FELICIA HEILGENDORFF

Enough is enough, she thought angrily, as her feet pounded across the gravel. She was twenty-two years old and her mother had yet again tried to marry her off, this time trying to add on top of it that he was willing to employ her in some dumb office job. He had not even been handsome, she thought, revolted. Nearly ten years older than her, the cake he had stuffed into his mouth after her mother’s repeating offering left crumbs entangled in his gruff beard.

He had been ogling her all throughout dinner, trying to dazzle and charm her with his dark humour. Though her mother had dragged him to their house, she had only laughed politely and it was clear to her that she had not enjoyed his company.

She would have to move out, she decided. She had been toying with that idea for a while now, but never really taken the initiative. Right before she had left, she had sworn to her mother that this was it. She would no longer play the little daughter, whose mother was literally trying to buy – or sell, she wasn’t sure – her a man. She wasn’t even ready for her prince charming yet. She wanted to go out and live her dream. A proper guitarist in a band. She had told her mother, who had pulled a face and talked about her being a fine business lady one day. As if. She didn’t even want that, even if she had agreed to do a college degree in business – it wasn’t her life.

When she reached the end of the treeline, she suddenly realised she had nowhere to go. She would have to stay with her boyfriend that night. The one her mother knew nothing about. Maybe she should send him to her house tomorrow morning to pick up her stuff. That would shut her up for a while, she thought satisfied and wheeled around.

Furious, she noticed her mother’s car parked a little down the road. She was hurrying towards her, a terrified expression in her face.

“Mum, I’m moving out-“ her mother cut her off.

“I just got a call. Dad was run over by a truck,” she burst into tears.

© 2016

Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner, 22nd January 2016