#I'm just really angry at ZA/UM right now | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lycanfuck · 3 months

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celia cw parental abuse, dissociation, implied alcoholism

he wished he could say he had never loved his mother. that he didn't care she was dead, that it was black-and-white and he didn't give a fuck, and he was glad she was gone, but he couldn't.

he couldn't, and he couldn't quite say he was sad she was gone, either.

zach rested his head against the smooth ceramic of the bathtub, blocking out the pain of the edge of the tub pressing against his head. he'd gotten good at blocking out the pain over the years, and everything else. he'd be hard-pressed to tell you, most days, about anything his mother - anything celia - had done to him, but it was flooding his mind today. memory after memory, a constant tidal wave, and the emotions bubbling up were making him dizzy and nauseated and so there he was on the bathroom floor, the cold floor doing little to ground him against the barrage of memories.

age five(-and-a-half). he and her at an ice cream stand, zach already having finished his, laughing and drawing in the dirt with a rock. there's sticky ice cream on his fingers and celia is watching him draw like he's vincent van fucking vogh or something. she'd cared about him, then, for sure. even if she could be unpredictable, she was his mother. caring for him was all she wanted to do.

age nine. he's cowering under his bed, tears in his eyes, not quite overflowing and celia's stomping down the hall and all he can think to do is press himself into the dark, dusty corner with his back against the wall and his arms crossed over his chest and pray. he hasn't believed in god in a while. he prays anyway. she's kicking at the door now, her voice sharp through the quiet of the house, "i'm gonna fucking kill you, you piece of shit, open this door right now, or i swear to god-"

he'd cried himself to sleep that night, face buried in his pillow, and he'd woken up with the worst headache of his life and nothing but an empty void inside of his chest. it'd never really gone away. sometimes it shrank but mostly it grew, bigger and bigger until the black nothingness inside of him made its way through his veins and poisoned him from the inside out. he hadn't felt much, since then, since he realized he could just check out. granted, sometimes he did still feel the aching, desperate to feel anything else. he always tried to ignore it.

age ten or so. she no longer lives with him and his dad and zach isn't allowed to visit her but he does so anyway. while she's out, he's reading in her room, using her bed because it's bigger than his guest bed and he's not scared, not yet. he will be later when she comes back and is wasted and her voice is loud and soon her desk is pushed in front of the door so he's trapped there while she gets more and more and more angry and he can't move, he can't think, all he can do is freeze like a deer in headlights and pretend not to be there.

twelve, monday. a girl he's seen around but never spoken to stops him in the school hallway. "can i talk to you?" she asks, and zach pauses, shifting his hold on his books. "yeah, sure, what's up?" she sighs, relieved, messing with the straps of her bag. "um, it's your mom. she's outside the school, she's just… she's been saying weird stuff to me and my friends, asking if we know you, saying we better take her to you- she grabbed at me earlier, and, yeah, it's kind of freaking us out a bit and we don't know what to do and we were wondering if you could talk to her? shit, i'm max, by the way." it's the first time he's been stopped and asked to get control over his own mother. it's not the last. he's not mad, it's not max's fault, or anyone's fault, other than celia's. he's just exhausted.

he shifted, the cold tile of the bathroom floor pressing into his leg uncomfortably, surely leaving little square-shaped indents in the skin. he still felt far too dizzy, and trying to move even the slightest bit brought the nausea back, so he stopped, letting his head keep pressing into the tub.

thirteen. zach no longer has any desire to visit her but he has to stop by her place to pick up his little cousin. he made a snide comment about celia drinking instead of going to work, again, and she's up in his face screaming and he's standing there blank-faced like he can't hear her at all, but he can, and she's screaming, "do me a fucking favor and kill yourself before you make me do it myself. i cannot stand you. you think you're so much better than me but you're not. you are me. you are forever me!" and he's not crying, he's not screaming back, he's just standing there, taking it, like he always had done, because it's his second nature at this point. just take it.

just take it. just fucking take it. it's like all at once a switch is flipped and the roaring static of memories is turned off, leaving only the nausea and a light ringing in his ears. they'd been ringing for years, he was used to it. he blinked a couple times, pressing his palms flat against the floor. it didn't help much but it was enough to at least know where he was, and the feel of the tiles briefly distracted him from the ringing in his ears. god, it was so quiet.

his head was pounding and he sniffled a bit. he hadn't realized he'd been crying. the bright bathroom lights glared down at him and he closed his eyes. god, this was so stupid. he'd fucking hated her. he'd hated her and yet here he was, on the bathroom floor, crying over her death, crying over her life, crying for himself. he didn't really know who or what he was crying for.

he rested there, eyes closed, head pounding, until he was feeling better - better being a relative term. until he was feeling well enough to stand without feeling faint or nauseated. as he did, he heard the creaking of the front door opening, the noise much softer than when elke or celia - than when elke. - opened the door. it had to be his dad, then, and he had to be the perfect grieving boy.

he wiped his eyes one final time and flicked off the bathroom light. he was ready to reprise his role as the perfect son, he told himself. he was ready. he had to be.

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