I think I doze off a few times; never really a deep sleep, but enough that it takes the edge off. Enough that I feel like I can breathe again.
Something heavy and solid lands on my legs, sending pain through my bones, and it jolts me from my half-nap. “Put it away,” Dad orders. “Don’t leave your shit laying around my house.”
I stifle a groan and sit up, taking note of the basket filled with clean laundry sitting on my legs. The laundry that I washed this morning, before the flare-up hit; most of it is his, anyway, but I don’t have the energy for a big fight.
“Sorry Dad,” I tell him. “I’ll get it put away in a little bit.”
“No, you’ll do it now.”
I blink at him. “I’m having a bad day. I can get it done in a little bit.”
He picks up the basket by its handles and turns it over, dumping the clean clothes all over me and my bed, some of the pieces spilling over onto the floor.
“It’s not my fucking fault you’re hungover,” he scolds. “Maybe you should think about your responsibilities before you go out all night dressed like a slut. Did you at least make some money?”
The insults should stab through me, but I’m getting so used to his cruelty anymore that it’s more like a claw, scratching away at a lingering wound that just won’t heal, because it’s constantly being picked at. Sometimes, it feels like the wound scabs over, but other times it’s almost like it’s infected.
“I don’t drink,” I mutter under my breath as he walks for my door. “One drunk in this house is enough.”
My mom would be so ashamed of him. Does he know that? Is that something that he considers when he’s at the bottom of the bottle? When he treats me the way he does? She would be horrified of the creature that took over her husband’s body. He’s not even a person anymore.
“The fuck did you just say to me?” He shouts, and I can’t help but flinch when his hand moves to grip the door handle.
“Nothing, Dad,” I sigh. “Tell Al I said hi.”
He grumbles while he picks through the pile of clothes, looking for a clean version of the same t-shirt he always wears, mumbling about how ungrateful and useless I am – the usual. I’ve heard it all at least a thousand times, in a thousand different ways.
I don’t pick up the mess of fabric after he leaves the room; instead, I open my music streaming app and load up aplaylist of my favorite songs before fixing the position of my heating pad.
Macie wanders through my doorway not more than a few minutes later, wearing a look like she’s in trouble, or worried that she’s about to be. She plucks a few pieces of clothing off of the floor, twisting them in her hands and nervously pressing her lips together.
“Hey, kid,” I greet her, holding my arms out to invite her on the bed with me.
She gently sets the clothes on the foot of the bed and climbs up, curling her little body in my arms. She heard Dad; it always scares her, and I hate it. I hate that I can’t just throw her in my car and drive away, take her somewhere far from here so she never has to hear it again.
“Hey,” I tell her, “wanna play a game?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t wanna go downstairs.”
“We don’t have to! It’s just a word game. ‘Have you ever,’ it’s like truth or dare but only truths,” I explain, “and you can’t get in trouble for your answers.”
Her face scrunches as she raises her tiny pinkie in the air and she asks, “Pinkie swear?”
I hold my pinkie finger up, closing it around hers, and I give a firm shake, sealing in our promise to each other.
“You answer first,” I tell her. I put on a display of thinking really hard about my question. “Have you ever…snuck candy after bedtime?”
Covering her mouth with her hands, she dissolves into giggles. “Yeah,” she admits. I already knew that, of course; the girl is a lot of things, but when it comes to being sneaky, she’s like a bull in a china shop. “Have you ever...ate five pieces of pizza?”
“Blegh, no!” I say, shaking my head with a laugh. “That’s too much for my tummy!”
We play a few more rounds with equally silly questions, and she eventually finds her way to my makeup palettes to give me a makeover while we play. The brushesfeel like sandpaper against my nerves as she uses them to gently apply a pretty impressive selection of colors to various places on my face, but I just let her play.
I hope it’s like this when I finally get her out of here. I hope she even wants to come with me; maybe I should have checked first, but she’s so young, making her choose between her dad and her big sister just doesn’t seem fair. Maybe just taking her isn’t fair, either. I have to trust that I know what’s best for her.
“Have you ever…” I cue up my turn, “thought about running away? Just us girls, living in our own house?”
Her tiny face focuses hard; I can’t tell if it’s on my question or her project. “No,” she answers. “But maybe we could! We could make a sports room and a makeup room and a tea parties room.”
