I was so fucking tired, but sleeping wasn’t in the equation right now. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw Adam strung up in some medieval torture pose designed to inflict the most pain possible. And that was when my brain wasn’t conjuring up images of him dead.
Scrubbing my hands over my face, I stood and walked out on the back deck. I flopped down in the chair tucked in the corner, back to the wall. Even here, in my own home, I wasn’t comfortable with my back being exposed. One would’ve thought that was a SEAL thing, but they would’ve been mistaken. It started long before I ever got wet and sandy the first time.
NOVEMBER 1992
I saw it coming, and I took off, running through the fields on the farm and over the hills to hide behind the barn. The window to get away was shorter than a bald man’s hairstyle.
“Get back here, boy!”
I ran as hard and as fast and as far as I could from that drunken, rage-filled voice. Every drink I watched go down his gullet was yet another eraser mark that changed my old man from the loving, caring guy he was when sober to the hateful, mean bastard he became when drunk. The man who replaced my dad was more likely than not to beat my ass until I couldn’t sit down for a week or go to school. He was a man to be avoided at all costs.
“When I find you, boy, I’m going to beat your mama out of you. You’re just like that cunt! Useless and disloyal,” he screamed into the night.
I slid into my hidey-hole. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. My heart raced so fast it pounded in my ears, making staying put even harder. Tears raced down my cheeks. Sobs caused my chest to clench, and I shook so hard I felt like I was rattling apart.
Fear consumed me. If I stayed still and silent, he wouldn’t find me. I prayed so hard. Last time, he’d found me. I’d just gone back to school a few days ago. I had thought I’d gottenaway, but he’d found me. I still had the bruises. They reminded me how much my dad hated and blamed me for what my mama had done. All because I looked like her.
“There you are, you little shit!”
“No! Daddy, please!”
He snatched me by my arm, jerking me through the hole in the barn wall. I just barely fit if I crawled in slowly. The broken, jagged pieces of wood gouged into me, cutting my back open as he yanked me out of my hiding spot.
“I’m going to teach you not to hide from me once and for all!” he yelled at me.
Spit flew from his mouth, covering my face. The moisture made the slap that followed sting that much more. After the slap came a backhand and several punches to my belly and ribs.
The attack was worse than any before, and I’d thought the last one was as bad as it could be.
I cried and begged and prayed, but it went on and on and on. Realizing that every sound I made only made him angrier, I just shut up, clenching my teeth to keep the sounds inside. The pain in my mouth as I locked my jaw shut radiated through my skull, and I cried out.
He grabbed me, shaking me violently, slamming me against the tractor left to rust beside the barn. I bit my cheek and tongue as I bounced off the fender. The ringing in my head blinded me to his enraged face as it struck the metal.
The beating went on.
I prayed it would end.
I prayed to join Mama and Mandy in heaven.
Somehow, I ended up on the ground. Everything hurt. Daddy still screamed at me, cursing me for being just like my mother. He told me over and over how much like her I was andhow he wished she’d never died because she got off easy, so it was now my responsibility to pay for her mistakes.
I puked when he kicked me the first time, which infuriated him. He just kept kicking me. I grabbed his leg, holding it to me to lessen the blows.
I woke up cold and covered in the first snowfall of the fall. I was shivering and numb, shocked that nothing really hurt right now. My head felt heavy, and so did my arms and legs.
I looked around. It was morning. I could still hear the rooster from Old Man Thomas’s place beside ours.
“BROCK!”
I cowered in fear at the sound of my name being shouted.
No! God, please, no!
“BROCK!”
The sound of the person shouting came to me again, but this time, I realized who it was.
“Miss Rachel?” I whispered, afraid my dad was still there, just waiting to lay into me again.
