Chapter 28
T he little girl is back in my mind, stuck, frozen in that reflection in the window. Her wide, scared eyes stare back at me, and I want to tell her it’s okay—that we can move past this—but she’s trapped. I’m trapped.
She’s stuck in that moment, but I need her to move. I need me to move.
I’ve spent so long locked in this memory, trying to forget the weight of it, trying to bury it in some dark corner where I wouldn’t have to face the truth of it. But she’s still there, preparing to wait for her cup of hot chocolate and a man who’s supposed to love her but never did.
Chills run up my spine, and I hug myself, rubbing my arms to chase away the gooseflesh as I look out the window at the expansive valley. It’s when my eyes focus on my reflection that the little girl comes back to me.
I close my eyes and blink hard, trying to shake the memory free, to bring it into focus. When I open them again, the reflection has shifted. I take a few steps back, and the little girl is gone. I’m looking at myself. But the sadness in her eyes still haunts mine, and it feels like something inside me hasn’t changed. I’m still carrying that fear, still trying to make sense of what happened.
I turn my head toward a hallway where light spills from an open door, waiting for the sounds of my parents’ argument that I know will soon reach me.
The voice of my father booms like thunder, finding me first. My mother’s voice—desperate and pleading—follows. Her words are lost in the noise. No matter how hard I try to hear them, they keep dancing away from me. I can’t tell if it’s the absence of understanding what she is saying, or merely the sound of her voice, that makes me shiver. But I can’t stop it.
I force my foot to move, taking one step forward, then another toward the hallway. It’s dim around me—dark outside with low lights on around the quiet house.
I pass a table against the wall. A vase of flowers is still fragrant, but I can’t see any color in the soft petals that have wilted, dried, with some crumbled pieces resting on the table’s surface. I stop, trying to look at the framed picture. I see me and one of my parents. I see smiles. It feels happy, but I can’t tell who it is.
The edges of my vision blur, darkening as the details try to hide themselves from me.
The first slap rings out, and I twist my head toward the source. My body tenses as I instinctively wince, feeling the sting of the sound echo through me.
My cheek warms, and I press my fingers to it again. Had he hit me too? Or am I just feeling the pain of this moment with my mother in the memory?
I rub my eyes again. “Focus,” I tell myself as I step through the doorway and see blurred stairs before me. They are wide, lavish, with deep red carpet—the color of blood. The same color I painted my nails.
I fan my hand out before me, looking at them when another slap echoes, and I look up.
“You’ll thank me for this one day,” he barks at her.
I see her now. In vivid detail, my mother. She has medium-length dark hair, lighter than mine and shorter, falling just below her shoulders. Her face is red where she was struck, and I look at my feet, touching my own cheek again.
“You can’t take this from me,” her voice is shaky, but she puts bravado behind it.
Her scream reaches me first, then the thudding of her body falling down the stairs. She jerks and tumbles, powerless, crashing against the hard steps.
I freeze. I can’t look away. I’m rooted to the spot, watching, helpless.
Her arm begins to bleed, and I’m stuck, staring at the white bone protruding from her arm. She’s twitching, her body lying in a curled position, facing me. Her face is already bruising, her lip busted as blood covers her teeth.
She tries to smile at me. Tries to soften what I’m seeing. But that is impossible. “Happy birthday,” she whispers before her eyes close and her head thumps to the floor.
My eyes are wide, and my brow is pinched as I look up at my father. He’s standing at the top of the stairs, breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in sharp, erratic bursts. His eyes are wild, his face contorted in a way that sends a chill down my spine.
He’s looking straight at me.
The mask he wore, the hero I thought he was—it’s gone. All that’s left is the monster behind it, standing there, looking back at me.
It’s the moment the illusion cracked.
The moment I stopped being his treasure.