Her wounds

The After Effect

He always blamed Kim for Kayla's disappearance. He never even considered that she was cheating, not in the many years after that did he even think something like that. He had thought that taking care of Kim was too much for her, the girl asked too many questions for her own good.
Kim was silent for a month after Kayla left. He didn't like the quiet. He thought it was eerie. That she was plotting against him.
She would sit in the corner of the living room, staring at the wall. Sometimes she was crying, sometimes she was just blank.
Kim thought it was her fault her Mum left, that she was too annoying. Only years later did it dawn in her who was really at fault.

The 3-year old girl was not old enough to go to school, and she had no mother to look after her, so when he went to work, she would be left home by herself.
Whilst at home she found all the spare blank and lined paper present in the house and she drew.
Dragons, people, herself, her mum, her house, birds, cats, the house across from the window and thousands of other things.
None of it was very good but she continues to draw and eventually she started drawing things that weren't giant green blobs. They were starting to actually look kind of good.

And then she ran out of paper.

She begged her father to buy her more notebooks, sketchbooks, paper and at one point even asked for a pen. God forbid she receive a pen!!!
On every occasion he would deny her request, but she would inside on asking over and over again until he ran out of patience and slapped her or locked her in the cupboard where she'd been relocated to after Kayla left.
Whenever her father would bring home friends or ladies, he would lock her in the cupboard before he went to work. Here she kept her art supplies in a pocket on the wall made out of spare paper. And when she heard the front door bang shut, she would start to draw on the walls, and the small low ceiling and the back of the door. She would draw birds and plants, what she remembered from the park and what she could see from the front  window. It was her own garden and she nourished it and supported it, letting the plants grow all up the walls, ivy and trees and beans. But best of all, she drew her own friends, girls, boys, tomboys, active kids, kids she'd seen in picture books and children she'd seen walking by the window. They were her friends, and she talked to them, and played with them, like imaginary friends or toys.

One time, her father brought home a fish. That's what he told her it was.  Small cubes of pink and white meat. A fish! He cooks some of the fish and then puts it on a plate, taking it upstairs, where she was forbidden to go. Kim is left alone in the kitchen with the cut up fishes. She feels sorry for them. She'd only ever heard about fish from the magic box her father watched, with the moving pictures. She takes the little cut up fishes in her hands and she puts them in a cup and fills it with water.
"There you go!" She tells them as they sink to the bottom of the glass. She thinks that the magic box had talked about getting fish in rivers, which she knew had water in them. Kim takes the glass from the kitchen counter and takes it to her cupboard, placing them at the end of her bed on the floor. For weeks after this she would talk to the little cubes, assuming this was how fish acted. On one very exciting day, one of the fish floated up to the top of the glass and for the rest they just floated around.

On another day, months later, she'd finally figured out how to open the window. Her father told her to never go outside so she just enjoys the fresh air, leaning out of the window. She sits there for about half an hour before a bird from the outside accidentally flies into her house. She turns around in wonder and amazement. She's never seen a bird up close before! The poor thing flutters around the living room, desperately trying to avoid the spinning fan in the middle of the room. Kim watches it, not knowing the poor thing needs help. She watches it fly into the corner, under the coffee table and into the spinning fan. The small creatures is knocked from flight onto the wall and a red liquid stains to normally cream wall. Kim watches in horror, solemnly swearing to never open the window or a door again... She closes the window and picks up the bird in her two hands, the creature is definitely dead but she tries her best to heal it, not noticing how few movements the tiny animal is making.
When her father returns home that evening, he sees the blood on the wall and screams, yelling for Kim. Fearfully she comes to him and he slaps her across the face, beating her senseless.
The real reason she was locked in the cupboard when he had guests over, was because he didn't want them seeing her red face and black eyes from getting beaten every night...