innocence
Title: Innocence
Rating: G
Spoilers: none
Words: 296
Summary: It takes a year, but the innocence that used to brighten her eyes disappears.
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Kate's four and dances to, 'One Day My Prince Will Come,' singing the words by heart, loud and off-key, in a red t-shirt and frayed jeans and her hair pulled into a messy ponytail. There's a diamond tiara on her head from the local Five and Dime store and the black remote control is her wand. She whirls it in around in the air, granting wishes and making everything sparkle around her with magic dust until everything's covered with a happily-ever-after.
Her bright green eyes glitter with innocence, the evils of the world only known to her in stories and nightmares. And those are forgotten with just the touch of her mother's hand against her cheek to wipe way the tears, and a quick but thorough search underneath her bed and into the closet. Monsters have no place in her world, her daddy tells her once. They aren't real.
But then her daddy doesn't come around much anymore and there's another man in her house, in her mommy's bed. He makes her laugh, but he also makes her cry. Kate's five now and she knows these things. Hears the loud whispers, the screams in the darkness of her bedroom. There's bruises and blood. Hospital trips and lies that slip too easily off the tongue.
It takes a year, but the innocence that used to brighten her eyes disappears. The singing and dancing stop because it makes Wayne's head hurt. He gets mad and picks up a brown bottle that he tells her is medicine, hits her mom for not keeping the 'brat' quiet.
When Kate cries now, it's not because of a scraped knee or in waking from a scary nightmare like before. When things were simpler.
It's because her daddy was wrong.
Monsters are real.
Rating: G
Spoilers: none
Words: 296
Summary: It takes a year, but the innocence that used to brighten her eyes disappears.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Kate's four and dances to, 'One Day My Prince Will Come,' singing the words by heart, loud and off-key, in a red t-shirt and frayed jeans and her hair pulled into a messy ponytail. There's a diamond tiara on her head from the local Five and Dime store and the black remote control is her wand. She whirls it in around in the air, granting wishes and making everything sparkle around her with magic dust until everything's covered with a happily-ever-after.
Her bright green eyes glitter with innocence, the evils of the world only known to her in stories and nightmares. And those are forgotten with just the touch of her mother's hand against her cheek to wipe way the tears, and a quick but thorough search underneath her bed and into the closet. Monsters have no place in her world, her daddy tells her once. They aren't real.
But then her daddy doesn't come around much anymore and there's another man in her house, in her mommy's bed. He makes her laugh, but he also makes her cry. Kate's five now and she knows these things. Hears the loud whispers, the screams in the darkness of her bedroom. There's bruises and blood. Hospital trips and lies that slip too easily off the tongue.
It takes a year, but the innocence that used to brighten her eyes disappears. The singing and dancing stop because it makes Wayne's head hurt. He gets mad and picks up a brown bottle that he tells her is medicine, hits her mom for not keeping the 'brat' quiet.
When Kate cries now, it's not because of a scraped knee or in waking from a scary nightmare like before. When things were simpler.
It's because her daddy was wrong.
Monsters are real.