*yawn*
Title: Tread With Caution
Prompt: Cookies & Cream 29: Shake; Butter Pecan 21: Stinky; Fudge Ripple 29: Shock
Topping: Sprinkles
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,354
Story: ROTOS
Summary: As requested from the RaTs request meme. Gina finally confronts her father. This is pretty intense, guys.
She wouldn’t hide this time. She wouldn’t disappear from plain sight, she wouldn’t run up to her bedroom, jump under the covers, and pull them over her head until the crack of dawn. She couldn’t do that now. She had to do something else about it. She had to take some charge. Sit him down. Talk to him about what was bothering her. She’d lock all the doors and cover herself up with pillows if she had to. But tonight, she was going to say something. She was finally going to say something.
It was Alexei who had brought up the idea. They were sitting on a park bench and all of a sudden, out of the blue, he’d said, “I think you need to sit down and have a talk with your father.” He had a serious look on his face-mouth set in a firm line, eyes staring straight at her-and his arms were folded across his chest. That was the thing about him-he could always be so serious and yet so encouraging at the same time. He could say something in such a firm tone of voice and yet look at her with such sympathetic eyes. “You need to do this,” he said, but his eyes told her, I’ll help you through it. “You can’t let him hurt you like this anymore,” he said, but his eyes told her, I’ll be there for you if you need me.
She heard the click of the lock, the sound of her father grumbling under his breath, and she took in a silent breath. Easy. Just take it easy. Tread with caution, but be honest. And most importantly, don’t lose face. “Hi, Dad,” she said calmly, never once tearing her eyes away from him as he walked into the living room. “How was your day?”
He only gave her a passing glance and headed straight for the kitchen.
“Don’t let him just walk away. Get up. Call out to him. Get his attention. But don’t let him just pass you by. Do something.”
She stood up slowly and followed him, taking a seat at the kitchen table and resting her arms there. “Can I tell you something?” she asked. She could hear her voice wavering, and she cringed, crossing one leg over the other.
“Make sure your voice is firm. Don’t let him hear any traces of fear or uncertainty in your voice. Don’t tremble, don’t be scared. Just look straight at him and talk. Shock him with your words if you have to, but just talk.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Yes, Gina. Yes you can. You don’t have to be afraid. Not of him, not of me, not of anyone else. You should do what you want and like doing it… I believe in you. Really, I do… Can you do this? If not for yourself, then can you do it for me?”
“I…”
“Can you try? Give it a try, at least. Just don’t be afraid. Don’t run away. Just try…”
“…I’ll try…”
“…Good.”
She bit down on her lip fiercely, waiting until he had fixed her with an angry stare before taking a deep breath. One. Two. Three. “I’m afraid of you,” she found herself saying, and she wasn’t shaking at all. All of her words had come out clearly. That didn’t mean that she was done, though. She kept her eyes on him, but little by little, she began to open up. “I really am. I don’t want to hide in my room anymore. I don’t want to be depressed because you won’t let me go anywhere. I hate it, and I hate seeing you drunk.” She bit back tears, but at the same time, she felt that something had changed, something had been lifted from her shoulders. It was like she was talking to Alexei now, like she was letting everything out.
Her father narrowed his eyes at her, took dangerous steps toward the kitchen table; she coiuld smell the stench of alcohol on his breath, and she wrinkled her nose. “What did you say?” His voice was loud, loud enough to make her want to cover her ears. But she stood her ground. “What did you say?” he roared again, slamming his hands on the table and lookin ger straight in the eyes.
She didn’t want to yell. She didn’t want to cry. But she continued to speak. “Ever since Mom died, you’ve been in a rage. Drinking yourself senseless every night, yelling at me for the littlest of things, not letting me go anywhere except for school if you can help it. I don’t like that. I don’t like any of that. I like going out and seeing the world, I like going into the city and seeing everyone. And I wish you would just stop this. All of this. Children aren’t supposed to be afraid of their fathers or their mothers.” She didn’t raise her voice, not once, but she had to swallow her tears once or twice.
“You’re not going anywhere,” her father hissed, blowing the stench into her face, staring at her with his bloodshot eyes. “You’re staying right here with me.”
“Dad, I can’t live like this!” She clenched her hands into two tight fists, willing herself not to scream. “I can’t live in my room forever! I have to go to school, and I want to go to college! I need to get a job so that I can support myself! Who knows? Maybe I’ll even get married and start a family one day. It’ll be a while from now, but I still want to do all of that.” She paused. “Don’t you want me to be happy? Don’t you want me to be a mom the way my own mom was? Providing for her children, making her husband happy… you don’t want me to have any of that?”
She couldn’t help herself now; the tears started to spill over, she started to shake. “Why do you do this to me, Dad? Why?”
There was silence in the kitchen save the sound of her crying. She kept her eyes on him, though her vision was blurry, and she sighed. She was done. It was all out in the open now, and it was up to him to fix it. Take it or leave it.
Her father started to mumble things under his breath, incoherent things, and she reached up to rub at her eyes. Waiting for him to say something, anything. And finally, he spoke. And she tried her best to make out what he was saying.
“You know what it is? I don’t want to lose you, too. I lost your mom, so what’s next? Losing you? You can’t move away, you have to stay here. Understand? You have to stay here, you have to.” She couldn’t tell if his body was shaking out of anger, or out of grief, or simply because he’d had a little too much to drink. But she could clearly see the sharp stare he was giving her, the one that all but forced her to promise that she would never leave this house, that she would always stay here with him.
She only shook her head slowly and lowered her gaze. “I have to learn to live on my own someday… Not now, but someday… I’ve got four years and then I’ll be going to college-”
“You go to a nearby school and commute there. You’re not staying in a dorm.”
She only shrugged. “Maybe I’ll commute, maybe I’ll stay in a dorm. I don’t know yet. It’ll be a while before I can come to that decision.”
He glared-she didn’t know if he could look at her in any other way. “Gina,” he said in that same low voice. “You’re staying here with me, and that’s that. Do you hear me?”
“MOM WOULDN’T WANT THAT!” she screamed in his face, and she grabbed her keys and ran out the door, slamming it behind her.
Shock him with her words. Well, she'd certainly done that. Or so she liked to think.