Fire was the only word that could describe what Alicia felt. It burned the skin of her bottom off. As much as she crawled away, her mother was always one step ahead of her. There was nowhere to run.
The clothes hanger had jagged edges from wear and tear, which tore the flesh underneath with the psychotic and animalistic hunger of a zombie.
She forced herself under the dining table and shielded herself with the chairs, but that was useless. Her mother grabbed her collar and dragged her out across the furniture. Her hands and legs pin balled around the chair and table legs as she tried to grab onto them, leaving bumps and aches all over. Two chairs rammed her pointer together, and formed a pulse there that supplied pain, and not blood. A wooden corner sucker-punched her knee, locking it in that angle.
“St—St—Stop! Pl—Please!” She begged, but the crying made talking impossible.
The second best word that could describe this was acid. Poison seeping into the already torn flesh, burning it from the inside out. It was a different burning from what she felt on her skin, which melted everything away as opposed to setting them ablaze. Alicia wished she had no body for her mother to cane, which might come true if her mother didn’t stop soon.
Her mother’s stare hurt more. Eyes were the windows to the soul, except in her mother’s case, there was nothing inside them. It was a bottomless void which the pupil fell through. Her mother lost herself in the zone, like Alicia when she came close to beating a high score in a game of Cyber-Strikers, where stopping took more effort than continuing. Except, her mother found no reason to stop.
Her screaming, crying, and bleeding were not a reason to stop.
In Singapore, this was discipline, not abuse.
Hence, no one came to save her. The neighbours would think she was a bratty teenager who deserved it. The teachers would think of her grades and believed she deserved it. The classmates would sigh, shrug their shoulders and say, “That’s life.”
Serena had beat her long enough for Alicia to accept this as reality. The questions in her mind evolved from, “What is happening?” to “Why is this happening?”
After all these years of being called her daughter, her dear Alicia, her precious, her flesh and blood… Mothers could do this to their daughters?
Unless, of course, those were lies too. Lies beyond lies beyond lies. But no longer. Tonight, Alicia unravelled them all, and stared the truth in the face.
Alicia was her mother’s curse. The fire continued burning. The acid continued melting. But there was no skin left to burn or melt. Yet, it wouldn’t stop.
Her mother would never stop. Until, out of the blue, she did.
Acid touched adrenaline, forming a chemical reaction only visible to Alicia’s body, and not her eyes.
The reaction exploded at the centre of her chest and left her heart as black as charcoal. The nuclear fallout spread radioactive poison to every corner of her being. It poisoned the water inside her, and traces of it could be found in her tears, sweat, and saliva, which tasted sweet.
Sweet as vengeance.
Stop crying. She was not an infant; she knew how she should feel under this circumstance. The correct emotion was anger, not sadness. She forced herself to feel that way whilst inspecting the damage.
Red lines ran across her skin, as if left by a rabid cat. When touched, it left a smudge of red on her fingers.
Sitting hurts. Walking hurts. Underwear hurts. Shorts hurts. School skirt hurts. Leaving it alone hurts. Touching it hurts, and the hurt didn’t stop there. An odd spot on her forearm was sore, and she couldn’t raise that hand without it aching. Her right leg couldn’t walk, leaving her with a limp. That pointer was still pulsing, and it couldn’t grip a pen, nor tap a phone screen (not that she had one anymore). Her cheeks were bright red.
But she had FCE today, and Mr Lee will ask her to present. Fuck you, Mr Lee.
Only Kat noticed her sorry state, and she rushed to prop her up. Ironically, the size difference between them made just carrying her easier. But neither of them thought to do that.
Words. She had to speak words. With her mouth, and her throat. But the words wouldn’t come. She just had that wincing-in-pain look on her face. Kat had to guess her way to the answer with an endless series of yes-or-no questions.
Eventually, Kat reached the answer. Now, she just needed to reach a response.
“You’re not mad at me or anything, right? You’re just going non-verbal?”
She tilted her head.
“It’s an autism thing. Like, you shut down and go quiet when you’re stressed or overwhelmed. It’s that, right? And not you being pissed at me or whatever?”
She nodded.
“Okay, good, just had to make sure.”
Kat tried asking what happened, but the yes-or-no routine didn’t get her anywhere. They took their seats in class and waited for Mr Lee to arrive. Kat suggested the period excuse to help bail Alicia from the presentation, but Alicia couldn’t muster the voice to pull it off.
Before they had time to come up with Plan B, Mr Lee called on her. She limped to the front of the class (No one noticed, or maybe they did, but said nothing), and stood still.
Their stares cut deep, especially when it was the look. Especially when it happened now. She just limped her way out of class.
Fuck Mr Lee and whatever protests he had against that.
Kat chased after her and led her to the canteen, empty at this time of day. She bought two cups of lemon tea, slid one to her, and continued the questions.
This was when Alicia realised she could type her thoughts out. She wrote the entire story on Kat’s phone before taking a sip of her lemon tea.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Icy-cold, sour-y goodness. Just what she needed right now.
Kat scrunched her nose. Alicia gave a you-see-what-i-mean look, only to realise Kat did not.
“You stole nine hundred dollars from your mom? That’s like—I mean your mom isn’t rich, right? So this is like what—half her salary?”
“Approximately four-fifths.” Alicia corrected.
“No wonder she went batshit crazy over you.”
Alicia frowned at this. Of all people, Kat should understand. Kat should take her side.
“You’re gonna need to have a serious talk with her to figure y’all shit out. This isn’t healthy.”
Alicia slammed her cup on the table. The acoustics of the canteen amplified it until it grew loud enough to be threatening.
“What? You don’t like lemon tea? Are you mad at me?”
She nodded.
“Fine, I’ll buy you iced milo next time. Can you take a few deep breaths and chill out? It’s like—” Kat flailed her hands, as if that explained anything.
‘Why do you care about my mother? She’s evil!’ She typed in all caps to substitute shouting.
“What!” Kat scoffed, “Says the girl who stole almost a thousand dollars from her! She’s your Mom! It’s not like you’re stealing from Mr Lee or something. That, I’ll understand, but not this! What the hell, man?”
‘She’s evil! She caned me! Why don’t you care about me!’
“Of course I care about you. Bitch, I carried you to class and bailed you out! But what you did was fucked up man! You can’t do that to your Mom!” The way Kat said it, was how people said ‘God’ in church.
‘I’m going to see my Dad tonight, and if he’s real, I’ll fly off with him. Can you help me collect my homework, in case I come back?’
“What do you mean, if he’s real? What if he’s not?”
Alicia took the phone, and stared at the blinking cursor, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. Good question. She set the phone aside, and honed her thoughts in.
What’s plan B? What’s option two? Where else could she go? Kat’s place; no. Zack’s place; no. A hotel; she had no money. Unless there was someone who’d help her with it.
Dania.
Bingo! ‘There is someone at Motel 91 I can call who could help me. I’ll go stay with them instead.’
“Where the fuck have you been meeting all these people? Is she real?”
She nodded. Unlike Tony, she saw her in real life before.
“You’re seriously just going to leave your Mom like that?”
Alicia banged the table. ‘Stop siding with her!’
“Dude, she gave birth to you! She’s gonna care about you until the day she dies. You might as well care about her back! I mean, she won’t cut you out of the group, or call you fat, or tell you to go kill yourself! Come on! Just talk to her, and figure things out. She’s not evil, she’s just a boomer who doesn’t understand shit about us.”
‘No. I’m leaving tonight.’
“Don’t turn your back on family! Cause then you have no more fucking backs left.”
“That’s exactly what the school counselor said.”
She stormed off, as much as she could on a limp. They didn’t talk anymore after that.
It took some hesitation before she felt safe to tell him the story on pencil and paper. His reaction to it, though robotic, was much better. He only cared about logistics. Who was Tony? Was he credible? Was her verification checks credible? What’s Plan B? Who’s Dania, and was she credible? What’s Plan C?
She had no answers.
“Did you even plan this out?”
She shook her head.
He sighed. “You can’t do something like this without any planning. What if she catches you, or you run out of money out there? You’re gonna come running back home? Do you know how much worse things will be if that happens?”
She didn’t dare to imagine it.
“Alicia. Can you at least plan things out before you do anything? I don’t want this to backfire on you.”
‘No! I have to leave now! She beat me!’ She underlined and circled ‘now’ several times.
“It’s not that easy to just run away! You think I’d still be here if it was?”
‘I don’t care!’
“Fine. Then I’m coming with you.”
She blinked at him.
“When are you leaving? I’ll meet you downstairs.”
‘10’ She wrote without thought. ‘Why?’
“I don’t want you to end up like me.”
The sacred promise. Every fibre of her vibrated like a guitar string.
She shook her head.
“No, I want to, and I already have an escape plan in case yours doesn’t work out. I have money saved up, I can pack up all my things in under ten minutes, and I can sneak out of the house through my window. I have practiced this before. I know what I’m doing.”
‘Why do you want to run away?’
“Alicia… I haven’t played badminton in over a year. I skipped all the sessions to spend more time on studying.”
‘Then what about the bruises on your back?’
“You still don’t know where they came from?” He looked away.
She did. She just needed an extra second to get there.
She nodded. Thank you.
Tuition ended, and Zack went home. Six hours until ten. Alicia started counting.
Hour one. She inspected her bruises again. She tried touching it, scratching it, picking it… It all hurt the same. She snuck into her mother’s room and stole the box of plasters, as well as her toothbrush and toothpaste. The plasters weren’t long enough to cover the entire injury, nor seemed sufficient for its severity. She considered pasting several in a line, but that seemed wasteful, so she let it be.
Hour two. She dragged the luggage bag out and began packing. She needed to cram her entire livelihood into this and her school bag. Anything that wasn’t in here was as good as dead. She started with the essentials first: phone, charger, Kat’s headphones, a plush (it hurt to leave the rest behind), toothbrush and toothpaste, hair-ties, pads…
She took out the inessentials from her school bag: Pencil case, textbooks, files, worksheets… She kept the slip of paper in her pocket. The remaining space, she stuffed as much of her clothes as possible in descending order starting from her favourites. In the end, she could only fit five complete outfits.
Hour three. She spied on her mother baking away in the kitchen, with her annoying music blasting at maximum volume. This track was worse than the others, because it was a children’s song; one about mothers. Parents sung it to their children to instil respect and gratitude. Her mother cared so little that the hypocrisy didn’t phase her. It was just a casual Friday for her to mercilessly beat her daughter, then pat herself on the back for a job well done as she baked her cookies or whatever.
Well, if she didn’t care how hurt Alicia felt, then she wouldn’t care if Alicia was here at all. In fact, she regretted having Alicia. She said so herself. It made sense why her mother was never proud of her now.
Hour four. She laid in her bed and swore to herself she wouldn’t let her mother get away so easily. The poison in her mind told her so. She fantasised about all the devastating lines she would leave her mother that’d stick with her as much as ‘anymore’ did Alicia. Something like “I don’t love you!” or “No one will hire a drug dealer as a doctor!” or “I wish you were never my mother!”. It had to hit a nerve, and Alicia knew her mother’s well. She swore to herself again, and again:
She will not get away with this.
She will not get away with this.
She will not get away with this.
Hour five. She gripped luggage bag in her hands and rehearsed the choreography in her mind. She’d open the door, then make a beeline dash to the front door. Her mother will be hot on her tail, and she would swing her school bag around and slam it in her face. Then, it was off to Dad’s, or Dania’s.
Hour six, the parts of her that hadn’t been poisoned fought back for control. They pleaded her to end this madness, and simply behave. Stop herself, and behave. Be a good girl. Be a good student. Study for O’Levels, and go to uni. No one will cane her if she simply did that.
But she fought that rash, and forced herself to do the opposite. .
Then, the clock struck ten.