57. Kovu
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
KOVU
I startle awake, and it takes long seconds for me to figure out what exactly woke me up.
But then I hear it.
Screaming down the hall has become the soundtrack to my life, but when they’re angry, they’re meaner.
I swallow past the fear that rises up the back of my throat and flick my eyes to the window beside my bed. On nights like this, I used to climb out and hide in the yard or down the street until they were too drunk or high to come after me, but then Joel got wise and nailed the window shut.
And not just my window. All of them. Which means there’s no escaping the stench of drugs and alcohol that has seeped into every surface in the house.
Joel is my dad’s friend. I think they went to school together, but I’m not sure. My parents and I haven’t ever had the kind of relationship where they talk about things like their childhoods. They were already hooked on drugs long before I took my first breath.
But he’s always here. Doesn’t he have his own life? His own kids? Someone else to torment?
I used to feel guilty for those thoughts. How could I ever wish what they did to me onto someone else? But after years of it, I’d give just about anything to not have to ever see their faces again.
The shouts grow closer, and I slip from between my threadbare sheets, reaching for the knife I keep under my mattress. It’s one I stole from the kitchen at school a few months ago. At the time, I was scared I would get in trouble, but the fear I face in this house of horrors is so much greater than anything outside these walls.
I slip the knife behind me and sink down in the corner at the end of my bed. I’m getting too big for this, with both my shoulders crammed between the metal frame and the wall, but it’s the only place in the room where I can see the door and protect my back without being the first thing they’ll see if they decide to come in here.
The door handle rattles and my stomach rolls with a mixture of hunger and nausea. When was the last time I ate something? Without school providing me with at least one meal a day, I’m left to scrounge for scraps of whatever my parents and Joel eat. I used to think they just forgot to feed me, but now that I’m getting older, fourteen next month, I think it’s to stop me from being able to overpower them.
But they’re wrong. I can overpower them even when I’m starving. I just have to get the element of surprise on my side.
My dad steps into the room, stumbling slightly before he catches himself on the closet by the door. His soulless blue eyes survey the room until they fall on me, but before he can step toward me, my mom appears in the doorway with a look of rage I only see when they’ve been on the hard stuff.
They can’t always afford heroin, their drug of choice, but when they can, that’s when I know I’m in for a rough time.
“You!” she roars, her bony finger coming up to point right at me. “You took my drugs.”
“I didn’t!” I shake my head, hating how my voice trembles with fear. The other boys my age are stronger than I am, but that’s what real food and no injuries from beatings do for you.
“You did, and this is the last fucking time I let you disrespect us in our house.” She advances on me, but I can’t shove myself to my feet quick enough to dodge the first hit.
Her fist sails into my cheek, and I grunt in pain. After all these years, the pain almost feels like home.
Another hit comes a moment later, this one harder, and I know without opening my eyes that it’s my dad. “Where did you hide them?”
“I didn’t take your shit,” I snap.
“After all we’ve done for you, boy, this is how you repay us?” he growls.
I’m about to ask him exactly what he thinks he’s done other than starve and beat me. Burn and cut me. Cover me with so many scars and bruises I have to wear long sleeves and long pants anytime I leave the house, even if that doesn’t hide the ones on my face.
“You’re a leech,” my mom screams, her bloodshot eyes glaring down at me with such contempt that most would shrink beneath it. But not me. Not when this has been my whole life.
“Why didn’t you give me up then?” I shove myself to my feet, ignoring the pain when my dad gets me in the ribs. “Why the fuck did you have a kid if this is how you were going to treat it?”
They both stare at me with their mouths open in surprise. I’ve never stood up to them before, but I can’t live like this anymore. Either I stand up for myself, or I end it all. I wouldn’t be missing out on anything if I ended my life, and no one would miss me. Hell, I doubt anyone would notice if I disappeared tomorrow, and I often fantasize about how peaceful death must be because life sure as hell isn’t.
“How dare you speak to us like that!” My mom advances on me once more, shoving both fists into my chest, but I don’t budge. I’m taller than she is, and even with the malnutrition, I’m stronger too. That’s what drugs will do to you. Plus, Joel has been out of town the last couple of weeks, which has meant my parents haven’t been as heavy-handed…until tonight.
I reach behind me, feeling for the knife I have stashed in the back of my sleep pants. They’re two sizes too small and were full of holes long before I pulled them out of a donation bin at school, but there, pressed against my back, is my ticket to freedom.
I can end it all.
The abuse.
The pain.
The sickness.
I can make it all go away.
And once they’re no longer breathing, I think I might follow them to the other side, because it has to be better than living with the memories of what they’ve done to me.
Dad gets me in my barely-healed ribs, and a wave of nausea rolls over me as pain engulfs my entire body, but I don’t stop.
I can’t stop.
This might be my only chance to end this once and for all.
Mom kicks at my bad knee, the one they snapped two years ago when I ran out of the house one night during a party. I was fast, but I was dumb, and one of their friends caught me before I could even make it out to the street.
But I stay up, ignoring the agony that threatens to take me down.
“You’ve been nothing but trouble since you were born,” Dad growls when I dodge a punch sailing toward my face.
“And yet you never killed me.” I glare at him. “You’ve had opportunities. Hundreds, thousands of them, but you never took it.” I swallow past the fear climbing up my throat as I reach for the knife pressed against my back. My hand wraps around the handle, and I take a breath. “That was your mistake.”
I pull the blade out from behind me, allowing the nick of the blade against my lower back to settle the raging emotions pumping through my veins.
Their eyes widen almost comically, but then the laugh comes. My dad’s booming laugh is quickly followed by a cough that he should have had checked a year ago. Oh well, he won’t live long enough to die from whatever that is.
“You think you’re going to hurt us with that, Joseph?” The hatred in his voice is more familiar than any kind of care ever will be, and I lean into it.
“I know I’m going to,” I say, my voice even and devoid of emotion.
I advance on him before he can get in another hit, and I don’t hesitate to bury the blade into the middle of his chest, and for a moment, time stands still. There’s no sound. No one moves. I don’t even think any of us are breathing.
But then the blood comes. Crimson red paints my hand as it pours out from around the knife, and the sight of it comforts me, because it’s not mine. For once, the blood I’m covered in doesn’t belong to me, and I like it.
I tug the knife free of his chest at the same time Mom attacks, tears of anger rolling down her gaunt cheeks, but I don’t falter when she slams into me.
I shake her off easily, and when she stumbles over her own feet, I slice the knife across her throat.
Blood pours from the wound as she falls to the ground, her vacant eyes wide as she holds her throat, but it’s useless.
She gasps for air, but it doesn’t matter how hard she tries, she can’t get a breath in, and I find a smile creeping onto my lips as I watch her struggle.
After all these years, after all the pain, watching her die is validating.
A heavy weight slams into my side, and the knife drops from my hand before I can right myself. Blood pours from Dad’s chest, but the anger in his eyes is just as vibrant as it was when he came into the room, if not more so.
“You little cunt!” he screams as he dives for the knife at the same time I do, but his blood loss is making him sluggish, so I get there first.
The handle feels at home in my hand a moment before he knocks me on my ass, but I keep the blade in front of me, and when he comes down on top of me, intent on hurting me, he impales himself on the blade, but I refuse to allow myself to believe it’s over so easily.
I shove his heavy weight off me, and he falls to the hard linoleum without any resistance.
Without hesitation, I climb on top of him and drive the knife into his chest again.
“You can’t hurt me anymore!” I shout as I tug the blade free and bury it deep again.
Over and over, I slam the knife into his chest, his neck, his stomach.
“Never again!”