Leaving Texas
“Just say yes.” Colton’s smile touched his eyes for a moment, then fear bloomed in his blue irises as they searched my face. He could tell there was something I wasn’t telling him. I couldn’t find the words.
I didn’t know how to tell him what I’d been hiding. And I knew that if he ever learned what had happened to me, there would be no stopping him from taking a life.
Some secrets are better left untold. Unavenged.
He pulled away, leaning against the side of the truck bed. Crossing his arms over his chest, he gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw knotting. “But you can’t go back there. If he hits you again, I’m gonna kill him.”
My hand flew to his lips. He must’ve read my mind.
“Promise me you won’t do that, Colton. Never.”
“Why? He deserves it.” He jumped out of the truck, straightened his worn-out jeans, and buttoned up his shirt.
“You deserve a good life,” I pleaded. “Don’t rot in jail because of some drunk asshole with a heavy hand and a temper.”
Breathing heavily with frustration, he helped me slip down from the truck bed, landing me safely on the ground.
I looked at my pink shirt with a critical frown.
It lay crooked, the top button undone over my breasts, with the ruched fabric covered in dust and straw.
I started shaking all the dirt off with my hands, but Colton took my chin between his fingers and gently turned my face toward him.
“I deserve you. Just say yes. Then I’ll know I have something to wait for.”
Tears burned my eyes as I looked at him. “Yes,” I whispered. “After you go to college. Otherwise, you’d never forgive me. It’s what you want, isn’t it? To become a lawyer?”
“I want you more,” he whispered. His hands slid around my waist, firm but reverent, as if he were anchoring me to him.
His lips found mine in a kiss that stole the breath from my lungs, igniting a slow, searing heat that chased the shadows away.
Without breaking the kiss, he lifted me with effortless strength and set me down on the truck bed like I was the most delicate thing he’d ever touched.
It was so easy to give in, to believe, to say yes, everything be damned. But I feared the vengeance of lost dreams more than I feared losing him. I’d seen it in my own family, ripping us to shreds. I’d witnessed it slowly killing my mother and turning my father into a mean drunk.
Reluctantly, I pulled away. “Take me home, Colton. It’s late.”
“Uh-uh, little lady, not just yet. This cowboy ain’t done romancing you.” He kissed me again, and then his hand landed on my thigh, right below the frayed hem of my denim shorts, his thumb sneaking under the fabric, his fingers squeezing my flesh gently as they reached higher.
His touch reminded me of my father, and it made me sick, nauseated. Shuddering, I pushed him away. “No. I want to go home now. Please.”
The drive was short, yet uncomfortably silent.
I couldn’t catch my breath, while my entire body reeled from what had just happened.
From what was about to. When we got to my house, the dilapidated building was shrouded in darkness except for the bluish flickering light coming from the TV through the living room window.
My little brother was crouched on the front steps, hugging his knees.
I pecked Colton on his mouth, deftly avoiding another fiery embrace, and got out of the truck, careful to not slam the door noisily and draw unwanted attention.
When I waved him off, I waited until he disappeared in a cloud of dark, ominous dust before approaching the house.
“Where have you been?” Billy Ray asked, his voice riddled with tears and blame. He’d been crying. He hid his face from me, but the sniffles gave him away.
I took his hand. “Come on, give me a hug.”
Reluctantly, he stood. Weak moonlight landed on his face, and I gasped. His left eye was swollen shut, his lip was split open, and a darkening reddish bruise about the size of a fist marred his jaw.
Damn that man.
My father bellowed from inside the house. “Get in here!”
Trembling, I opened the squeaky screen door and walked in.
My knees were shaking as I reached for the living room light switch.
The house stunk of sweat and grime and stale cigarette smoke, and a hint of mildew.
My father slouched on the sofa with the TV on, watching some ball game.
Scratching his chest through the thin, stained fabric of his undershirt, he squinted my way against the light.
I froze in place when our eyes met. Stomach acid rose in my throat as his grin widened, exposing tobacco-stained teeth in a lustful smirk.
“Hey, Suzie, where the hell have ya been, huh?”
Propping my hands on my hips helped me find my courage.
“Suzie was your wife, and she’s dead. Get that?
I bet she’s happy she’s rid of you!” I found it easy to shout at him, and strangely gratifying.
I took a step toward him. “I’m your daughter.
The sister of that twelve-year-old boy you pummeled tonight, you sick son of a bitch. ”
He ran his fingers through his thinning hair, looking at me with bloodshot eyes, still squinting.
Then he scratched his stubble with grimy fingernails.
“Yeah . . . my daughter. And where the hell have you been?” He was slurring badly, but still reached for the almost empty bottle of cheap whiskey and took another swig.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then scrubbing his hands against his shirt, he looked at me with the same lecherous smirk as before. “You’re supposed to be home by nine.”
That had come and gone almost three hours ago. “And? It’s nine,” I said coldly, the lie rolling off my tongue effortlessly. He was probably too drunk to see the numbers of the digital clock displayed in small font on the TV screen. “Aren’t you going to bed? You work tomorrow.”
He sprang to his feet, unexpectedly agile for how drunk he was, and reached for me. He was a big and tall man, and with a single stride, he closed the distance between us. I pulled back, but he still caught my wrist, turning it until I had no choice but to get closer to him.
“Let me go, you sick bastard,” I hissed between clenched teeth.
My stomach heaved when his breath touched my face.
I pulled away, but couldn’t get my arm freed from his grip.
I didn’t scream. Billy Ray didn’t need to hear that, and no one else could hear me out there in the middle of our eighty acres south of Abilene.
“C’mon, Suze, be a good gal to your ol’ man. Make him happy t’night.”
“Your wife is dead!” I shouted, hoping my words would shake him back into reality. “You killed her, remember?”
For a moment, he stared at me slack jawed.
Then his eyes filled with rage, offering a split-second’s warning for what was about to come.
He struck me down with a heavy blow to my face.
My mind exploded into a million green stars.
Tears sprang out of my eyes. I tried to get up, but he wouldn’t let me.
He dropped to his knees and straddled me, pinning me down with my wrists held above my head.
With his other hand, he fumbled with his belt and zipper, his sickening fingers worming against my thighs.
Writhing desperately, I managed to knee him in the groin once, weakly, but enough for him to gasp and let go of my wrists. Screaming, I scratched at his eyes furiously, desperately, until I drew blood and still didn’t stop.
“You’re not doing this to me again, you hear me?” I kicked and pummeled him again and again until he fell off me, on his side, and curled up groaning and cursing my name.
I got up and looked at him as he lay there on the floor, holding his groin with both hands.
An injured brute lying in his own filth.
But not defeated. Not dead. Tomorrow, he’d be back on his feet again, hungover and mad as hell.
His hands shakily looking for the bottle.
His mind gone haywire, fueling his sickening lust.
Silently, I went into the kitchen and grabbed the large cast-iron skillet, holding its handle with both my hands.
As if I were possessed, I stared at my own white-knuckled fingers wrapped around that handle and wondered who I was.
Who I’d become. Then I walked over to where he lay and raised the skillet above my head, ready to strike him dead.
A few moments slipped by like that, the only sounds being our intertwined breaths gasping heavily for air, my quiet whimpers, and his low groans of pain.
The skillet frozen in midair. Just outside the door, Billy Ray’s heart-wrenching wails had succumbed to mere whimpers and sniffles.
I stared at the heap lying at my feet, knowing what I had to do, and still, forced to admit I couldn’t.
The skillet dropped to the floor with a heavy thump, without touching him.
“Damn you to hell,” I said, and then I walked out the door, touching my mom’s pendant obsessively, begging Santa Monica to give me the strength to run away. To do what was right.
The screen door squeaked behind me, slamming shut with a loud noise that made Billy Ray jump to his feet.
I hugged my little brother tight, our tears mixed together where our faces touched. “Take care of yourself, Billy Ray.”
“Don’t go,” he begged, his small fingers digging into my arms. “Don’t leave me here alone with him.”
A sob caught in my throat. I wanted to stay.
God, I wanted to stay. Every time before, I had.
For him. Endured the bruises, the broken ribs, the unspeakable terror of my father’s flesh overpowering mine—because running away meant leaving my brother behind.
But tonight was different. Daddy dearest had made that clear.
Tonight, he’d turned his rage on me like never before. Tonight, I’d seen it in his eyes—the shift, the way the violence unraveled into something else. Something worse.
If I stayed, I wouldn’t survive the next time. And Billy Ray needed me alive more than he needed me here.
I kissed his forehead, my lips trembling against his skin. “I have to. One day, you’ll understand.” He clung to me desperately, unwilling to let me go. “I’ll come back for you, Billy Ray, I promise. As soon as I find us a place to stay, I’ll come back for you.”
He stared into my eyes for a moment, his tears glinting in the faint moonlight, and let his skinny arms fall alongside his body.
“I promise,” I repeated, barely a whisper before letting go.
Then I started running across the fields toward the distant lights of Abilene, sobbing louder and louder since I knew no one could hear me anymore.