3. Stetson
THREE
STETSON
February 14th, 2014
He’s chasing me. Not in a fun, normal father-daughter game kind of way. But in a if I catch you I will kill you kind of way. Our familial relationship is not made of love and laughter, but rather built on frantic, wild heartbeats, followed by murderous, thundering feet falls. It is the gut-wrenching music that makes up my entire existence—this sprint for my life. By now, it should feel normal; I have been doing it since I can remember walking. But instead, each time, it feels like a little more of me dies.
And maybe it does.
I can feel him getting closer, his breath hot and heavy with the tang of whiskey and cigarette smoke clinging to my nostrils like poisonous gas. Just smelling it makes me want to vomit everywhere, but I have to fight through it, I have to keep moving.
Keep running.
I reach the front door of the beautiful log cabin my mom promised would be my safe place, and rip the door nearly from its hinges. It rattles and bangs angrily against the side of the house, the sound mixing like a drum with the murderous symphony around me. I can’t slow down, not even for the door that was a promise to protect me from evil .
Because it hadn’t, and neither had my mom.
“You stupid slut. When I catch you, you will not only pay for the disrespectful words you spoke to me, but for destroying my property.” His voice is like oil, all slimy and thick. I hate it. But more than the man it is attached to, I hate the way it makes me shake. I hate the control it has over my body.
I vault down the wooden stairs toward the expanding darkness in front of me. My arms pump frantically, whooshing through the darkness like wind through a wind-chime—a zing to my cacophony of death. My hair rips free of the braid I have it tied back in, the strands of gold blurring my vision.
If I can just get to the gate at the end of the driveway—maybe someone will drive by. Maybe someone will see me running.
Hear the crescendo of my dying song.
But I have never outrun him. And tonight is no different.
His meaty hand, rough with peeling skin, clamps down so hard on my arm that I’m wrenched back, landing straight on my backside with a wheezing cry. The air whooshes from my lungs, and I greedily suck in gulps of air—I know what’s next, and I’ll need every gasp I can get. My fight or flight is already fully engaged, and so, even though I’m inhaling air like it might be my last—because the truth is, it might be—I’m angrily flailing my arms, trying to push up. Trying to hit him.
Trying to get away.
“Fuck you, you little slut. You should have never been born. But we take care of your worthless ass, anyway.” He stands above me now, his broad frame filling every corner of my vision; his rank sweat and booze-filled scent filling my every sense. My hands slash toward him wildly, but he barks a laugh, the alcohol and adrenaline pumping through his poisoned veins numbing any effect my blows might have. He peers down at me, spit clinging to his chapped lips, his face flaming beet red, even in the darkness.
I kick again, trying to connect with his knee, his gut, his nuts. But he is too big, too tall, and my will to fight is quickly fading. Normally, I could recuperate and get better and stronger between these horrible nights. But this is different. He is different. Something snapped inside of him; I see the dead hollow look in his eyes every moment of every day. He hates me, hates my very existence, and the only thing that will fix that is my death.
Death by his hands.
There haven’t been days or weeks between episodes of violence. There have been only hours. Not because he has gotten re-triggered or re-drunk, or any of the other reasons fathers spiraled into a fit of rage at their daughters. But because I hadn’t died the first time today.
Or the second.
I sob, the sound hoarse and hollow in the inky night—my final act coming to its climactic end. Tears cascade down my cheeks, landing in puddles of sandy dirt around my head.
I cry for my mom, knowing she will be alone and even more broken once I am finally gone. I cry for the future I will never have, and the love I will never find. I cry for the eighteen years that I have been alive, enduring and hoping and dreaming of a better future. A future where I would turn eighteen and leave. I cry for the day that today was supposed to be.
The day I was supposed to get out.
“Scream, you little bitch. No one will hear you,” he spits, dropping to his knees on either side of my waist. His weight presses down on me, but I hardly notice. I know I should be focused on breathing, on surviving. But I’m tired, and I don’t care anymore. I have lost.
“Apologize for what you said.” He leans over me, his body vibrating with his unspent rage. His gray eyes are large and wild, frantic, crazed as he hovers over me.
The conductor of death.
I cry harder, screams tearing from my throat as sorrow so violent and grief so heavy wash over me. I don’t bother responding. I hadn’t said anything to him, and it won’t make a difference, anyway. My crime was that my mother had wished me a happy birthday— my eighteenth birthday, to be exact. And he knew I could get away from him now. He knew he had lost the race.
But he hadn’t. Because I am here, still dying beneath his hands.
I stop kicking my legs, flailing my arms. I stop sobbing and screaming. In an instant, the world around me grows eerily quiet, save for his wheezing breaths.
And then he starts to squeeze.
I don’t fight him; I have no more fight left in my abused body. I tried fighting, and I failed. I failed at this fucked up life, and I am done. I want to be done—with this life, this fight, this heartache. I wished for this life with him and the symphony of our making to end every year for my birthday. And every year it has gone unanswered. Except this year it looks like my wish will finally be granted.
Just not in the way I’ve hoped.
I open my eyes a final time, my vision blurry with tears and sand, to see his smile—the cruelest smile. He is punishing me, as he always does—it makes him feel like he is atoning for his own sins.
With fingers still clamped around my aching throat, he raises my head and squeezes tighter yet before slamming me back into the dirt. I stop fighting, stop seeing, stop breathing.
And the final hollow, ringing note, the very last strum of my existence, blares in my ears.
March 16th, 2024
I jolt awake, boozy sweat beaded across the surface of my skin. I can’t suck in air fast enough, my chest too heavy and tight. I search the room, frantically looking around for danger, for him . Pressing my fingers to my chest, I will my pounding heart to slow down, relax, not explode .
I scream hoarsely, thrashing in the sheets wrapped tightly around my clammy body. I pull at my arms, legs, anything to free myself from the grip the soft fabric has on me. They’re strangling me, and all rational thoughts quickly flee my body. Breathing in short, jabby gasps, I sob, the sound hysterical and out of place in the silent night filling my bedroom. I can’t be tangled up like this; it’s too close to being choked.
The dream is vivid in my mind—the memory it depicts. I feel desperate and crazed, ready to shred every thread from the fabric if it means I can escape; if it means I can breathe again. But my skin is too sweaty, the sheet too tightly wound around me.
I scream again, my desperate plea falling on dead ears.
I pull again on the sheet, and it loosens enough for me to slide my arms out. I sit up, scooting out of its suffocating grip, and suck in deep, stale breaths. I pull my knees to my chest, my head falling forward. I fixate on the sound of the air conditioner to calm my sobs. The cool air pours over my naked sweat-slicked skin, and goosebumps erupt. But I would rather freeze to death than cover myself with that sheet again.
At least for tonight.
My tears are still sticky on my cheeks when I look around the room again. My heart still pounds, but I remain focused on sucking air in through my nose and out through my mouth, counting backward from fifteen. I don’t have a fucking clue if it actually helps, but I watched a YouTube video on how to self- soothe a panic attack, once. I didn’t exactly grow up in a family that believed in mental health conditions or looked fondly on therapy—it was a joke. Something for people with something really wrong with them. Which was never us, never me.
Except, I’m not so sure anymore. What if it helped?
I groan and fold into a tighter ball—it’s too fucking early for this thought process, and I repeat the mantra I’ve used for years when waking from the same memory.
He isn’t here. I am safe.
He isn’t here. He can’t hurt me.
He isn’t here. I am safe.
But no matter how many times I say the words to myself, they ring hollow. I hate this house, hate the silence of the land around it. It had never been a safe place to me before—the acres of sandy ground were a dooming barrier between me and anyone who might have heard my cries. Sitting here, I feel haunted by their ghosts.
I look out the window, the night a black blanket over the golden grasses growing in every direction. To some, it might seem peaceful.
To me, it feels like I am already in a grave, buried, and screaming for someone to find me.