“You scared her, you fucking freak. What kind of six-year-old scares his mom? Psycho.”
THUMP. KICK. CRACK.
“Bet you’d love her to come save you, wouldn’t you? Don’t you think I hear what you cry out when you talk in your sleep? Well, you’re the reason she’s gone. She abandonedyou. She’s not coming to save you now. No one is. You. Fucking. Psychopath.”
Each of those last words is punctuated by a kick to my sides.
I’m lying on the ground, helplessly taking Dad’s beating. I wish I weren’t so weak. But he towers over me, and the words pouring out of his mouth are a lot worse than the kicks.
She abandoned me. I’m the reason she abandoned me.
“And what’s this I hear about you hanging around the public middle school? You don’t even go there! Are you a fucking pervert, on top of the rest? Am I raising a psychotic pervert?”
Well, I’d hardly call it raising, but I don’t answer. I just let the storm blow over, like I always do, sinking into myself to keep from getting hurt too much. Sinking into myself, while repeating the secret words I’ve been using since first grade like a shield. Ever since I started getting the shit beaten out of me after Mom left.
When I’m big enough, you’ll see. When I’m big enough, you’ll see. When I’m big enough, you’ll see.
I say everything in threes when I’m stressed, and even the thoughts in my head are repeated three times. The only thing I don’t repeat are the last words.
I’ll fucking kill you.
_
By the time Dad has let up on the beating and I manage to hobble upstairs to my room, I’m a mess. Aching all over, and I’m sure that by tomorrow a pattern of bruises will form, over the ones that are still fading from the last beating.
But the injuries are never permanent.
Over the years, after one hospital visit too many, Dad has learned how to beat me in such a way that he doesn’t break anything or leave any other long-lasting damage. It’s not because he’s worried about CPS being called. In this town, everything revolves around Devil, and since Dad is high-ranking over there, no one will bother him. But I guess he doesn’t feel like paying the hospital bills. Maybe he also felt passingly guilty about breaking his son’s bones.
Sometimes, when I don’t dream of Mom saving me, I think of what the Devil founders would do if they found out one of their top-ranking members was regularly beating the shit out of his son. Not a thing, is the likely answer. They don’t look like the type to shy away from violence themselves. But I guess it’s human nature to latch onto hope, no matter how helpless a situation feels like. And I share enough of human nature to latch onto hopes, absurd as they are.
Save me, Mom. Save me, Devil. Save me, Piper.
That last thought is the most absurd of all. Half of my energy is spent on thinking of ways to kill her. Especially in these moments of getting beaten up so viciously by Dad. I guess there’s something soothing about imagining myself hurting someone weaker than me. Someone looking to me for protection, whose naive, innate trust I could violate in the cruelest way possible.
Only, I’m not a monster. Notthatkind of monster. I’m not Dad.
I’m aware my urge is a mirror to his. Maybe that’s why I’m so deadset on not giving into it.
That’s why the other half of my energy is spent on fighting my need to kill her.
But there’s a tiny sliver of something else, squashed between the two overwhelming halves of my energy. Something that makes me attach absurd hopes onto her.
I wonder sometimes if the words I speak in my sleep, that Dad mockingly repeats to me, are directed at her, just as much as at Mom.
Ridiculous.
Regardless, after a beating like the one I’ve just received, the only thing I can think of is going to her school and watching her from afar. Somehow, it makes my chest hurt just a little less. I can focus all my emotions on her. All my… hatred. That’s what it is, isn’t it? The seething bubble of intensity that makes my chest so tight it hurts.
Wincing in pain, I grab my hoodie, then walk back down the stairs. Dad is sitting in the living room, and he watches me head out silently. He doesn’t try to call me back. I always wonder if he feels a little guilty after these sessions. Another absurd hope to cling to.
If he’s feeling guilty, maybe he won’t beat me anymore.
Bullshit. It’s going to happen again in a few days, as soon as these bruises have started to heal. And I’m going to go right backto planning to kill him.
An urge that isn’t tempered by any resolvenotto. Unlike the way it is with the insect. With Dad, the only thing stopping me is that I’m far too weak.
But kids grow up. I won’t be the weaker one forever.
