“But you did. So what happened, Dylan?”
He releases a heavy sigh and leans his head back to look at the ceiling before settling his eyes on me once again. “Ok, fine. But, Mara, you have to keep an open mind. And try to understand. I’m sure there’s a lot about our family you don’t know.”
I wait patiently. If I was in a chair, I’d be on the edge of my seat. The ominous tension in the air tells me this is going to be hard to hear. I have a strong suspicion I’ll never look at Jason the same way again. But I hope I’ll understand him more after this.
“The beatings started when we were little. I think I was nine so Jason was probably ten.” I suck in a breath. That was the last thing I expected. Their family always seemed close, the perfect nuclear family. Their mom was always at school fundraisers with baked goods. “I don’t remember why it started. He wasn’t a drunk or anything. He was just evil and bitter. And he made our lives as hellish as he felt his own was.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jason-One month after Prom
Unsteady-X Ambassador
“I have a fucking faggot and a mute for sons, Lois,” my father screams at Mom in the kitchen while Dylan and I sit on the porch listing to the bullshit our father is spewing. “What the hell do you want me to say? That I’m happy with our life? That I’m okay with this shit? Neither one of them are right. Maybe I should send them to the cabin this winter to become men. No help from anyone except themselves.”
The look Dylan and I exchange says it all.That doesn’t sound too bad, actually. At least we’d be away from him.
Mom uses her passive, tender voice that she always uses to pacify our father. “They have school, Phil. They need their education.”
“Fine.” I hear his thunderous steps get louder as they head our way. “Then maybe I’ll toughen them up myself.”
“Phil,” Mom shouts. I hear her little footsteps follow our father toward us and jump to my feet to stand between the son of a bitch and my brother. He’s plenty tough from wrestling, but they kicked him off the team this year when they found out he was gay. Not that he was interested in anyone on the team.
But they don’t give a shit. He doesn’t think the same as them so he’s a threat, a danger.
The door flies open so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t come off the hinges.As soon as our father locks eyes on me, smoke comes out of his nostrils. He drops the cigarette he was smoking inside and smashes it under his boot. He’s preparing for a face-off. He’s been waiting for a reason to hit me again and I just gave him one.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Our father grits out in a strained voice. All the years of smoking make him sound like rocks in a blender, now.
When I don’t answer—like he knew I wouldn’t—he takes a step closer. “You trying to stand up to me, huh? Trying to be the man, now? Protect your fucked up brother?”
He’s not fucked up. Everything about him is completely normal except his taste in partners. Which, to be honest, isn’t that weird in this day and age. But our town is a decade behind the rest of the world and they don’t appreciate him leapfrogging into modern relationships.
“So what are you doing, boy? Answer me when I ask you a fucking question.” His voice raises a notch in volume with each word until he’s yelling at me. But that’s never scared me before and it sure as hell doesn’t scare me now.
“You fucking retard.” My father swings his fist at my head and I stumble, but I remember a few things from my brief time in sports and tackle him with my shoulder to his abdomen, arms around the waist, trying to take him down. Even though I’ve gotten a bit bigger since picking up weight lifting, he’s still bigger than me. Offensive lineman in high school. Probably could have gone to college on scholarship for it if he hadn’t knocked up our mom.
He’s clearly caught off guard by my attack which causes him to stumble, but it doesn’t take long for the bastard to shove me to the ground and stomp on my chest.
Mom starts hollering, crying for our dad to stop. But when he’s like this, there’s no stopping the rampage. The sad thing is he’s not even drunk. I’ve heard about dads who get violent when they drink. But at least there’s an excuse there, a way to stop it. Our dad was just born mean, bitter, violent.
He shoves me down the front steps with his steel-toed boot and I turn into the fetal position and hold my bruised rib cage hoping that seeing mewounded like a dog on the ground is enough to satisfy his taste for blood and misery.
“You thought you could hide behind your brother?” Our father turns on Dylan, clearly not satiated yet.
“No, I—.” Dylan loses the power of speech when our father charges for him next.
Panic sets in. I see the pure terror in Dylan’s eyes, hear Mom plead for our father to stop, crying in between sucking in lungfuls of air she can’t hold onto. And my chest caves with the weight of it all. I can’t see them hurting. He can hurt me all he wants, but not them.
So I do the only thing I can think of.
“NO!” I shout. It’s hoarse from disuse like I’ve been swallowing gravel, but the shock of hearing me speak for the first time in years stops him dead in his tracks long enough for Mom to get to Dylan.
And, more importantly, it redirects our father’s focus to me. That rage turned toward the son who refused to speak no matter how many beatings I took. No matter how many bruised ribs I’ve hidden under my clothes, I’ve never broken
Until now.
Until he threatened the two people I care about in this world. He’s never laid a hand on our mother or Dylan because most of his anger was honed in on me. But when he found out that his youngest son likes other men, not women like men were supposed to in his day and age, I wasn’t his biggest problem anymore. He had two disappointments to beat the hell out of.
