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Wednesday 31st August, 1977
The sound of her door slamming reverberates throughout the house and she knows her dad will be storming up the stairs in a drunken rage shouting at her for being "an ungrateful bitch." Veronica grabs a beat up grey duffle bag and hurriedly starts shoving clothes from the floor into it. She fumbles around, tears pricking at her eyes, grabbing at the few school books within her reach. She ducks under her bed to grab her aviator jacket when somthing orange catches her eye.
Veronica pauses and reaches over and picks up the pharmacy vial.
Fentanyl.
Her mother's.
Well shit.
In one thought, Veronica grabs the vial and her jacket throwing them both in the bag and stands back up just barely remembering to snatch her wand before she throws the door open and makes it halfway down the stairs where she meets her dad.
She tries to dodge past him but he grabs her arm and she flinches, ready for the sting.
He only takes in her appearance but Veronica is still on edge, and she has every reason to be. She knows what comes next.
"You're not gonna leave." His voice drags with the beer but she can plainly hear the derisiveness in his tone and it ignites the hatred in her heart, the feeling of being unfairly dealt this hand of cards. She tries pulling her arm out of his grasp but fails and she can feel her anger burn beneath her skin. "Yes, I am, let go of me." She pulls back harder this time.
She hadn't quite expected the backhand to her cheek that time and she curses herself for dropping her guard. Still, Veronica only grits her teeth forcing back the cry in her throat.
Her dad sneers at her, "Oh, I'm sorry, did that hurt?"
Veronica glares at the floor, "No."
"Look at me when I'm talking to you, I raised you better than that."
She doesn't want to move. She wants to crawl under her bed and wait for him to leave her alone like she used to. But Veronica knows better so she forces her eyes from the floor to meet his stare.
"You can't leave, your mother and I need you here."
Veronica could not believe he had just said that, that he had had the audacity to try and convince her they actually wanted her around in the first place. As if he wasn't just screaming at her fifteen minutes ago that he 'wouldn't tolerate having a dyke daughter'. How dare he.
Her anger flares wildly and she breaks away from his grip and is at the door before he can grab her again. She wrenches the door open but not before there's glass shattering inches from where she stands and there's a shooting pain in her shoulder as she throws herself out of her house.