by Autumn Grey
Hate.
One second he was yelling at me. Yelling and shaking out of me any hope I had for sleeping that night. I will never forget what happened after that. It was the first time he hit me. He backhanded me, sending me tumbling across the room. Then he drunkenly lumbered toward me. But I was young and fast, and despite the pain tearing me apart, I crawled to my dresser and opened the drawer where I kept the kit containing razors and rubbing alcohol and I yanked it out. It slipped from my hands and clattered on the floor. I found what I needed to defend myself. I clutched the razor between my thumb and index finger, ignoring the pain as it cut through my skin. I waited for him to advance. He came swinging his fist at me. I swiped my hand in front of me, catching him on his left cheek with the razor. It wasn’t too deep to cause any lasting damage, but it was enough to make him freeze. He shot me a hateful look and staggered out of the room. After he left, I ran to the door, slammed it shut and locked it. I threw the razor covered in his blood on the floor and grabbed a clean one from the confines of my kit. Leaning back against the wall with tears falling down my face, I extended my arm and ran the razor against my skin letting it sink in. The relief had been immense, the feel of pain rushing through me, making me feel alive, the sight of red against my skin. . .
Ever since that night, I’ve never let my guard down. I’ve never stopped concealing some sort of weapon under my pillow. Cheetahs don’t change their spots. My dad is who he is, rotten to the core. And right now, my hand is itching to slip under the pillow and take hold of the penknife.
But I wait.
The bed shifts with his weight. I can’t breathe. My lungs are burning and spots appear in front of my vision.
Then I feel it. The slight movement of the sheet shifting away on my back, the hard fingers pressing my back. Lower.
Oh God, no.
He continues his journey, murmuring about making it up to “Caroline” and promising to be a good father. I shove my hand under my pillow and grip the penknife. I jump out of bed. My fingers fumble with the blade before flipping around to face him. The scariest man I’ve ever met. The monster who hides in plain sight.
His eyes blink open through their liquor-induced haze, and he blinks rapidly as his vision adjusts. He must realize who I am and recognition floods his face. His eyes widen, then narrow as they move from my face to the knife in my hand.
I’m not a victim. I’m more than my past. I promised myself I’d never be a victim again. Not by my hand or anyone else’s.
“Get out of my room. Right. Now.” I don’t even recognize my own voice. I expected it to quiver, given the terror ripping through me.
He climbs to his feet as fast as he can in his inebriated state. The shock leaves his face and his mouth folds downward in a sneer.
He looks around the room before returning his loathing gaze to me. “Well, if it isn’t the little abomination that calls itself my daughter.” He eyes my arms then looks at me. He wipes his hands on his shirt as if having touched me disgusts him.
A shudder rocks my body and my hand shakes at his words. Tears burn my eyes and I blink them back furiously. He is not worth my tears.
I thrust my chin forward in defiance. “You made me the way I am. I don’t care if you think I’m Satan’s child. Get. Out. Of. My. Room. Or I’ll call the police!”
He looks at me and grins, the look on his face filled with malicious intent. “Call the police? Go ahead, daughter. Call them.”
Shit. He’s the police. But they can’t all be like him. I refuse to believe that they’re all like him.
My hand is shaking so badly I can barely grip the knife properly.
He backs out of the room, his eyes on me the entire time. “So, you and that freak kid next door are still seeing each other.” He narrows his eyes. “You continue to defy me, Eleanor.” He turns and stumbles out the door.
This is bad.
As soon as he leaves, I rush to my door and slam it shut, locking it. I lean on it. My pulse is pounding in my ears. I try to catch my breath to stop the thudding of my heart long enough to listen to his heavy footsteps. I sigh, relieved he’s heading downstairs and not into his room, or worse, my sisters’ rooms. The front door opens and slams shut. I slide down to the floor, draw my knees up and drop my head to my knees.
Jesus. Christ. What the hell?
If he hadn’t left, I’d have hurt him. I was so close to shoving the penknife in his hand and marking a part of his body like I did all those years ago.
The adrenaline is waring off and with it, questions and doubts slam into me. What if he’d decided to use his strength against me? Would I have been able to defend myself? At this point, I know I disgust him with my scars and he blames me for ruining his life. Every time I think I’ve succeed in kicking those doubts out of my head, something happens to bring them back.
My phone beeps on the bed but my feet can’t move from where I am. It beeps a few more times before I crawl across the floor and up on the bed. I swipe the screen and see three messages from Cole flashing on the screen.
I replace the penknife back under the pillow and set the phone down. There’s no way I’m going to answer his texts. I can’t formulate any words right now, and knowing Cole, his heart overrules his mind when he feels like the people he loves are threatened.
I climb to my feet and dash to the bathroom. I feel dirty. I want to scrub the feel of his hand off my body.
After turning the shower to hot, I grab a wash cloth and stagger into the space filled with steam.
By the time I leave the bathroom, wearing my pajamas and a towel around my head, I feel raw and numb. I need to feel something. Anything. I need to stop feeling as if I’m dead. I know what happens when my body craves the rush. I have tried so hard not to relapse, but I’m starting to feel the walls that stand between sanity and insanity, cracking. I need Cole. He makes me feel another kind of rush.
Cole is sitting on my bed, his elbows propped on his knees, when I walk into my room. My steps falter at first. Relief sweeps through me when I see that he is okay. I cross the room and drop to my knees in front of him, wrapping my arms around him. He hugs me back, but the way he is holding me feels different. It’s tighter than usual, as if he doesn’t want to let me go. He pulls back and kisses my forehead, then nuzzles his face in the crook of my neck.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, when he pulls back to stare at me.
I shake my head. “Nothing. I’m tired.” I start rubbing my hair dry with the towel.
“Are you mad at me?”
I frown and shake my head. “I’m not mad at you.”
“Then what’s wrong? Why won’t you look at me?” he says.
Because I’m afraid you will see right through me. I divert my gaze before I can say those words out aloud and run my hands along my arms to calm my prickling skin.
I wish my mother wasn’t as sick or still hopelessly in love with my father. I wish I was old enough to move out of this house and take my sisters and mom with me.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong.” He climbs on the bed and scoots back to the wooden headboard. “Come here.”
I walk toward him fighting the urge to throw myself in his arms, but stop at the foot of the bed and suck in a breath as I take in his slouched form. Something is off with him. His eyes are rimmed with red as if he has been crying, and his shoulders are hunched forward. How did I not notice this when I walked into the room?
“Is everything okay?” I ask, hoping to get a glimpse of what is bothering him.
He scrubs his hands down his face. He signs and speaks the words, “I just came home from the hospital.”
“Are you all right?” I inspect him with my eyes, but he seems perfectly okay. But his eyebrows are folded in a worry frown and his eyes are tight around the corners.
I take a deep breath, pushing my problems aside.
He shakes his head again. “Josh. We received a call three hours ago from his football coach, telling us that they had t
o rush him to the hospital—St. James Memorial. He has been having recurring pancreatitis for almost three years. We thought he had gotten better, but we were wrong. This time it was worse than the other times.”
I crawl on the bed toward him and pull him into a hug, and then lean back and take his hands in mine. “Oh gosh. I’m so sorry. Is he going to be okay?”
He removes one hand from mine and rubs his neck. “I don’t know. I mean. . .yes. I hope so. The doctor wanted to keep him in the hospital a bit longer to monitor him until tomorrow. They put him on I.V. medications to lessen the irritation.”
Tears fill his eyes and he clenches his jaw. “I can’t lose him.”
I slide my palms to his cheeks and fix my gaze on his. “You won’t lose him. He is going to be all right. You hear me?”
He sniffs and blinks several times. “He had better be or I will kick his ass. The idiot hasn’t been following his diet.”
He inhales deeply, and as his chest deflates he sinks deeper into the bed. “It’s your turn. Talk to me. I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I don’t know what is wrong.”
I sigh. Knowing Cole, he won’t leave this alone. So I tell him what happened, omitting the part where my dad and his mom were arguing. I’m not touching that issue right now.
By the time I’m done, Cole’s body is rigid and his face wears a hard expression. Beautiful. Hard. Unforgiving.
He loosens his hands around my neck. “Did he do anything to you?”
“No!” I say, shaking my head. “No. He didn’t.”
He exhales, then pulls me to him. He kisses my forehead, and just holds me until I feel my body calm down.
I pull back a little and look up at him. “I felt all this rage inside me, Cole. I am afraid if he had gone further, I would have hurt him really badly. Like really hurt him.”
His gaze widens in surprise or shock at my admission.
“I have done it before. That scar on his cheek. . .I did that to him when I was thirteen.” I proceed to tell him what happened.
This is a make or break moment. My heart is bleeding raw emotions and there is no way to stop the flow. If Cole is meant to stay he will stay. I’d rather deal with the devastation in one go, than drag it out until later. He needs to know my brand of crazy.
“I’m so tired of blaming myself. Of him blaming me for something I had no control of. I needed, and still need, to get control of my life at some point without using pain as a way to have it. I promised myself I wouldn’t let him do any more damage to me. I don’t want my sisters to go through what my mother and I went through. So yes, I’m not above hurting him.” I bury my face in my hands and mumble, suddenly terrified of my own mind, “Am I crazy to feel this way?”
Cole cups my chin and tugs it up. “What did you say?”
“It feels wrong to admit something like that out aloud. Does that put you off? You must be shocked at least.” I add the last part because the boy is just sitting there calmly as if my admission is the most natural thing in the world.
Suddenly, he smiles at me and cups my face in his palms, brushing a thumb over my bottom lip. He stares into my eyes for what feels like forever, drinking in my face with just a look.
Then he drops his hands from my face. “No. You are the bravest girl I’ve ever met. I don’t know how you do it. I’m in awe. Yes, your mind is a chaotic place. But you know what? I want to be the one who calms your mind.”
I lift his hand to my lips and kiss his palm. “You need to go home and get some sleep,” I say, and then press my forehead against his.
“I’m staying here.”
This time I don’t protest. I need him. I also have a feeling it will take a monumental effort to uproot him from my room. My father is not here, and knowing him, he probably won’t be returning home tonight.
I climb out of the bed and lock my door, then rejoin him on the bed, curling my body into his. He slides his hand until it meets mine and links our fingers, then pushes my hair to one side with his other hand. He tucks his face into my neck and kisses me.
We stay like this, his breath feathering the hair on the nape of my neck and his fingers gripping mine as though he never wants to let go.
When I wake up in the morning, Cole is no longer by my side and the space he was laying on last night is cold.
“HOW OLD ARE YOU AGAIN?” I ask Megs, while lying on her bed Thursday after school.
I move my gaze from the white ceiling to the doily on the night stand and the two on the dressers. “Even my grandmother doesn’t have that many doilies.”
“Oh pssh. You’re just jealous.” She huffs and I laugh. “My Grams has a thing for doilies. Anyway. Stop avoiding my question. You need to talk to Cole. He’s going crazy.”
The hand holding the nail polish brush stops. I looks at her. “What if I carry that obsessive gene? What if I’m like my dad? Gosh, I don’t know.” I finally voice my fears.
“Listen, Nor. You are nothing like your dad. You care about the people you love. You don’t have a mean bone in your body.” She falls quiet for a few seconds, then says, “Does he know how you feel?”
I sit up quickly and stare at her. “My feelings?”
She laughs. “Yes. You love him.”
“Is it that obvious?” Oh. God. Has Cole seen whatever Megs sees when she looks at me?
She nods, closing the cap of the hot pink nail polish bottle and puts it on top of the nightstand and then stretches her legs and wiggles her toes. “You two gravitate towards each other like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Have you asked him to be your date at the Winter Formal?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and shake my head. I should be excited about attending a school dance for the first time in my life. Instead, I’m worried that if I tell Cole about my dad and his mom, I might jinx us.
Crap. I feel as if the room is getting smaller and my breath is coming out in little bursts of air. I stand up and quickly hug Megs before dashing for the door. “I love you. I will let you know once I ask him,” I yell over my shoulder, while heading for the stairs. A hand grabs my upper arm before my foot hits the bottom step, halting me abruptly. I turn around to face Megs, her eyes soft.
“Call me, okay? I love you and all your weirdness.” She wraps her arms around me without asking me why I bolted out of her room. Without looking at me like I’m crazy. I return her embrace, my eyes prickling with tears and my heart aching with profound gratitude.
This. This is how it feels to have someone understand you, even though they’ve never walked a day in your shoes.
“I love you so much,” I whisper. “Thank you.” I feel like I’ve known Megs my entire life. I can’t imagine my life without this girl in it. Just as I cannot imagine my life without Cole. Both of them understand me and feed my soul on different levels.
As soon as her arms drop away from my body, I shove my feet into the flip-flops, unlock the front door and jog the rest of the way to mine before bounding up the stairs. My breath is ragged and my chest hurts as I enter my room. I strip off my dress and put on my running shorts, grab some money to buy ice cream and head out for a run just as Cole’s car pulls into his parking spot outside his house. I stop and watch him get out of the car, and my fingers shake at the mere thought of sinking them into his hair. My body shivers, wanting him to hold me. I can keep the little secret about our parents a bit longer—until I speak to his mom—but I don’t have the power to walk away from him. He closes the distance between us in long strides and immediately cups my face. Before I can open my mouth, his lips are claiming mine in a ruthless, desperate kiss. My arms wrap around his neck and I’m three seconds from climbing into his skin, ignoring the thoughts whipping around in my head that I shouldn’t kiss him like he is the air and I’m dying, dying, dying. His scent with a hint of sweat wraps around me, comforting me.
Cole hums under his breath as the kiss slows down, his fingers gentle as he tucks wisps of hair behind my ear. He raises his head, questions in his eyes.
I drop my hands from his arms. “Do you want to join me for a run?” I sign while speaking the words out aloud. He nods and opens his mouth, but I place my finger on his lips to stop him. “No questions, please. I’m sorry for worrying you, but I just need a little more time, okay?”
He studies me, his eyebrows scrunched up in a frown. I hate doing this to him, but this is something his mom should tell him. And if she doesn’t, I will take matters in my own hands. He exhales in resignation, drags his fingers through his hair and nods again.
We end up at St. Christopher’s, and we walk in past the little board, announcing that a Fr. Joseph is taking confessions. And just for a second, I wonder if Fr. Joseph would be shocked by the state of my thoughts. Is plotting ways my dad could die a sin? Is it the same as committing murder?
Cole’s hand presses on my lower back, as he urges me to get inside the church, successfully pulling me out of my thoughts. As soon as my backside hits the bench in the first row, I exhale and close my eyes.
God, I’m so ashamed of those thoughts. Make him go away, please. Just make him disappear. Opening my eyes, I link my fingers with Cole’s and lean my head on his shoulder. He kisses my forehead and slides his free hand around my shoulders, holding me close as we wait for my riotous thoughts to settle.
Thank fuck it’s Friday. Just a few more minutes until this lecture is over. This week has been torture. My mind has been preoccupied during the entire class. I can’t stop thinking about Josh lying on that hospital bed. He looked so fucking fragile. Now that he is home, Mom is making sure he follows his diet at least for the duration that he will be home.
My mind keeps going back to Nor and what happened a few nights ago.
My fist itched, wanting in on some action. This morning, when I saw her dad—that son of a bitch—leave their house, I was three seconds from charging at him and giving him a piece of my mind using my fist.
