http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2898869/1/Anything_But_Ordinary
Enjoy!!
~Sora-chan
XOXO
[less than three, less than three]
Most people were trying to sleep when the screaming started… Again. Julianna and Santiago Martinez standing in the middle of their yard, screaming at each other in angry Spanish… Again. The couple had gone outside to avoid waking Julianna's young son, Strife, but their efforts were wasted as their argument escalated. If an onlooker was to look closely at the window up on the second floor of the house, they would have seen the boy standing there with tears in his eyes.
"You stupid woman! You think that he doesn't know already that I'm not his father! He looks nothing like me and I just came into his life last year, yet you let him call me 'Papa' as if it were nothing!" Santiago screamed at his wife, who stood tall, fire burning deep in her dark brown eyes.
"You said you would accept him as your son! He has accepted you as his Papa and you should be grateful!" She snapped back. Only a few months before the two had been married. Strife was the product of another relationship; one that had been short lived. When the man found out that Julianna was pregnant with his child, he ran. The boy had lived most of his life with inconsistency. Men coming and going quickly. None of them fit to raise a child and keep the relationship together. Then Santiago had come along. He made Strife feel safe around a man for once. He never tried to hurt him or his mother. He was the only man that Strife had ever called "Papa" and Julianna had been overjoyed when Santiago proposed and accepted Strife as his son. But after the wedding, everything changed. Strife's new Papa started coming home smelling of alcohol more often and he never wanted to play with him anymore. And he was getting meaner. He yelled a lot and it started making Julianna cry, which in turn, made Strife cry, and that only made Santiago yell louder to cover the sound of the sobs of mother and child. Then he started hitting Julianna. Strife had screamed at him and begged him to stop hurting his Mama but he never listened… Then one day after the little boy came home ten minutes late because his bus had broken down on the way home from school, he was the one getting hit and Julianna was trying to shield him as best as she could, begging Santiago to stop, saying that it wasn't Strife's fault he was late. Since then the beatings had been evenly distributed between the two of them.
"Grateful! Why the ******** should I be grateful for your sniveling b*****d son calling me his Papa!" Tears spilled down Julianna's cheeks as she slapped Santiago across the face.
"You're the b*****d!" She screamed, storming back into the house and slamming the door shut before her husband could catch her. Trying to compose herself she locked the door and made her way upstairs where her son was supposed to be in his bed asleep. Instead she found him sitting in the darkest corner of his room with his knees pulled up to his chest, sobbing.
"Why does Papa hate me Mama?" The young boy whimpered. Julianna sat next to her son and pulled him into her lap, holding him close to her chest.
"Papa doesn't hate you baby…" She whispered, petting his hair softly. "He's just angry again."
"He hates me." Strife sobbed into his mother's shoulder. "He told me so today before you came home from work Mama. He called me worthless and another word… I don't know what it means though."
"What word, love?" Julianna was almost afraid to hear what her husband had been saying to her beloved son.
"He called me a b*****d child. What does that mean Mama?" The young woman tightened her arms around Strife and cried harder. It was one thing for Santiago to call her son a b*****d to her, but to say it straight to a child's face was just wrong. "What does that word mean Mama?"
"That's a very bad word to call someone sweetheart… It means someone without their real Papa… Like you. You don't know the man who is your real father and he doesn't know you. He's never even seen you dearest."
"Where does my real Papa live Mama?"
"He lives in America." She answered. That was all she knew. The man had been a doctor living in Mexico when they met and when he found out that Julianna was pregnant he said that he had to go back to the United States for work. To this day, Julianna had never figured out if he really did go back for work or if he was just running from the responsibility of being a father.
"Can we go there Mama? Can we go to America? We'll be free there… Won't we? And Papa can't hurt us there… We can go live with my real Papa." Julianna hugged her son close and cried for him. There was nothing she could say to him at a time like this. She didn't know where his father had gone, even though she thought she had a good idea of where he might have been. He spoke so often of Michigan. The snow in the winter. The lakes in the summer. The woods in autumn. And the fresh warm air and the flowers of spring. Every season was so different and Julianna longed to see it. "Please, Mama?"
"I don't know dearest. I just don't know…"
"Juan from school says that his Mama and Papa were going to go to America on vacation last year. He's been living with his grandma and grandpa all year. His Mama and Papa aren't back from their vacation yet. Can't we do that? Go on a vacation and stay on vacation?"
"That costs lots of money Strife. And where would we go? We don't know anyone in America."
"You know my Papa. We can go to that place where you said he was. We can go to Michigan and live with him." Strife sniffled, looking up at his mother with those light grey eyes that looked so much like his father's.
"For all I know, he's moved by now. He might be living somewhere different honey." The little boy buried his face in Julianna's shoulder and cried harder. He wanted so badly to be out of this place, to be free from his country and from Santiago. He wanted out.
"We have to try Mama. We have to! Or Papa will hurt us again…"
"I know… I'll try Strife… I promise…"
Mother and child stayed like that all night. Curled up together in the corner of the little boy's room....
XOXO
[less than three, less than three]
[less than three, less than three]
There you have it! Hope you liked it and I hope you'll go check out the rest~!!
