Claire Novak (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
affirmation) wrote2009-06-14 06:19 am
affirmation) wrote2009-06-14 06:19 am
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justprompts: Angels
It was too confusing.
Claire Novak had never been the best student in her class, but she had been good enough; and, she had been a good child. Good daughter, even after her daddy had left, disappeared; working hard and playing and trying to not make things more difficult for her mom. There were a lot of things she didn't understand; and a lot of things she didn't even try to, busy doing what girls her age do.
The greatest and saddest event of her life had been her father's words before he went away; she had known nothing of the kind before. Her parents didn't fight much, and harsh words were rarely spoken in the household. Not even when her dad had guests to watch a game or something.
So that night, those words cut deeply.
She didn't understand then; and it became worse, as he kept on being gone, as they decided he had died. Because her daddy wouldn't not call. He wouldn't just disappear. It was sad and hard, but there were other children who lived with only one parent, and some of their stories, when they would tell them, were also hard and sad, and even if not many of them were her friends, she knew she wasn't alone.
This was different.
She had only missed two days of school while what changed her life completely happened. Only two days. Thursday and Friday. They were returned home; then they had to deal with the mess that they had left the house with. And on Monday, her mom decided it would probably be easier if they tried to get back to normal. Or something like that. Claire's mind was still a little fuzzy on details (there were too many details still too vivid in her mind) and did what she was told to do. It was easier than trying to reason things out, just follow instructions she was given. Do what she was told.
As you wish.
Swirling, dizzy as it was going away, she thought all the knowing would go away, too, she wanted it to go away the way the power, and the filling, and the presence did go away.
But not all of it did. Pieces of it were stamped, branded into her memory. Bigger chunks were floating around, bumping against her in the suddenly bigger space that was her mind. She sagged, and then her daddy rose and left and he was again not himself, and she knew exactly who it was and why he said what he did and she ran to her mother and buried her face against her and cried. It was too much.
It wasn't going away.
Claire had no idea at all how she could live it it. It was too much. It was too much as she was trying to help her mother do things around the house, it was too much as she was sitting in class listening to lessons that she grasped the principles of in ways she never had before and didn't have words to explain, it was too much as she was sitting in the hallway, between classes, knees drawn up and back against the wall and eyes staring straight ahead, no fixed point. It was too much.
It was too confusing.
And it wasn't getting better.
Claire Novak had never been the best student in her class, but she had been good enough; and, she had been a good child. Good daughter, even after her daddy had left, disappeared; working hard and playing and trying to not make things more difficult for her mom. There were a lot of things she didn't understand; and a lot of things she didn't even try to, busy doing what girls her age do.
The greatest and saddest event of her life had been her father's words before he went away; she had known nothing of the kind before. Her parents didn't fight much, and harsh words were rarely spoken in the household. Not even when her dad had guests to watch a game or something.
So that night, those words cut deeply.
She didn't understand then; and it became worse, as he kept on being gone, as they decided he had died. Because her daddy wouldn't not call. He wouldn't just disappear. It was sad and hard, but there were other children who lived with only one parent, and some of their stories, when they would tell them, were also hard and sad, and even if not many of them were her friends, she knew she wasn't alone.
This was different.
She had only missed two days of school while what changed her life completely happened. Only two days. Thursday and Friday. They were returned home; then they had to deal with the mess that they had left the house with. And on Monday, her mom decided it would probably be easier if they tried to get back to normal. Or something like that. Claire's mind was still a little fuzzy on details (there were too many details still too vivid in her mind) and did what she was told to do. It was easier than trying to reason things out, just follow instructions she was given. Do what she was told.
He was in pain but he accepted the pain and the pain was in the past but it wasn't and he deserved the pain and learned from it. He wasn't in pain. He was huge, too huge, and filled her to bursting and she wasn't enough, something was going to give, and he knew more than she could understand, but ideas, things floated through her mind, where it was curled up, tiny as she could be, he was too big and she didn't know if there was place for her here anymore. He didn't know things the way she did, either. It was like he knew all the things at the same time, not one at a time, and while he was too busy doing what he had to do, stopping the demons, saving her father, and she was floating in much of that all, it was seeping in. So much of everything was turned around and upside down, and she didn't know anymore what she knew, where she was, who she was.
Until he was talking with her father and she could understand, completely, what he was offering to her daddy, and no no that was too much, it shouldn't be, nobody should agree to that, NO DADDY, not even for me, don't!
Until he was talking with her father and she could understand, completely, what he was offering to her daddy, and no no that was too much, it shouldn't be, nobody should agree to that, NO DADDY, not even for me, don't!
Swirling, dizzy as it was going away, she thought all the knowing would go away, too, she wanted it to go away the way the power, and the filling, and the presence did go away.
But not all of it did. Pieces of it were stamped, branded into her memory. Bigger chunks were floating around, bumping against her in the suddenly bigger space that was her mind. She sagged, and then her daddy rose and left and he was again not himself, and she knew exactly who it was and why he said what he did and she ran to her mother and buried her face against her and cried. It was too much.
It wasn't going away.
Claire had no idea at all how she could live it it. It was too much. It was too much as she was trying to help her mother do things around the house, it was too much as she was sitting in class listening to lessons that she grasped the principles of in ways she never had before and didn't have words to explain, it was too much as she was sitting in the hallway, between classes, knees drawn up and back against the wall and eyes staring straight ahead, no fixed point. It was too much.
It was too confusing.
And it wasn't getting better.