lived with the mark he had given me for as long as I can truly remember. That type of wound lingers long after that person is gone from your life. The moment I learned it was him that had died it was euphoric, for the first time in my life that little girl who was screaming and crying with no voice, who was hurt and bruised, who had a tattered and bleeding soul, was free.

You see, it wasn't self-preservation that had me wrap her up tight and keep her hidden away, it was fear. It was fear of this man who had hurt me in a way that no one else ever did. My father had done what he had and that is a mark and a stain I can't get out but what Tom did to me terrorized me.

Every time I tried to think about it, tried to work through it, tried to remember, I was brought back to being a terrified little girl. I was brought back to the moment of stale alcohol brushing my cheek as he murmured that I was a 'good little girl', brought back to the feeling of being unable to breath as he held me tightly to his chest, brought back to the smell of sweat and fear and my heart beating so hard I thought it would fly out of my chest, brought back to the moment when vomit rose to touch the back of my tongue as I couldn't say no.