My fingers press into the gouged wood, and suddenly I’m eight years old again.
The belt bucklemisses my head by inches and slams into the bookcase with a crack that splits the air. Wood splinters. I’m already running and screaming out for help. I try to dodge around him, and I’m fast, but he’s faster. His hand seizes my collar and drags me backward. I hit the floor and the air punches out of my lungs.
Dad looms over me, and his face is red, veins bulging in his neck. He’s breathing hard through his nose like a bull. When he gets like this, eyes wild, spittle flying, it means the control is gone. He’ll keep going until the rage burns itself out.
He’s shouting at me, but the memory of what he’s saying is lost to time. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done to earn this. He’s angry, and when he’s angry, there’s only one outcome.
The belt comes down. Once. Twice. Again and again. I bite into my tongue trying not to cry out, and the taste of blood fills my mouth. Boys don’t cry. Boys don’t flinch and run and whimper like pathetic, worthless—
The leather bites into my shoulders, my stomach, the arms I’ve raised to protect my head. He’s not careful when he’s like this. He’s not thinking about what shows or what doesn’t. Just hitting and hitting and hitting.
When it finally stops, I’m curled on the floor, shaking.
“Get out of my sight.”
I drag myself upright. My legs barely hold me, but I force them to. I limp toward the door, vision swimming, each step agonizing. I’m halfway down the hallway when I see someone coming.
It’s Mom. She pulls up short and stares at me, standing perfectly still. A dark bruise blooms across her temple and herlip is swollen. Her hollow, sunken eyes flick to the study door behind me, and she tenses, her hand reaching out to tremble against the wallpaper.
She sees the way I’m holding myself, the blood on my cheek where the belt caught me, and the red marks on my arms.
“Mom…” I say, my voice cracking. I take a painful step toward her.
Her face goes blank. Empty as a closed door.
She averts her eyes and walks past me. Like I’m furniture. Like I’m nothing.
I stand there breathing raggedly through clenched teeth. I can feel the tears coming, hot and shameful, and I hate them. I hate myself for being so weak. I hate that I let him hurt me. I hate that she won’t even look at me.
The nearest door opens into the back garden. I fling myself through it, and take a dozen blind, angry steps through the grass and into the bushes.
I slap my own face. Hard. The sting cuts through the tears.
I slap myself again even harder. The pain grounds me and makes the tears stop. It makes me feel something other than the hollow ache of being utterly, completely alone.
Boys don’t cry. Stop it. Stop being weak. Stop—
“Cristiano!”
Mina. Seven years old, sitting cross-legged in the grass with a book open in her lap, as pretty as a picture. She’s the housekeeper’s daughter and lives in a room high in the house where I’m not allowed to go. I’m not supposed to speak to her either, but we play together, and she’s always smiling and laughing, like there’s a vast, unending lake of happiness inside her.
But she’s not smiling now. Dappled sunlight catches in her dark hair, turning it warm and gold-lit. She’s wearing a dress toobig for her, a hand-me-down from her sister, and she’s gazing up at me with wide, startled eyes.
I try to walk past her. I have to. If I stop and let her see me like this, I’ll shatter completely.
But she’s already on her feet, the book forgotten, tumbling into the grass.
“Stop.” She runs to me, small hands reaching for mine. “Stop, what’s wrong? What happened?”
I can’t answer. My throat is locked tight. If I try to speak, the tears will come back, and I can’t let that happen. I can’t be weak in front of her too.
But she takes my hand anyway. Her fingers are warm and careful, as she tugs me toward the place she was sitting.
“Come here.” She tugs me down onto the grass. “Come on. It’s okay.”
And I let her. I don’t know why. Maybe because she’s looking at me like I’m a person instead of a mistake. I drop to my knees and pain radiates through my back and my ribs. I can’t stop the tears this time, and my body convulses in a singular sob.
“It’s all right,” she whispers. Her voice is so gentle. “It’s all right, Cristiano.”
