“You know that’s bullshit.”
“Crane, please. Are you staying home tonight?” Mom looks at me with such hope, I know it’s going to crush her when I tell her no, that I’m going to dinner at the Carson’s.
“You know I’m not, Mom. I can’t be here with him like this.”
Mom drops her gaze, nodding shakily.
“I understand.”
My heart aches in my chest, and when I reach out for her and pull her close, she winces with pain.
Anger flares through my body, and it takes everything in me to not go and rip my cunt of a father's head off.
“Come with me; you know the Carsons love you,” I say gently, kissing the top of her head as she grips me.
I want to punch my dad's fucking lights out, but Mom always ends up paying for it when I’m not here.
“I need to stay with your dad.”
“I’ll kill him, bury him in the garden, and we can live happily ever after.”
“Crane!” Mom scolds, pushing me away with a smile. “You always did have a vivid imagination.”
I turn away, not wanting her to see how much it kills me seeing her like this.
Before his accident, they were happy, and he adored the two of us.
But now…
Urgh.
I head down the hall to my room, kicking the beer bottles away that line the doorway.
My room is a fucking mess, as it always is, but it smells of piss and vomit.
I clench my jaw, gritting my teeth together when I see the urine-stained bedding and dried up sick beside my bed.
“I’ll fucking kill him.”
I don’t even bother changing; I just turn around and head straight back out the door, past my mom, who wrings her hands anxiously.
Storming out, I find him asleep on the porch, the bottle of beer still full.
I tug it out of his hands, tipping it over his fucking head.
He jolts to, wiping his face with his dirty hands, blinking at me slowly.
“The fuck?”
“You spilled your beer.”
My words are like daggers, hard and sharp. I wish I had a dagger because I’d plunge it into his cold, dead heart.
“You cunt,” Dad rasps, struggling to his feet, his lip curling up in the corner. “I’ll fucking have you.”
“Yeah? Maybe you should. Hit a man instead of a woman who loves you,” I hiss bitterly, angry tears stinging my eyes. “If you touch her again,I’llfucking killyou.”
Dad throws his head back, his yellow-stained teeth making me step back, his chest racking with a cough that has him doubled over and vomiting again.
