5
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
~ Michel de Montaigne

I was angry… Humiliated! And the rage ate at me like a flame… She was my mother. Yes, this person, this woman, this thing… The woman who had used me as a punching bag for the length of my life because I wouldn’t -couldn't- fight back! And I was tired… tired of it all…
Tired of the rage and the blame… Of all the little misbegotten innuendos of how I ruined the life she could have had! So, go ahead…
Go ahead, and let her lavish expensive gifts on her “real” daughter -the daughter of the rich man she married- and take her out on the town, and traveling, while I stayed at home taking responsibility for the things they left behind… Go ahead, and let them!
I was not jealous… For I had stopped wanting for such things long ago, and I was used to being alone. In fact, I grew to like it… But even still… Even I get lonely, and the words, “I love you”, once said flatly in this place, now are no longer said at all, nor can be recalled…
I awoke that night with tears streaming down my face for the first time in the last fifty years. Oh, it was that dream again… I was dreaming about my mother blaming me for something again, as she often did when I was growing up, and it took me years before I was finally able to gain the strength and self-confidence not to believe it anymore, but they were nothing compared to the beatings…
Apparently, I was the result of a one night stand, but for some reason she decided to keep me. I never knew why… Oh, she said it was “love”, and maybe it was at first, but the word “love” soon turned into “obligation” or “convenience”, and then had no meaning at all… She was my first experience with humans, and I’ve been confused by them ever since.
But that, was over four hundred years ago, and the people of that time are long since dead. Amazing, isn’t it? That the dead can still cause pain after such a long time? Perhaps it’s a curse, then? After all, I did burn the bitch alive in her own house when my abilities first manifested… It was my first taste of the destruction my abilities caused when my emotions went out of whack, but it was also my first taste of true freedom.
I grinned as I rolled over turning my back on the dream, just as I’d turned my back on that house that night. I closed my eyes, and never looked back… If only dreams were as easy to escape as reality.
Unfortunately, I got up a few hours later after spending the rest of the night tossing and turning, and felt like charging out my door to find a certain bastard vampire with whom I had made a deal when I first got to this town. I was pissed- the deal was clearly broken, and I was remembering something best long forgotten… Something that should have been long forgotten! I had to get rid of these blasted memories, before they drove me insane! Ah! Now they’re messing with my speech!
Taking a deep breath as I leaned against the doorframe to my bedroom, I tried to calm myself down before I went into a rage. Getting mad was good an’ all, but not if I ended up burning down my apartment… Besides, I desperately needed a shower!
Hissing out the breath I’d been holding, I stomped into my bathroom across the hall, flinging my clothes everywhere on my way. My bathroom as it stood, was fairly small, and kind of musty, but then again, I usually chalked it up to the fact that this was an old building and was prone to water leaks. What I was more concerned about this morning, was whether or not I’d have any hot water…
I turn the faucet and watched as rust-colored water...