Chapter 47 #2
“He was though. He never gave in. No matter what Walter and Georgia did, he wouldn’t do what they wanted.
Lunch at the country club with the girl of their choosing, football tryouts, wearing their ‘approved clothing.’ Noah was unapologetically himself.
” Raven’s tone is devoted. Her love for her brother is pure and unwavering.
“I’m sorry you lost him,” I whisper in her hair.
“It was my fault,” she chokes out.
“Impossible,” Knox comforts.
Raven shakes her head. “I should have been there. He needed me, and I wasn’t there.”
“You couldn’t have known he was going to die,” I reassure her.
“But I did. I never should have left the house when I knew Walter was in one of his moods. When I got home, I found blood on the stairs.” Raven swallows, bracing herself. “He—he had broken his neck, but he had been bleeding from a hit to the head and a stab in his gut. Noah was only ten.”
He was stabbed? What the hell?
Raven’s voice breaks. “I looked around for someone to help and spotted Walter standing at the top of the stairs with a bloody kitchen knife in his hand.”
She shouldn’t have had to live this. It never should have been her.
“He didn’t even look remorseful. Walter said, ‘He should’ve done what he was told.’ And I just lost it. I started yelling, something I had never done before. I didn’t even know I knew how to yell. Georgia came running out of their room on the second floor, and something in me just...snapped.”
Raven blinks, shaking her head as if she still can’t believe what she’s telling us is what actually happened.
“They told me I was being disrespectful and ungrateful. But I was still stuck on the fact that Georgia was home. She heard my brother’s screams and did nothing.
She heard my brother, her son, in agony, and she didn’t step in.
He could’ve been crying for help or begging Walter to stop, and Georgia just kept going through her day as if her son being murdered was normal. ”
My vision narrows, and my heart rate speeds. My fingers ache to wrap around Walter and Georgia’s throats.
I cannot imagine. It’s one thing for Walter and Georgia to be frustrated or angry because Noah wasn’t living the life they wanted. But it’s something else entirely to take that indignation and take it out on their child. To act as if their child owes them a pound of flesh.
“In all the yelling, Georgia’s hand connected with my cheek.
It didn’t even register that she slapped me.
She kept yelling, but I couldn’t hear a single word.
It’s like I acted on instinct. I ran right for her and shoved her.
I just kept pushing and pushing until she fell over the railing.
She landed on her back in the entryway.”
Good.
“Walter was so furious. I think he was more angry at the fact that I was brave enough to fight back for once than at the fact that his wife was probably dead. He dropped the knife, grabbed me by the shoulders, and started shaking me and screaming in my face. I remember his spit hitting my face. He asked what was wrong with me, and I told him that I have a pathetic bastard for a father.”
I’m so proud of her right now. Standing up for yourself isn’t easy, and even though she did it for Noah, she still did it. And she’s right. Any adult who hits a child is a pathetic bastard.
“His fist rammed into my gut, and I doubled over. He started kicking and wouldn’t stop. I just wanted him to stop. Even as I crawled away, he wouldn’t stop.” Raven’s voice cracks on the last word.
The unfiltered sorrow in her words kills me. She shouldn’t know what it’s like to be afraid like that. She shouldn’t know what it’s like to have the wind knocked out of her like that. She shouldn’t know what it’s like to be literally kicked when she’s down.
“I found the knife where he dropped it, so I grabbed it.” Raven’s tears don’t stop.
She opened Pandora’s box, and she can’t close it.
“It’s like my body took over, and everything I had been holding back came out.
I just kept stabbing him over and over. Later, I found out that Walter had been stabbed nineteen times. ”
I don’t blame her. A person can only be oppressed and controlled so much before they fight back. The oppressor is always shocked, like they didn’t have it coming, but that’s how it’s supposed to go. Oppressors are always overthrown.
“Somehow, I ended up downstairs, and I heard Georgia still breathing. So, I did the same thing. I stabbed her nineteen times, too.”
Again…good.
I can’t change the past, but I wish I could’ve been there. Raven’s hands shouldn’t know violence. I’ll be her fist, her knife, her shield. Every kill, every blow will be for her.
Raven’s voice turns factual. “Georgia missed brunch with some of her friends, so they called the police to check on her. When the police arrived, they found me on the stairs with Noah’s body.
They said I was covered head to toe in blood.
I remember having to be restrained when they tried to take Noah from me, but not much after that.
The doctors said I was catatonic, and when I didn’t snap out of it, they deemed me unfit to stand trial. ”
Dear God.
I shake my head and hold her closer. Knox rolls onto his side and brings Raven’s hands to his chest.
“And that’s how I ended up in Mystic River.”