Chapter 51
Mireya
Past
Play - Bloodstream by Alyssa Grace
Father always wins
The old building stinks, but it’s the only place I can hide with Ethan.
There’s nothing left here, not the benches, the windows are all broken, and half of the ceiling lets the light in.
I’m sitting on the stairs next to the door and hear his footsteps. I don’t even look up to know it’s him. Judging by the loudness of how he walks, he’s probably pissed.
“You know there’s another way to ask someone to come and see you, Rey?”
I smile and tilt my head, seeing what I asked for hanging in between his hands. “Hi to you too.”
He stops in front of me, his gaze falling down to the small bag he brought. “I have it.”
I shrug as he sighs and sits next to me. The bag is quickly in my hand and for a few seconds we don’t talk. It’s almost peaceful, looking at nothing, smoke disappearing between us.
In a second, his gaze changes. “Why do you always do that?”
Here we go…
I close my eyes, letting the thoughts drown in the substance and reply, “What?” As if I didn’t see the way he looked at the scars, the new ones, fresh and stupid.
His voice is harder when he speaks again, “The fucking scars, Reya. I can see them, I’m not stupid.”
A small chuckle leaves my mouth. “Pass me the joint and I’ll tell you.”
He hands it to me and shakes his head, “Oh do tell.”
My jaw tightens for a second, and I hate how serious he sounds. Because he doesn’t want to know, he wants to judge me for being like this.
I look down at the new scars I thought I hid better, then look at the empty entry in front of me. “Because… Because it hurts less to bleed by my hands than by any other person’s touch.”
Hurting myself was always less painful than what happened.
He takes a drag, closing his eyes before exhaling. “It fucking sucks that you want to die, Rey.”
I look down, feeling anger bubbling up in my chest. It’s not true. I don’t want to. Or maybe I do. I don’t know and I don’t want to fucking know.
“At least I’m still here, right?”
Our eyes meet and I instantly regret saying this. Because there’s a part of me, deep inside this mess, that wants to understand. Why am I still here if I’m not feeling alive?
“That’s not the point,” he says.
I faintly smile. “Isn’t it?”
He rubs a hand on his face before replying, “You think it’s enough?”
It has to.
“You think this is how you’re supposed to live your life?” He adds, angry almost.
My legs move without me even deciding it.
I don’t want to be here anymore, I don’t want to hear him looking at me as if I were already dead. The joint is still burning between my fingers as I slip the baggie into my pocket.
“I’m going home.”
I take a step down, then a second. Until a hand suddenly closes around my arm and I stop dead. I glance down at his hand before slowly lifting my head. “Let me fucking go.”
He keeps staring at me, with that expression I hate, the one saying he’s torn between anger and fear when he sees the state I’m in.
“So that’s it?” His voice comes out low, but I can hear it trembling. “You think you can just leave when I talk about important things?”
I give my arm a tug, my jaw tightening. “I told you to fucking let me go, Ethan.”
He takes a deep breath, like he’s trying to hold himself back, then his eyes drift down my arm.
“You never think about Milo or Hayzel. It would break their fucking hearts to see you like I see you.” He slowly shakes his head and continues, “It’s always the fucking same, you get high, you get wasted. ”
His eyes drop at the scars again and I push him away brutally, but it doesn’t stop him from saying, “You keep trying to die, and you want me to believe that this time it’s different?”
Anger is rising in my throat and I want to smash his face against the wall for making me feel like that. “Shut the fuck up, Bennett. Shut up!”
He involuntarily squeezes a little tighter. “You’re never going to change, Mireya.”
I can’t look at him anymore. All I hear is the same quote, repeating over and over again.
You’re never going to change.
As if me being here, breathing, fighting had been for nothing. As if all the effort, the relapses and the nights trying to make it through just one more day, all of this was all worthless now.
I slowly look up at him, my heart beating faster and faster at each passing second.
“What did you just fucking say?”
He doesn’t answer right away. “Look at yourself.” His voice is almost softer. “You’re becoming more and more like him.”
My hand moves on its own, the punch is hard, the sound echoing through the walls. Blood rushes out from his mouth because of the impact. For a second neither of us moves. My chest is heaving too fast, I want to hurt him again. He could never understand.
Ethan’s hand stays against his cheek, never taking his eyes off me.
“I love you so fucking much, I’m starting to hate you for making me feel frustrated like that,” he whispers.
And I leave, putting distance between us so that his voice finally stops echoing in my head.
You’re becoming like him.
I grit my teeth and keep walking. An empty bottle lies in the middle of the path and I kick it as I go back to my house.
You’re becoming like him.
The thought has been living in the back of my mind for years. It’s always coming back when I stare too long at the mirror and catch the same anger in my eyes that I see in my father’s. Ethan didn’t create it. He voiced the very thing I spend all my time trying to suppress.
Why did he not yell at me?
Why did he have to be honest?
I shove my hands deep into my pockets until I arrive home and push the door open.
The anger that had carried me this far collapses all at once and it’s replaced by something uglier and older. The one that makes me feel small before I even step in.
“Finally.”
Not now. Not tonight. Not after him.
The sentence keeps replaying and I close my eyes for a second. I try my hardest to fight the tears.
Never cry in front of him.
I don’t reply and take my jacket off slowly to gain some time off and not feel the scream in my throat. But I feel him behind me the moment a tear falls down.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
And I don’t.
My fingers are still trembling at my side, from the punch, the anger, the frustration, everything swirls up in my head, turning into a painful and constant buzzing.
You’re becoming like him.
“Where were you?” His voice is calm and I know it’s worse when he’s calm.
“I was with Hayzel,” I lied.
A manic and drunk laugh escapes him. And at that moment, I’m glad Milo is sleeping peacefully at Edna’s house.
“Are you fucking lying to me?”
My heart skips a bit but the loudness of the buzzing keeps getting more and more painful.
I’m so tired. I’m so fucking tired of being angry.
Tired of feeling my entire body turn into a weapon every time he breathes near me. Tired of waiting for the next word, the next move and the next thing I’ll have to survive.
“Leave me alone.” The words come out of my mouth without any hesitation.
I can feel it, the small and thin thread of obedience breaking every time he talks.
I turn around, meeting his eyes and his expression changes. A flicker of disbelief, like he expects me to be the same girl who lowered her head and waited for him to finish. And maybe I am.
Maybe a part of me will always be that girl.
But tonight, I am so tired.
“Watch your tone,” he says as his voice drops.
I laugh, shaking my head. My whole body burns with a rage I never thought I’d have the right to feel one day. I push him back and walk to the kitchen, anywhere far from here would be a good option.
“I told you to leave me alone.”
Breathe. Mireya, breathe.
The smell of alcohol is everywhere. On his breath, on his clothes, in the room. It’s on me, in my veins and darkening all my memories.
An ugly laugh leaves him and then he speaks again, “Is this what you’re fucking doing now? You came home high.”
“You’re always home, drunk,” I reply and almost laugh. Even now, after everything, he still finds a way to make himself the person who’s dealing with the other. “Can you hear yourself?”
He grabs the bottle he left on the table and gulps the warm liquid in one go before looking at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you always do this.” My voice is shaking and I can’t stand the fact that he can hear it too. “You act like you’re the one dealing with me. Like I’m some fucking problem you’re stuck with.
His jaw tightens, “Close your fucking mouth, stupid girl.”
“I’m the one who has to live with you!” I yell and suddenly the anger feels different.
Like it has been rotting inside me for years.
“I was a kid when I learned what kind of fucking night it was going to be by the way you opened the door! I was a kid when I started feeling like I had to apologize for existing!”
His face hardens but he doesn’t talk. He has the same disgusted look on him, because knowing this was true never stopped him.
“You act like I’m the reason this family is the way it is,” I continue, shaking, crying quietly with rage. “You’re the one who taught me how to be angry and I fucking hate it.”
He frowns, not even listening to me. “When did you learn to act like a little bitch and disappear for hours then come back here and talk like that?”
I laugh and throw a glass from the kitchen counter next to him against the wall.
He freezes for a second, looking at all the broken pieces on the ground.
“Why did you have me?” I look around, shaking my head because the anger is all I have left now
He looks me up and down once, his eyes catching the trembling of my hands, the way I can’t function with all the rage that’s building up inside me.
But he doesn’t answer and I don’t want him to.
“I’ve been dealing with your shit since I was a kid.” I laugh, and it sounds stupid. “I’m the one who puts Milo to bed when you wake him up screaming and drunk.” He opens his mouth but I don’t let him. “I’m the one who drags you off the fucking bathroom floor when you’re too passed out to stand.”
His jaw clenches so hard I think I can hear his teeth grind. “I’ve been raising your son while you’ve been drowning in a fucking bottle, and all you can find to do is abuse me over and over again.”
“You ungrateful little sh–”
“I was your child!” I scream. “I never asked you to be my parent.”
“I am your father!” He roars back. “I. Am. Your. Father,” he says it again, louder, as though repeating it enough times will make it true.
My fingers fumble against the edge of the worktop, searching for something, the drawer slides open and my hand closes around the first thing it finds. When I turn back around, the knife is already in my hand. His eyes drop to it, and for the first time in years, there’s something separating us.
“I am your fucking child,” my voice breaks so violently I almost choke on the words. “And I hate you!” Don’t stop. “All I ever wanted was to be loved by my father and all you ever did was hate me!”
The knife trembles in my hand as he looks at me for a long moment. But instead of stepping back, he steps forward.
I know this look, I know this anger. The feeling behind the reflection of myself on the blade. That desperate need to have something between you and the person hurting you, something to make them stop and make them finally see you.
His face changes and then he speaks, “Put it down.” I stand there, making him look at me, the version he created. “I said put it down,” he continues.
My fingers tighten and he smiles before speaking again, “There she is.”
“What?”
“The girl who thinks she’s finally brave.” He takes a long breath, looking at me like he’s trying to understand when I became someone who could talk back. “You think walking around angry makes you different from me?”
I look away, shaking my head and the tears won’t stop.
“You’re so desperate to hate me,” he continues, “but look at you. You’re angry, you’re hurting yourself. You really think your brother doesn’t see that?”
My head snaps back toward him. “Don’t.”
He doesn’t care, he keeps smiling, and looking at me like I’m not worth the anger. “You stupid girl, you’re so focused on protecting him that you don’t realize what he’s learning from you.”
I look away, because for one second, I see it. That resemblance, that anger, the lack of control. And he sees it too, that’s why he’s smiling.
“You don’t want to become me. Then stop proving me right.”
His eyes stay on the knife, then they move slowly back to me.
“You wouldn’t want Milo to be the one paying for your anger, would you?”
The knife suddenly feels heavier, and my grip loosens as it falls to the floor. I stare at it as if he already won. There are some things I will never be able to risk, and Milo is the first on that list.
“Good. If you keep fighting me, or keep thinking you can do whatever you want, don’t be surprised when the consequences stop falling on you.”
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
“Do you understand me?”
I look at the knife on the floor, then at him and I reply shamefully, “Yes.”
Because I could survive him hurting me, I could survive hating him. But I could never survive him hurting Milo.