Chapter 24
Mireya
Play - Skinny Love by Bon Jover
Safespace
Come on Skinny Love, just last the year…
The rooftop is just as I left it this morning. Lonely and cold, but weirdly enough, it’s still safe. The MP3 player’s stickers are half-peeled, aluminum warm from a hundred palms and the sound is not the best.
“Rooftop” is the playlist name for tonight. It’s making me nostalgic for no reason.
Milo is asleep, and I wish I could follow him, but I can’t.
My eyes burn with tiredness that sleep should fix but never does because it never comes.
My body wants rest, craves it even, but the idea of lying in that house, those walls, those sounds, the way the floorboards remember too much about the screams and the bruises, it all makes my chest tighten.
Sleep feels dangerous here, like letting my guard down in enemy territory. So I’m here instead.
The rooftop is uncomfortable, but it’s better because here, nothing up can sneak up on me, I can see every edge, every shadow and every house in the neighborhood still asleep.
I hate that house. I hate that it still has power over me. The memory is so vivid in my head. Mom is gone, and Dad never grieved her. Not really. He just got… louder, and angrier.
I learned quickly that grief wasn’t allowed, not mine, not his, not anyone’s. So I carried it all.
Two people’s sorrow, two people’s anger, two people’s fear, wrapped into one body that was too small to hold it. That’s when I learned to be mother and sister, shield and listener, bodyguard and nurse, while barely remembering what it meant to be myself.
But I still draw this house, like it actually would help reshape it into something harmless, not even for me, it’s for Milo.
I notice the scars on my arms because they’re familiar, and because one of them is new. A small cut for a great misery, it’s fair right?
Even if it’s been years and I can’t get rid of it. It scares me a little how natural it feels. How my hands still remember what to do even now, when things are calmer than they used to be.
It did help once. That’s the part no one likes to admit. When everything was unbearable, when I was holding Milo, swallowing dad’s rage, carrying mom’s absence, it gave me some stupid control over the pain, a release. A way to make the noise stop for a second.
When I started doing it all the time, it felt like survival.
Now it feels different. Like an addiction I never signed up for, something that waits quietly for moments of exhaustion and slips back in when I’m too tired to fight it.
I hate that a part of me still reaches for it.
I hate that calm can come from something that also hurts me.
I’m still struggling. I used to struggle more. But at least I’m here drawing instead of doing more. It’s a small step, but it’s all I can do.
Healing doesn’t move in straight lines. It’s jagged, like the scars etched on my own skin. And that’s okay for someone who had to grow up by bleeding quietly.
Calm down, Rey. Breathe.
I keep drawing slowly, and humming the song like I’m actually in my own world.
Who will love you… who will fight …
Then, a soft weight presses against my legs.
I glance down and see that Blue has slunk onto my lap, tail curling around my knees, purring gently.
Maybe he knows that I’m actually not feeling the best being here.
I stroked his fur, slow, almost absentmindedly, feeling the vibration of the purr through my hands.
“It’s cold here. You should go back in, Blue,” I murmur, though the warmth in my chest is spreading just from this little living thing trusting me. I pause my drawing, let the pencil rest, and focus on the small presence he offers. I keep humming along with the song without realizing it.
Calm down. You’re here. You’re okay.
For a moment, that works.
Then headlights wash over the front of the house below.
It stops just in front of me and my chest tightens before my brain even catches up.
The car eases to the curb. The engine doesn’t cut right away, like the driver isn’t sure what they’re seeing.
I lean forward slightly, heart thudding, and then I hear it, that voice, saying my name.
“Is that… you? Miss Vitelli?” A pause. “What are you doing on the rooftop?” Another beat, softer now. “Are you okay?”
For a long second, there is only my breath and Blue’s small, furious purr. I count them both out—one, two, and big blue eyes staring at me, confused and waiting for a reply.
The muscle beneath my ribs lets go a fraction.
Mister Caldwell. My teacher. Of all people.
Shit.
He stands by his car like an apologetic statue, shoes planted, hands deep in his coat pockets, glasses on. He doesn’t seem sorry, or worried. He looks like someone who’s actually intrigued by me. He blinks as if deciding whether it's all right to be concerned. "What are you doing up here?"
"I—" I want to lie.
I want to say "stargazing" or "Taking some air" or something neutral. Instead I say, "I couldn't sleep."
He glances at Blue, at the notebook, and nods like he's cataloguing details. "You shouldn't leave the campus like that," he says quietly. "There are parties. People will be around. You can... socialize like everyone else, if you want."
Parties. Socializing. People.
Heat, stupid and sudden, rushes through me. When he says it, he makes leaving seem possible and also ridiculous.
“I can't," I tell him. "You should leave Mister Caldwell.”
He hesitates. For a second he looks younger, like a man who doesn't know where to put his hands, he then asks, "Are you sure you’re okay?"
Another engine curls down the block and my stomach drops to a place that isn't mine.
I know the sound of my father's car is like a chord I can't unlearn. Tires, the predictable knock of his exhaust, it fits into my chest the way cold does. And if he arrives and sees a man talking to me while I’m on the rooftop, he will lose it.
So, I say it again, firmer. "Please. Go. Now."
He follows my eyes toward the street, then nods once like a decision has been made.
Then he folds his hands together, gives a tiny, awkward smile, and backs to his car.
"Okay. If you need anything—" he starts, then stops, unsure of what that could mean. “See you on Monday, Miss Vitelli. Be careful and wear something warmer, it’s really cold at this hour of the day.”
He drives away without turning his lights on, the car blending into the dim. I watch the glow of my dad’s car sweep the roof and reflexively pull Blue up closer, and slip back inside on silent feet.
Milo is still asleep in his room, and won’t be up until eight like usual.
So I’ll be alone with him.
I go downstairs quickly leaving Blue on my bed and closing the door behind me. He can’t know anything about what’s happening when he’s not here. I need to be quick, I need to make breakfast.
The front door closes and the whole place tilts into that familiar, held-breath silence. He always waits for the same things now, a cup left out, a beer opened.
Small rituals that tell him the house is operating on his schedule. Anything to show him he’s still in control.
I want to ask him again, why is he the way he is ?
But I know how it will end. So I bite the question down and put the coffee on because it's the only language he understands.
Obedience.
I place his mug where he likes it, open the new beer and set it where he'd expect it, like setting down a peace offering with two hands.
I move as if choreography can keep catastrophe at bay. But I should know better. You can’t control a storm that’s already happening. He comes in without a hello. He doesn't have to yell to fill the kitchen; the way he moves makes the walls smaller already.
It's not even six and his voice already has that slurred, shallow quality of someone using anger as a blanket and alcohol as an escape.
"Why is this out?" he says, pointing at the empty pizza box on the table from yesterday.
He looks up at me and he repeats the question, “Why the fuck is this on my fucking table?”
“I brought it for Milo.” Is all I can reply.
“And you can’t fucking clean it afterwards?” He asks with an angrier tone.
“I’m sorry, I forgot about it…”
He doesn’t care. He never actually cared. “I’ve told you not to leave your shit out. How many times have I told you that? How many fucking times.”
I reach for it, hoping he’ll calm down before losing it.
“No—don’t fucking touch it yet,” his voice rises. “You don’t listen. You never listen.” He laughs, in that ugly way he does when alcohol fills his body. “Every damn time. I come home and there it is. Like you’re trying to piss me off.”
I say quietly, “I’ll clean it, it’s not a big—”
“Don’t tell me what isn’t a big deal!” He leans closer and I can smell whatever he had before coming back home.
“You hear me? Don’t do that.” Then again, slower, like he wants it to sink in: “Why. Is. This. Here.” And again.
“I swear to God, you do this on purpose.” Again.
“I said don’t leave things on the table. ” Again. “You never learn.”
You never learn.
You. Never. Learn.
My hand is on the glass I had since the beginning of his crashout, the one for his stupid beer. I don't look at him.
“ANSWER ME I FUCKING ASKED YOU SOMETHING!”
And without realizing it, the glass falls on the ground. It breaks.
It’s just a glass. It’s just a glass.
The sound rips through my chest like it did before.
Stop. Don’t move. Don’t make it worse.
Every muscle feels disconnected from my own will. It’s all my fault. I knew it. I knew something would break.
Don’t let him see you. Don’t let it get worse.
The shards gleam like little accusations pointing at me. I can’t step forward, I can’t pick it up. My mind loops between the past and the present, and I feel myself shrinking into the corner of my own body.
It’s just a glass. But it’s not.
He freezes for a second, then lashes out. A sharp shove against my shoulder, and then the next second I’m against the counter and his hands are around my throat.
“Every damn time! You can’t do anything right!”
The slap that comes next is not registered by my brain, not even the cut that I feel on my lips, or the blood that’s falling down my chin. I just can’t breathe and I don’t care. I can’t hear him clearly. He’s shouting, I know he is, but all I can hear is his last sentence over and over again.
I can’t do anything right.
Then I close my eyes and he stops. I catch my breath and cough trying to fill my lungs again with air. But he doesn’t seem worried about me. He just spits on the ground next to me and slaps the back of my head again. “Fucking disgusting… clean this shit before I get back down."
I stand there, frozen, staring at the shards, then at him leaving the kitchen like nothing happened.
He doesn't stop.
As he goes upstairs he says, "You should be more careful. Don't test my limits. Don't break things in my fucking house."
The glass is shattered. His words still echo in my head. I feel my chest tighten first, and the pressure… The pressure grows and grows impossibly fast. My hands shake, my knees buckle, and the room feels smaller like it’s closing on me.
I think I slide down against the counter, with my legs pulled up, and my arms hugging myself
I’m choking on air. It hurts.
It hurts to breathe.
It burns to stay alive.
In… out… in… out…
I try, I really do, but each inhale burns and every exhale seems stuck.
In… out.
My vision tunnels and my stomach twists, all I can hear are the shards clinking faintly under my trembling fingers, but it’s like they exist in another world.
I close my eyes, and whisper to myself.
It’s over. He’s gone, I’m here.
Breathe.