NOVEL NEXT Chapter 20: All We Ever Craved for Was Love
???&??? POV:
All we ever craved for was love.
Yet, we never knew what it felt like.
We were twins, born on a cold winter night. Our father was a truck driver who was rarely home. Our mother was a waitress who worked long hours at a diner. They were not married nor in love. They had met at a bar one night and had a drunken fling. They did not use protection, and our mother got pregnant.
She did not want to have us, but she could not afford an abortion. She hoped that our father would step up and support her, but he did not. He said he was not ready to be a father, and that he had no feelings for her. He left the area soon after we were born, and we never saw him again.
Our mother resented us for ruining her life. She blamed us for everything that went wrong. She said we were the reason she could not find a better job, a better man, and a better future. She said we were the reason she had to drink, to forget her pain.
She did not care for us, nor nurture us. She did not feed us properly, nor clothe us warmly. She did not hug us, nor kiss us. She did not read us stories, nor sing us lullabies. She did not teach us anything, nor encourage us to learn.
She only yelled at us, hit us, and locked us in our room. She only gave us scraps of food, rags of clothes, and a dirty mattress to sleep on. She only ignored us, neglected us, and wished we were dead.
We had no one else in the world. We had no relatives, no friends, no neighbors who cared. We had no teachers, no mentors, no role models to look up to. We had no toys, no books, no games to play with. We had nothing but each other.
We learned to depend on each other, to comfort each other, to protect each other. We learned to share everything, to help each other out, to make each other laugh. We learned to love each other, more than anything else.
We also learned to work hard, to earn our own money, and to take care of ourselves. We started doing odd jobs around the neighborhood when we were six years old. We mowed lawns, washed cars, delivered newspapers, and walked dogs. We saved every penny we made and used it to buy food, clothes, and school supplies.
We wanted to go to school, to learn new things, and to make new friends. We wanted to have a normal life, like other kids our age. But our mother would not let us. She said school was a waste of time and money. She said we were too stupid and ugly to fit in. She said we belonged in the trash.
She tried to stop us from going to school by hiding our clothes, burning our books, and locking the door. But we did not give up. We found ways to sneak out of the house, to borrow clothes from the thrift store, to get books from the library. We went to school every day, even if it meant walking for miles in the snow or rain.
We loved school more than anything else. It was our escape from our miserable home life. It was our chance to learn new things, to make new friends, to have new experiences. It was our hope for a better future.
We were good students, eager and curious. We were good friends, kind and loyal. We were good kids, polite and respectful. We tried our best to fit in, to be normal.
But we could not hide our differences completely. We could not hide our bruises from our mother’s beatings, nor our scars from her cigarette burns. We could not hide our hunger from skipping meals at home, nor our fatigue from working long hours after school. We could not hide our sadness from being unloved at home, nor our loneliness from being unwanted by anyone else.
We could see how other kids looked at us with pity or contempt. We could hear how they whispered about us behind our backs. We could feel how they avoided us or bullied us.
We tried not to let it bother us. We tried not to let it hurt us. We tried not to let it break us.
But sometimes it did.
Sometimes we wished we had a different life. Sometimes we wished we had a different family. Sometimes we wished we had never been born.
But then we looked at each other and remembered that we had each other. And that was enough.
That was enough until the day our mother died.
She had been drinking more than usual, and her liver finally gave out. She collapsed on the floor of the kitchen and lay there for hours before anyone noticed.
We found her when we came home from school. We called an ambulance, but it was too late. She was gone.
We felt a mix of emotions. We felt shock, disbelief, and confusion. We felt anger, resentment, and relief. We felt guilt, sorrow, and regret.
But most of all, we felt empty.
We had no one else in the world. We had no relatives, no friends, no neighbors who cared. We had no teachers, no mentors, no role models to look up to. We had nothing but each other.
And we were not enough.
We were not enough to fill the void in our hearts. We were not enough to ease the pain in our souls. We were not enough to face the world alone.
We cried every day, pleaded for help every day, yet help never came. We were put in foster care, but no one wanted us. We were bounced from home to home, but no one loved us. We were treated like burdens, like problems, like trash.
We had nothing but each other.
And we only had each other.
We were 15 years old when our lives changed forever.
Our foster parents at that time told us they were taking us to meet some people who were interested in us. We did not want to go, but we had no say in the matter.
We got in their car and drove to a deserted warehouse. We felt a surge of fear and asked where we were and what was going on, but it was too late. Men in black suits and masks emerged from a tinted SUV and approached our foster parents. They exchanged a brief conversation, a handshake, and a black suitcase. Then they walked back to their vehicle.
We tried to run after them, but the men grabbed us and stopped us. They gagged us, put sacks over our heads, and threw us into the SUV. We tried to fight back, but they hit us repeatedly until we blacked out.
The next thing we knew, we were in front of a massive door that opened with a loud whiz when one of the kidnappers shouted: “Hey, you idiots, open the damn door, it’s me, Rick! I got the targets.”
We did not know the horrors that awaited us inside, we did not know what they wanted from us or what they would do to us.
Most of all we did not know that in this hellhole we would find the love we craved for, the family we never had, and it was all under his wings. The man named Xeno.