His Darkest Obsession

One {To live, is to postpone death}

FRIDA

A resounding slap was accompanied by a sharp pain on my right cheek. My left eye was the first to burn before my right eye allowed a drop of stray tears to escape.

Then, the crying started. It was just what he wanted.

I stared down at my fancy transparent heels on the marble floor. I knew I dared not look my father in the eye, especially after he had just plastered his palm on my face.

"Look at me! Look at me, you imbecile!"

Yes. That was the voice of the almighty Matthew Adams, my father.

I could not look at him, not when half of his fellow socialites were staring at me. And the boy he wanted me to get married to was in the crowd, his eyes filled with pity.

He was the reason I was being slapped like a dog.

He must have known I was not going to look up at him, and soon, his right hand grabbed a fistful of my hair. I yelled out in pain, allowing my tears to run down my face.

My scalp was burning, as though my head had been set on fire.

He led me across the room and flung me towards the wall. My thin body scattered a row of tables and chairs before my back crashed against the hard brick wall.

"I do everything for you! Everything! And you dare to disrespect me in such a manner! How dare you?! You are nothing without me! Nothing!"

From where I stood gritting in pain, I could see his chest rise and fall heavily inside his black properly laundered Armani suit.

"No daughter of mine would disrespect a man and taint my name! No matter what he does, he is the one you are going to get married to! The earlier you realize that you are lucky a boy like Jacob agreed to be with a spoiled brat like you, the better your life would be!"

"Matthew, don't you think you're being too hard on her? She only…"

That was the soft voice of my mother, my weak mother, Stella Adams.

My eyes were starting to close. The pain in my head was becoming unbearable, as though my head was going to split into two halves.

Just as I expected, he turned his fury away from me and diverted his attention to my mother. Her soft brown eyes widened in horror when he turned to her.

"And you would keep your dirty mouth shut! Do you understand me, Stella? You are the reason she is like this. Why won't she have the guts to cancel on Jacob, when she sees you speaking while I speak?!"

"I just think that…"

"Shut up!"

The murmurs from the crowd grew louder. But my father would not stop, none of them could do anything to him. He was above every man and woman in this room, including my mother and I.

But his yelling was the least of my worries. I had been hearing him yell for nineteen years, it wasn't anything new.

What bothered me was the continuous sound of a siren blaring in my head. It sounded like screeching tires on rough granite, metal scraping against metal, a loud siren, and several gunshots.

I groaned in pain and pressed both my hands on my ears, hoping it would lessen the noise and the banging in my head.

My father's voice grew distant. I could hear him scream, but the noise in my head had silenced him.

I felt strength begin to leave my body at a quick rate.

What was happening to me? One slap from my father could not have made me this weak.

He had been hitting me all my life.

Suddenly, my knees began to wobble underneath my weight. It was impossible to stand straight.

I reached out for a chair in front of me, but my hands missed it and I fell to the ground.

I fell face flat on the floor. I parted my lips to cry out, but I lacked the energy to speak. The pain started in my head, before spreading to other parts of my body.

I tried to move, but my limbs couldn't move. Soon, the sounds stopped, and I felt myself begin to drift away,floating into an abyss I didn't even know existed.

"Frida? Frida!"

That was the voice of my mother calling out to me. It was the last thing I heard before I closed my eyes, and the sound of running water filled my ears.

My father's frowning face was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. My mother's soft sobbing was the first thing I heard, before the beeping from the monitor beside me.

I turned sharply, only to find strange hospital equipment beside me. Confusion and panic enveloped me, before I turned back to my mother.

She was seated on a plastic stool by the window, her face buried in her palms as she wept bitterly.

Fear.

My heart started to pound in my chest.

I could only remember being in the party and being publicly humiliated by my father. What else could have happened between then to put me in a hospital?

"I blame you for this, Stella. There is no one else to blame but you." My father started to speak.

I listened carefully.

It was as though none of them had noticed I was awake.

"I married you twenty-six years ago. We lived without a child for eight years! Until you finally conceived one. That one daughter you gave me put me through hell! From her strange anger issues to all the schools she was expelled from because she could not control her temper! And now…now she has only seven months to live?..."

I blinked twice.

I felt a sharp pain in my chest, like talons digging their way into my flesh and aiming for my heart.

Surely, he could not be talking about me!

How could I have only seven months to live?

I was only 18! My life had just begun!

"Mother?" I couldn't take it anymore. Someone had to explain what the hell was going on!

She jerked from her stool, as though she had just woken from a trance.

Her brown eyes rested on me and tears rushed down them again.

She rose from the stool and rushed to my side. She picked both my hands and held them tight.

"Do not listen to your father, okay? I would make sure you are alright. Nothing is going to happen to you. I don't care what I have to do or where I have to go. They can't take you away from me, they can't."

I stared deep into her eyes. I had never seen my mother so desperate for anything before. But none of it was making any sense.

"I'm going to die?" I asked again.

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, my father cut in.

"Yes, Frida! You are going to die! The doctors say they have no words to explain what is happening to you. There is no medical term for what you're experiencing. Something is eating you from inside Frida, and it is only a matter of time until it consumes you…"

"Shut up!" My mother screamed at the top of her voice.

A strange echo filled the room, and time seemed to come to a standstill.

I noticed the heart-shaped pendant on her neck glow with a crimson red light.

She released my hands from her grip and clutched it.

"You're not going to die."

But she could not convince me. Especially when the doctor stepped in and said the exact words my father had said.

My mother was unusually quiet. She only held on to her pendant and wouldn't say a word. I knew my father was going to beat her up for yelling at him, but he would wait until we were home.

The doctor wanted me to remain under close watch in the hospital, but my mother insisted we went home.

I was discharged from the hospital and my mother held my hand firmly as we walked out of the depressing corridors.

It was too much for me to swallow.

I was already in my senior year. It was just nine months to prom and graduation. But I would not make it to any of those.

I would not go to Oxford, I would not get my degree in Economics. I would not fall in love, and I would never get married. I would never dance in the rain with my best friends, I would never sneak out to get alcohol during prom. I would never contest and win prom queen and I would never be happy.

I was going to be sick for seven months until I eventually died. I would be forgotten, my memories would go with the wind like sand on the beach.

I would die before I lived.

I stared out of the car window, watching the droplets of rain race each other down the glass, while my father drove in silence and my mother sat beside him.

Tears filled my eyes, my heart squeezed in pain, causing my chest to burn.

No. I could not let life take me away like that.

I could not live with the reality that I was going to die soon. I rather ended my life with my own hands.

It was my life after all.

I did not think twice before pushing the car door open. My father turned away from the road to look at me, my mother screamed.

"Frida!"

I jumped out of the moving vehicle. My body landed on the ground, by the side of the road. I fell into a small puddle of water and bruised my shoulder, but I didn't care. I was about to die anyway.

I did not stop to see if my father would stop the car and come for me.

I gathered whatever was left of my energy from the ground.

The rain drops felt like fire against my skin, but I numbed myself to the pain and started to run.