Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
I never feel smarter than after reading questions in my kid’s sports group chat.
— Merriam’s secret thoughts
MERRIAM
A pool of dread filled my stomach as I looked at the road start to become covered with snow.
Trapped .
I was trapped.
In a house with my father, on this day.
Christmas Eve .
Normally , today I’d be working my ass off at the Brinkley’s , trying to sell as much as I could and stay as late as I could manage without it looking like I was procrastinating going home.
Christmas Eve and Christmas were the two days that my father didn’t work every year.
Christmas because he was too drunk from the day before to get up and go to work.
Christmas Eve because that was the day that my mother died having me.
I’d been born on Christmas Eve , and every day after my birth, my father had never let me forget that I was the person that’d taken the love of his life away.
I couldn’t remember a time from my childhood that my father hadn’t been abusive to me.
My earliest memory is being three years old and having the absolute snot beaten out of me because I’d had the audacity to walk into my father’s room and ask for a glass of water because my throat hurt.
Honestly , I was surprised that I’d even survived my childhood.
In the early years, my grandmother had been alive to take care of me—because my father sure the hell wouldn’t.
After she’d died, my dad had done the bare minimum. He’d fed me, clothed me, and ignored me.
Only if I was sick enough to need medical attention did he take me to the doctor.
I hadn’t had one single well checkup since my grandmother had passed away.
Even now that I was well over the age of eighteen, I still didn’t go to the doctor much.
So when Anleigh woke up with the sniffles this morning and had a slight fever, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would be getting sick soon.
Then my father would berate me for being sick, when I had no control over getting that way.
Even worse, I was stuck at home on Christmas Eve when my father’s mood had always been the darkest.
I heard the clink of a beer bottle being set down on the coffee table.
I closed my eyes and tried not to freak out.
It was only eight-thirty in the morning.
And likely, he was already on his third or fourth one.
I looked at Anleigh , who really needed the ibuprofen that was in the kitchen.
Normally , I kept everything in my cabinet, but when I’d gotten up to get her some a few minutes ago, it’d been gone.
My dad often took stuff out of my room without asking, and obviously he’d had some reason to be in need of baby-strength medication.
The asshole.
I just hoped he hadn’t wasted it all like last time.
I turned to the corner where I saw the pile of clothes in the basket in my room.
I really needed to do some laundry.
Today I was in my oldest pair of jeans—ones that hadn’t really fit since I’d had Anleigh .
Taking one last glance at Anleigh , who was lying on my bed miserably watching cartoons, I steeled my spine and opened my bedroom door.
I was unsurprised to see my father sitting in his recliner—yet another relic that hadn’t changed since I’d been born.
I kept my head down and headed straight for the kitchen, my goal the middle cabinet to see if he’d put the medication in there with the rest of it.
I found the medication all right, completely drained except for a small amount that collected at the bottom of the bottle.
My heart sank.
I reached for the adult ibuprofen, and shook it in horror when I found it empty, too.
What . The . Fuck .
“ It’s out.”
I jumped and startled, turning to face my dad, who’d always moved like a cat. “ What ?”
He smiled at me disarmingly.
I wouldn’t fall for the bait, though.
When he was being genial was when he was at his scariest.
He wanted to put you at ease so that you’d let your guard down. Then , when you were thinking it would be okay, he’d rear back and ruin your life.
“ I used it last week.” He shrugged.
Asshole .
“ Oh ,” I said. “ I guess I’ll have to run to the store.”
He moved closer to me and said, “ Happy birthday, Merriam .”
I swallowed down the bile that rose up my throat like acid waiting to spew.
“ T -thanks,” I said carefully, hoping that I wouldn’t set him off.
“ You know, you look just like her,” he continued.
I started to slip sideways, desperate to flee.
But before I could take a single step, he caught me by the throat and bodily lifted me off of my feet and pressed me to the kitchen cabinets behind me.
I couldn’t breathe.
His grip on my neck was too tight.
And my feet weren’t touching the floor except for just the tips of my toes.
Fear lashed through me as I realized my mistake.
I should’ve never allowed myself to be boxed into the kitchen.
I should’ve stayed where I was and…
His fingers squeezed harder, and black dots filled my vision.
“ I hate you,” he commented calmly. “ I’ve hated you since the moment your mother died.”
I knew that.
I felt it every time he hit me, kicked me, punched me, or punished me.
“ If I woke up tomorrow, and you weren’t here, I would thank my lucky stars.” He roughly let me go, the back of my head slamming into the cabinets. “ One day, I’ll be back with her. And you’ll be a distant memory.”
He went to the fridge, grabbed another beer—his fifth if the only one left in the six-pack was an indicator—and walked back to the living room.
I glanced at the television.
He was watching movies of my mother.
Something he did when he missed her.
I looked away.
I hated seeing those movies.
I’d made the mistake of watching one once and had woken up in the bathroom with my face pressed against the bathtub.
My father had caught me, beaten the shit out of me, then thrown me into the bathtub so I didn’t bleed all over his floor.
I’d never made that mistake again.
Swallowing hard, breath now sawing into my lungs, I snatched my keys off the counter and shoved them into my pocket.
When I got back to my room, I gathered my jacket, Anleigh’s jacket, and a lot of blankets.
Then I ran out of the house with her.
I nearly killed myself twice as I slipped and slid my way to the car.
When I got inside after strapping Anleigh in, I started the car, then shoved my hands into my pockets to warm them up.
My bare, frozen fingers brushed a piece of paper, and I pulled it out.
The manly scrawl of a man’s name, address, and telephone number stared at me from the bright yellow Post -it.
And for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about that address.
It was just off of Main Street , in the newly renovated downtown area where the luxury apartments were built out of the old downtown shops off of Miner Street .
I went to three stores before I found one that was open.
I bought the medication with my last ten dollars, then shoved it into the pocket of my new jacket.
My fingers once again brushed the Post -it.
When I got to the exit, I moved until I was in front of the bench that rested just inside the door, and sat Anleigh , her bear, and her blanket down.
She looked at me miserably.
“ Let me get you some medicine, baby,” I said to her.
I ripped open the box and pulled the syringe out of its plastic wrap. Seconds later I was pulling up the recommended dose and giving it to her.
Anleigh was unlike any other baby I’d ever met.
She’d always taken medication well. Even the daycare had commented on it.
The doctors loved seeing her because she never complained about anything. Not shots. Not the doctors examining her. Not even the wait in the office before we saw them.
She was literally the best baby I could’ve ever asked for.
I went back home, and the moment that I pulled up in front of the house, a feeling of utter wrongness filled me.
I knew if I went into that house today, something would go wrong.
Something bad.
And with Anleigh as sick as she was…
I looked at Anleigh , leaning her head miserably against the car seat at my back, and looked back at the house.
I could faintly see the outline of my father sitting on the couch through the sheer living room curtains.
I moved my gaze from him to the bedroom that Anleigh and I shared.
And suddenly, I knew what I had to do.