Chapter Text
There were…many reasons why Ted doesn’t talk to his parents. Why he hasn’t after he turned sixteen. Why he barely refers to either as “Mom” or “Dad”.
He remembers his childhood more than he’d like to, even if chunks of his younger years were missing.
He really didn’t remember anything before he was six or seven. He had little flashes of being with his Nana when he was young, and his mom, but not much of then.
He remembered being alone more often than not as a younger kid. His mother was in college and his father worked. He remembers flashes of his father bitching about Ted ruining his and his mom’s life as he sipped on a beer one night. Except they didn’t call him Ted. He wasn’t Ted then.
They called him “El”, “Ellie”, or “Eloise”. He was their girl. Their daughter .
Ted always hated being referred to that way. Didn’t know why until years later. He’d always shoved it away, not trusting a soul to know any of that.
What he hated worse were the stuffy dresses she was forced into every week for church. Ted never understood why they ever went. Neither of his parents were really religious. Maybe they went to save face, two young parents with a toddler…
Ted only liked that the dresses covered the wounds and scars his father had left previously. That was the only plus to that horrid outfit.
By the time Ted was ten, they’d stopped going to church. Well, Ted did. A fight had broken out between Ted and his very drunk (as per usual) father right before church that Sunday.
Ted’s father, Matthew Spankoffski, was always a strong man. And Ted never came even close to his strength, especially at age ten. He remembers little of that fight, mostly his hair being yanked and he was thrown into a wall. The bottle his dad held was thrown at him, hitting him in the chest.
Ted was left to his own devices as his parents left for church. His mother had looked on and said nothing throughout the whole altercation, not even pausing to check on her child. Her poor ten-year-old daughter who was bleeding and crying and covered in glass and beer.
She’ll be fine, Bea, we’re gonna be late .
Ted didn’t hear that.
A while after they left, Ted grabbed his phone, and a small bag of essentials, and walked all the way to his Nana’s, on the edge of town. He had nowhere else to go.
His Nana hugged him, shocked at the poor child’s state, still injured and bleeding. He was brought in and told to stay the night, and Ted told the story as he was patched up. He’d passed out twice on his Nana’s couch that day.
That was the first time in Ted’s memory he’d felt love from a family member.