I drag my feet across the wood floors as if it’s thick tar, something trying to keep me from seeing whatever lies beyond their bedroom door.
“You’re so fucking weak, Jane!” My father’s slurred words, combined with her horrifying shriek, shake the floorboards under my bare feet outside their door.
My blood hardens to ice in my veins. Sharp shards that threaten to gut me from the inside out.
Gripping the door handle with quivering hands, I push it open. My eyes quickly scan the room, and my chest ruptures in two, my eyes widening in horror at the scene before me.
Their vanity mirror is smashed into a thousand pieces, shards dusting the countertop and sharp blades smattering the carpet.
My dad stands with his back to me, and my mom is hidden partly behind him. His head is dropped, his gaze locked on the…
My soul leaves my body, my battering heart thudding to a complete stop.
Blood pools below my father’s work boots, the large shard of glass in his hand dripping crimson onto the tan carpet. The knuckles of his other hand are white, gripping the neck of a scotch bottle.
“Colten,” my mother gasps my name, freezing me in place. Her face is entirely white, her body shuddering. A sheen of sweat coats her skin, glistening in the lamplight from their matching bedside tables. Tears fall from her reddened eyes, the drips feeling like they cascade down her cheeks in slow motion.
My father’s body turns toward me slowly as if another entity possesses him. My mom clutches her hands to her stomach, her purple shirt beneath them staining a deeper plum.
The two people who used to show me what love should look like peer at me with dead eyes.
My father’s lifeless irises clash with mine.
The bloody glass tumbles from his fingertips.
Time freezes.
Every movement and every breath between the three of us is in slow motion.
Even the shard of glass falling through the air floats like the heavy snowflakes we get in the winter that plummet toward the earth. It lands flat on the carpet, reflecting my father’s crimson hand that pierces my vision.
He was holding the blade of glass.
It’s her blood.
I should move. I should dosomethingbesides stand here. Run to her, take on my father with my own hands, but the terror grips every muscle in its claws.
My father’s shoulders are rigid, and my mom bolts as he lifts the bottle to his lips to get his fix. She sprints past me into the dark hallway, drops of blood trailing her path. I follow her into the foyer, and she reaches for her car keys on the hook. Opening the door, she steps outside into the night air, my wobbly legs carrying me to her as fast as I can manage.
“Mom.” I fight through the emotion clogging my throat. She halts on the porch steps. “I’ll drive you to the hospital. Please let me take you!”
She turns around to face my pleading voice. Taking a few steps back up to the porch, she approaches me and grips the flesh of my shoulders.
“I need you to promise me you’ll stay here with them, Colt. Tell me you’ll never leave them!”
I stare into her blue eyes, my lip quivering. “I promise, Mom.”
She presses her lips against my hair. “I’ll be back—” She shakes her head and taps the skin over my heart, the drumming of her fingertips splintering whatever is left of it. “I’ll be right here, always.”
I nod absentmindedly, watching as she leaves me on the porch and climbs into her silver GMC Terrain. Driving aroundthe circular driveway, she speeds off, her red rear lights disappearing into the haze of fog overshadowing the orchard.
I’m nearly knocked over a few minutes later when my dad’s swaying, intoxicated frame smashes into mine. He tears down the sidewalk, heaves himself into his truck, and takes off after her.
My heart throbs, my lungs somehow sucking in air through the small opening in my collapsed windpipe as my dad’s rear lights, too, dissolve into the haze.
I’m left alone, my mother’s blood on my shoulders soaking through the material and chilling me to the bone as I peer at the orchard that swallowed them whole.
I distractedly rub my chest,everything inside my sternum stretching so painfully I think it might tear through my skin and expose the bottomless void. It’s holding on to those promises that can cause irreparable damage.
