Being this late in the year, it’s already dark by the time I slip into my house through the back door. Dad’s almost always camped out in the living room, which faces the street, and I can sometimes make it to my bedroom without him knowing.
The house is silent as I walk through the dimly-lit hallway and into my bedroom. Eerily silent.
Ben and Nick must still be at school, but where’s Mom?
She’s always home by now during the week.
I stand in my room, the tension in my chest growing.
Something feels wrong.
I tiptoe out of my room just as—
“Get out of my fucking house!” my father yells. “You eat my food and use up my money—I’ll kill you!”
A slam follows, and then the worst sound I’ve ever heard in my life—
A bloodcurdling scream.
It’s my mother.
I dash down the hall and poke my head around the open door leading to the living room.
A basketball game is on the TV on mute, and my father’s kneeling over my mother with his hand wrapped around her neck. They’re sideways to me, but he doesn’t notice me. I swallow down a scream, and I watch Mom’s blue eyes roll back as my father squeezes her throat harder.
This has happened before. We’ve called the police before. They come, Dad gets a slap on the wrist, and then it happens again.
This time, no one’s calling the police. This time, we’re handling it ourselves.
Without thinking, I grab his baseball bat, the one he keeps by the door “in case of an intruder.”
We don’t have time to worry about an intruder when the man inside our walls is attacking us.
I slip into the room unnoticed. I wait until I’m close enough to touch him and then—
Crack!
I swing the baseball bat over my shoulder and bring it down as hard as I can onto my father.
Chapter Five
Colton
I lean against the kitchen counter at Hastings Ranch and nurse a beer. The party goes on around me, but I’m not in the mood.
Brayden’s playing ping pong in the middle of a group of guys, and now he’s shirtless. Dylan’s talking to the many girls who are flirting with him.
And I’m standing by myself in the kitchen, watching it all. I feel detached from the carefree scene around me, and I can’t shake the bad feeling in my gut.
It’s been over twenty-four hours since Dad’s doctor’s appointment yesterday morning. The doctor ordered some tests, but he still hasn’t heard anything.
The waiting is always the worst.
Until you find out the news is bad. Then, you wish you could have the waiting back and enjoy the fuck out of those “before” days.
The first time, I was naïve. I figured my father was just getting some precautionary tests. I honestly barely thought about it. He’d been coughing and had a frustrating bout of laryngitis, but he was feeling better. He wouldn’t have even gone to the doctor if Mom hadn’t insisted he get double-checked. She was worried he needed a course of antibiotics, so she made an appointment.
While he was there, the doctor decided to take an x-ray. And then, a more in-depth scan.
