The next one knocks the wind from my stomach. Acid stings my throat. I choke it back because if I throw up, he’ll call it weakness, and weakness he beats out of me.
Mom screams, but he doesn’t even look at her. She’s background noise to him. Static.
“Stop it! He’s just a boy!”
Her voice cuts me worse than his fists. Because she means it. Because she still hopes. Because I know what comes next when she tries to interfere.
His knuckles split my lip. Blood spills fast, warm, metallic. I spit it onto the carpet, a crimson smear blooming into the filthy fibers. His fingers twist into the front of my shirt and he slams me into the wall so hard the plaster cracks behind me.
“You’ll never be a man,” he snarls into my face, whiskey fumes burning my eyes. “You’ll never be anything.”
I makemyself meet his gaze. Even with my vision swimming, even with the room flickering like a dying bulb. I don’t give him the flinch he wants. I can’t stop the shaking, but I can give him silence.
That’s the only piece I ever had to keep.
Then the rage breaks loose. Blow after blow. My shoulder, my ribs, my jaw—each impact a dull, sickening thud that echoes inside my skull. My arms won’t lift to block anymore. My legs stop belonging to me. The pain becomes everything—a single sheet of heat and pressure and shaking bones.
Then, suddenly, it stops.
His fists fall still. His breath rasps like an animal’s. Then he’s gone—boots pounding down the hall, a door slamming hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall.
Silence.
Mom collapses beside me, hands trembling so badly she can barely touch me. Her palms slide over my face, my chest, terrified she’ll find something broken she can’t fix. Her fingers come away red.
“Oh God… baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Her voice cracks. “He was never mine to take… never mine… this is all my fault…”
I want to tell her she’s wrong. That I’d take every hit again if it means he leaves her standing. But my throat won’t work. My lips won’t move. The words get stuck somewhere behind the swelling and the blood.
All I can do is listen to her cry.
The memory dissolves with that sound—the part that always hurts worse than the beating.
I sit up on the couch, gasping like I’ve been held under water. Sweat drenches my shirt, clings to my skin. My heart won’t slow down. My hands are fists, knuckles white, nails digging so deep into my palms they almost break skin.
The room is still. No yelling. No fists. Just the hum of the fridge.
I press my hands over my face, but it doesn’t block it out. I can still feel him. Still smell the whiskey. Still hear mom’s broken voice.
I thought I buried it. Thought leaving that house behind meant leaving him there too.
But he’s out now. Walking free.
I’m not thirteen anymore. I’m not the kid who stayed quiet so Mom wouldn’t cry.
But that kid lives in me. He always will.
I lower my hands, stare at the ceiling until my vision blurs. My chest rises and falls too fast.
I tell myself I’m safe. I tell myself he can’t touch me now. But the truth is—
I’m not afraid of what he’ll do to me.
I’m afraid of what he’ll do to the people I love.
Or if I see him first… what I’ll do tohim.
