Calm down, girl. Stop sassing out your psycho ex. There’s no way that ends well.
Haven’t you learned by now? Haven’t you learnedanything?
I force myself to take a deep breath. Brad may have used up my well of patience long ago, but I can’t afford to do the same. He knows my weaknesses. Knows exactly where to press to make it hurt.
Most importantly, onwhomto press.
I lose myself in last night’s memories. Brad’s drunken breath, acrid like rotting fruit in my nostrils. No part of Brownsville ever smelled so foul, not even in the heat of last summer.
“Whatcha looking at, you two-bit slut?”
I wasn’t looking at anything. Not by a long shot. But Brad had already decided to make me pay, so it didn’t really matter.
He walks up to me, swaying with every step. A bottle of scotch dangles from his fingers. He empties out the last of it—not his first of the night, and definitely not his last—and throws it hard against the wall.
It shatters. But I don’t. “You’ll wake him up,” I warn. My voice is flat and level, though inside, I’m screaming.
“I don’t give a shit.”
“You should. He’s your son.”
“He’s a bastard,” he spits out “Dumb as a brick. Takes after his slut of a mother in that regard.”
I shouldn’t be amazed at how little Brad’s changed man act lasted. And yet, a part of me can’t help a dull ache from spreading throughout my heart. It’s the bitterness that comes with an expected disappointment. The sting of “I-told-you-so.”
The burn of shame.
Hot rage seeps into my veins. “He’s the best kid in the universe. A real dad would see that.”
“You never let me be a ‘real dad’ to him.”
“I’m letting you now. Trying to, at least.” I start picking up the glass shards, gingerly, without letting them cut me. God knowsI’ve had heaps of practice. “Not my fault you’re doing a shit job of it.”
Even as I say that, I know it’s a mistake. Wrong words, wrong time, wrong place, wrong everything. Every day in this house, I’ve had to remind myself to stay in my lane, to say all the right things.
But it’s been three months. And hearing Brad insult what I hold dearest in the whole world, day after day, night after night… It makes something snap inside me.
The last thread of my patience—and his.
Drunk as he is, he’s still blindingly fast. Bigger and stronger than me in every way. Hating him won’t change that simple physical reality.
So when he throws me to the ground, I can do nothing to stop him. The shards in my hands scatter, cutting into my palm and biting into the Singaporean carpet. Everything in this house is so expensive, but it’s like Brad gets a kick out of ruining it. The finer the piece, the worse he treats it.
I suppose I should be flattered.
He treats me worst of all. I guess that means I’m special.
I land on my side. My arms curl protectively around my belly. Brad doesn’t miss the gesture.
“Oh, shut the fuck up with your fucking whining, your bitching and your goddamn moaning.” He sneers down at me, his face twisted into a gargoyle’s hideous imitation of disdain “You think I don’t know you’ve been cucking me since day one? You think I don’t know what you look like when you’ve got another damn bastard inside you?”
“I don’t know what?—”
“Yes, you fucking do!”
He stomps the floor right next to my stomach. I scurry backward, startled—no, terrified. The memory of his blows is still alive in me. The crush of knuckles and toes into the soft flesh of my belly.
I was lucky then.
