A Prompted Story by /u/prompted-writing
"Wow. I'm actually surprised you told the truth for once. I was starting to forget what your voice sounds like when you're not lying through your teeth."
(reddit link)
"Wow. I'm actually surprised you told the truth for once. I was starting to forget what your voice sounds like when you're not lying through your teeth."
"Oh, you want the truth?" Hannah is on her feet now. A dam has broken inside her. "You're a fucking coward, how's that for truth?"
"Language, Hannah!"
Zoe hasn't moved. She sits still on the steel patio chair as her daughter looms over her. Part of her knows she should de-escalate, to spare the other brunch-goers from the public spectacle. But the words had left her mouth before she could think. Automatic. The chastising, demanding tone made routine by decades of parenting. She knew, as soon as they were uttered, the effect they'd have.
"Language!? Fuck you! You did nothing! You let it happen! You think you can tell me how to speak!? I hate you!" Hannah still has her breakfast fork in hand. She points it at her mother as the words tumble out. "I hate your 'Language!' and all your demands and all your uselessness!"
"Hannah, you..."
"You saw how she treated me! You knew I was right! You know how hard it is for me and you did nothing!"
"Hannah, I..."
"I can't deal with you! You're useless and that's why dad hates you too and why Beccy's awful and you did nothing and fucking... Fuck!" Hannah pants, her breathing far more intense than her apparent exertion.
All eyes in the restaurant patio are on them now. The hubbub of other conversations has faded. It wouldn't be long before one of the staff mustered the courage to intervene.
The silence stretches.
Their eyes stay locked. Hannah's breathing is still heavy from her tirade, but otherwise, for long moments, there's no movement, no sound. A small bird lands, cautiously, on a partly-cleared table, oblivious to the tension.
That was the moment Hannah would remember. The moment everything changed.
Her mother, a giant, all knowing, inescapable, always looming, always watching, became tiny. Suddenly Hannah could see her mother as she'd always been. Just a woman. A petite woman, smaller then every other adult in Hannah's life. Older now, even more fragile, but still putting on a brave face, standing up to a world that dwarfed her. Just a human. Just a flawed, confused, irrational human, still trying to act like the person she thought she'd be when she was Hannah's age. It only takes a moment for a lifetime of being Hannah's hero and villain to dissolve, for her mother to become... just Zoe. All of Hannah's hate becomes pity, and after a moment more all that is left is despair.
Hannah wants to run to her mother. To climb into her arms and restore the fragile sense of childhood that she hadn't known she could lose. But it is evaporated, gone. Hannah wants to run to her mother, but as she stands there, her whole body trembling now, an involuntary sob rises from deep in her chest and visibly, viscerally catches in her throat before it can escape.
Hannah wants to run to her mother, but instead she just runs. Her chair breaks the silence with a loud screech as she pushes it aside. The restaurant watches as she charges right through the row of potted shrubs that mark a symbolic, imaginary wall to the car park. She feels their fragile branches break but she doesn't care.
And then, the immediate distraction removed, the commotion and clamour of the restaurant resumes. The waitstaff move among the tables. The dinners comment to one another about what they've seen, unconcerned about being overhead, confident their privacy is protected by conventions of mutual inattention.
"Oh, Hannah, you stupid, stupid bitch." Zoe mumbles, as she gestures for the cheque.