He tried to wake Hell by saying horrible things to Woodrow, but he got me instead. It was always a gamble—no one knew who’d come to the surface, not until they floated to the top.
Daddy was still screaming when I got to the surface. He didn’t stop when he realized it was me. He didn’t stop when he felt my fear and dread. He grew angrier. He grabbed me and shook me. . . before he put his fist to my throat.
He told me I was a f-word disappointment. That he’d had enough of me yesterday and the day before, and didn’t want me back for a third day running.
He hit me again, and when I asked him to stop, he hit me harder.
Before I knew it, his fingers were closing around my throat, and I couldn’t breathe. Nessie was panicking, and it was only because of her he stopped. She was making too much noise. And for whatever reason, he wanted her quiet. So, he stepped away from where he had me pinned to the floor, and told her to get me out of his sight.
She looked terrified. And I hated him for that.
For a while, I hated her, too. Hated that she never got hurt the way I did. Hated that she only got love. . . but she gave love too, so over time, my feelings changed, and she became the person I’d do anything in the world for.
She brought me an ice pack from the freezer while my mother did nothing to help me. The bag of crushed ice helped with the swelling but the pain was still present.
My gaze drifted her way, watching her now—still in the grass, a fresh smile on her lips.
The tiny fingers of my sister plucked the petals from a daisy, dying in the fading sunlight. Darkness was looming near, casting shadows over our heads. The largest shadow, created by a graying cloud above, overcast the pretty scene of our home.
“Shall we pluck more?” my little sister’s voice questioned, her smile making her tone light and airy like the summer breeze.
“We shouldn’t pull out flowers for no reason; they die,” Jolietold her.
“They die?”
“They do. . . without a purpose.”
I knew her words had an alternative meaning, but I knew nothing about her, so I had no clue what that purpose was. And I couldn’t ask. . . she had a pain in her heart that hurt me each time a tear appeared in her eyes.
And I saw too much of it because she was all I focused on. After hours out here, I was starting to bore of our game.
But I didn’t want to go home.
I wanted to stay until the darkest shadows of the night came out to play, and I wanted them to steal me, so I’d never have to set foot in that house again.
I shifted to stare into the distance, to the veranda where my father stood surrounded by a billow of smoke.
Letting my eyes sit on him brought all the pain back, and suddenly, my throat started hurting more.
He was still there, standing on the veranda when I turned away.
I turned back, hoping he’d disappear, but he hadn’t. His eyes fixed on the image ahead of him—us. A smile I couldn’t see sat on his lips.
“I’ll see you inside, kid. I want everyone in before six p.m.!” he shouted across the lawn, and he was loud enough for me to hear.
I blinked twice, silently stressing myself stupid over concerns with the time. I had no watch on my wrist, and no ability to read it even if one did magically appear. Not without Woodrow. And today, he was so lost inside me, I couldn’t even feel him there.
A feeling of uselessness washed over me as my attention moved back to the girls. I struggled with everything; reading, writing, and often wondered how Woodrow and Hell knew so much more when we shared the same brain. I wondered how I didn’t have access to their thoughts.
I couldn’t even imagine how Woodrow could even spell his own name. Of course, it didn’t help that our parents had signed his birth certificate with a name like Woodrow. They must have hated him from the moment he began to exist. That was certainly how they felt about me.
My name, given to me by Nessie, was something I was grateful for. Grateful that it was written on so many of my toys, so I had help when I had to learn to spell it.
I glanced around to the sound of the glass door swinging shut; my father was lazy, with a little too much weight around his stomachbecause he did very little for himself. A man who never ever closed the doors behind him. My mother was the opposite—looking like her body would snap at any second as she constantly walked around behind him, vexed and stressed by his every half-assed move, cleaning up his mess and righting his wrongs. But she never voiced her anger for him. . . only me.
I tried my best to be well behaved, be the son she wanted me to be. But I couldn’t. Because she never wanted a son, at all.
I was worthless to her. A skinny runt. Long-legged and lanky, starved of nutrients, vitamins, love. Woodrow believed we were neglected, mentally and physically. We hadn’t been to a hospital in years, despite the issue with our throat making life a painful chore.
