Playground

by Aron Beauregard

She might’ve been young, but she was already old enough to understand that no one, not even the woman she came out of, was going to control her. Tanya didn’t need her mother’s belief; she had her own.

Dead inside, dead alive, and dead tired.

Same.

The conditioning that resulted from an endless cycle of abuse was a profound manipulator.

He was tired of being a project instead of just being a son.

Geraldine had turned him into the saddest kind of damaged goods. The kind that’s too fucked-up to realize it. When horror isn’t quite horror anymore, it’s just normal. And when awful isn’t quite awful anymore, it’s just life.