purple diamond in the rough

Safety was an illusion. There was no true safety. Gypsy would never be safe. Anyone who thought otherwise was just fooling themselves. Even the soft, pleading tones of Indigo held adders within. She didn’t know him. Other than her father, she didn’t know anyone. At any moment, the sweet man that was calling so softly and with such concern could morph into a beast like her father.

Gypsy’s father hadn’t always been so bad. Yes, he’d let her know how much she looked like her treacherous, whore mother from the very moment that she could grasp language, but he hadn’t become physically abusive until later. At first there had even been affection. They’d slept beside one another. She was warm and fed. Aside from some verbal degradation, life had been bearable. When she hit a year old, her father had begun to drink heavily. He’d always been a bit of a drinker, but the more she grew, the more she looked like her mother. The more she looked like her mother, the more he drank. The more he drank, the more abusive he got. In the end, he punished Gypsy for her mother’s crimes.

Indigo’s soft, pleading voice offered little comfort. He could lure her out with niceties, then turn around and hurt her. But what choice did she have, really? Stay nestled in a thorn bush? Slowly freeze, starve and die? He had been so warm. So nice. Gypsy’s mind was a swirling miasma of thoughts, doubts, hopes and fears. She didn’t know what to do.

Her breathing became even but her frail frame still shook with the tremors of pain and stress. Gypsy would die early, way before her time. The constant state of stress and panic would take its toll and at some point, her mind and body would give up. For now though, Gypsy took one shuddering breath and extended one snow white paw towards the man calling her name.