Gavin
Another fight. Another senseless argument, and of all days, on Christmas morning. Mother says it’s a day of family, unity, and gratitude. Now that I’m eight years old, I want to give Mama something special, but Father says we don’t have any money for gifts this year.
So I wanted to find more deer sheds in the woods and make them into a bowl for decoration.
I know she’ll love it because Mama loves her decorations.
Every holiday, she decorates the house to match each season with colors and trinkets.
Sometimes, she’ll go into town to the local Sleepy Coldwater thrift shop and get things from the store to do DIY decor.
I help her when Dad isn’t having me work on the ranch, and it’s our time together.
Mama does everything she can to keep me away from his wrath, but I can tell she’s scared of him, too.
Now, it’s Christmas. Dad has been angrier these days and won’t let me leave the house. I don’t have anything to give her today, but I hope we can just spend time together…but it’s already impossible.
Dad stayed up all night drinking liquor, and now my mother and I get to be his punching bags again.
“You bitch!” The sound of a loud slap echoes through the walls upstairs. Their thudding grows louder, and I get angrier. I try to distract myself by staring at the poster on my wall that says: “We want you!” A man in a funny hat is pointing straight at me.
One day, I’m going to go far away from here and never come back. I want to be in the military—a soldier or SEAL who travels the world.
I hold my knees to my chest, fighting the tears that want to come out.
I rock back and forth on my bed and pray that it stops soon.
I just wanted to hug my mother this morning since I couldn’t get her a gift.
The sting in my throat grows, but I swallow the dread back down.
I can’t cry. Father says crying makes you weak, so I hold it in like I always do.
I sleep in the basement. He created a room down here and built it for me before I was born—before his alcohol addiction started. He wasn’t always bad.
“Stop it! Stop!” she squeals, and he roars back at her with more sounds of slaps and thudding.
I’ve tried to break up their fights multiple times, but it always results in me getting hurt. Mother made me promise to hide every time they fought, so I wouldn’t hear. I’m not sure where I can hide since he won’t let me leave the house, and I’m already the farthest away from them that I can be.
So I bring my hands to my ears and close my eyes.
Suddenly, the door to my room crashes open.
It’s Mama.
She’s bleeding everywhere.
“Gavin, honey, don’t scream. Don’t talk, or he’ll find you, baby. Hide underneath your bed, right now!” She hugs me tight to her body and presses her lips to the top of my head.
Little did I know that would be the last time I hugged her.
“Mama, what’s going on?” I reach out and brush the red out of her black hair.
My mother’s blue eyes stay on me. Tears fill the brim of her lashes and profusely leak down her weary face. She doesn’t look the same anymore. She’s terrified for her life, and I don’t know what to do to help.
“You know hide and seek, right, baby?” She nods frantically. “Hide right now, and get under the bed.”
My father continues to kick and bang against the door. The sound of the wood chipping sends more hot tears streaming from me and onto the wooden floor.
“Now!” Mama demands.
I scurry onto the floor and crawl under my twin bed that’s pressed up against the walls. I’m barefoot, shaking in my red Christmas pajamas.
“Let me in! There’s nowhere you can go!” my dad’s raspy voice booms with a darkness I’ve never heard before. It’s my dad, but not him at the same time.
“M-mama, please. I’m scared. Let me go with you!” I plead, but she shakes her head. “Please let me go with you, Mama.”
“Promise me, Gavin. Promise me right now, you’re going to stay here and not say one word, you hear me? You can’t come with me. Be strong, okay? And listen to me.”
I nod, letting the tears fall down my face because I can’t hold in this unfathomable pain anymore.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you, but after this, we’re leaving and never coming back.” She forces a weak smile as she threads her bloody fingers through my hair.
“M-mama!”
“Promise me right now?”
She can’t leave me. She can’t.
“I promise,” I say with a trembling whisper.
“Promise what?”
“I won’t come out.”
“And?”
I swallow, my teeth chattering from the amount of adrenaline that’s being pumped into my body.
“I promise I won’t say a word.”
This makes her smile.
“Come on, come out, come out, wherever you are,” Dad singsongs wickedly from behind the door. “Where are you, Gavin? Are you afraid of me? You pussy!”
“He isn’t in here! Please! Stop!” Mother begs as red drips down the floor from her arms and fingers. It begins to form a bright crimson puddle.
But he doesn’t stop.
He never stopped.
I wake with a gasp. Fury boiling in every single vein, my chest tightening with every single deep, fast breath I’m taking. Sitting up, with perspiration leaking down my chest and stomach. I still remember every detail of the day that changed the trajectory of my life.
I’m not like him. I’m not like him.
I reach for the other side of the bed, eager to run my hand up and down Coraline’s back. She’s always the first thing that’s in my head when I wake up. And right now, I’d like to bury the darkness away by being inside her. But to my disappointment, I’m greeted by empty sheets, her scent gone.
She isn’t in here. The room is empty and cold without her.
I bring my knees to my chest and run my hands through my hair. The roads are cleared. She’s going to leave me soon, but I can’t let that happen.
The sketchbook on my nightstand catches my attention. It’s a pencil-sketch drawing…of me.
She’s drawing again. Creating. Dreaming.
I smile, running my hands across the shading by my beard. She managed to get every single detail, even sharpening the scars on my chest. Fuck, she’s so talented and so good at what she does. How could she ever doubt her abilities? Even in this drawing, she managed to capture every single detail.
I feel like I’ve been in a dream since she arrived, and I refuse to wake up without her in my bed ever again.