5. Zoe
Chapter Five
ZOE
I know this routine. Allowing the music to take me to places I’d rather be. Places I might someday be. Until I find myself here once again, in front of the one place I want to bolt from.
I tighten my hand around the straps of my backpack and stare at our house. The eeriness it evokes gives me goosebumps as I see the lights on, knowing my father is back and in there, which means trouble. For me.
I stagger on, shivering but trying not to show my weakness as I plod along, eyes fixed on the royal blue bungalowand sunflowers surrounding the porch that served as inspiration for my Moore contest entry.
This is the place where I first learned how to laugh, where I learned how to run around giggling with both parents and where I first learned how to dream freely. And somehow, it is now the place that has taught me how to cry deeply.
This place has taught me how to take a punch, how to dream only in secret, and how to never laugh or find anything that can evoke any emotion of joy.
I stalk as quietly as I can through the walkway. I have been living on the edge ever since I lost my mother and my father became a tyrant.
I climb the short stairs, counting them until I get to the porch. Just five stairs. I just have five seconds to catch my breath before I go into what awaits me.
My stomach locks and my heart rams as I step onto the porch and it creaks under my pressure, announcing my arrival.
I clutch my camera with one hand and then free the other from my backpack to reach for the doorknob.
I can hear my heartbeat rising to a deafening crescendo, feel the hair on the back of my neck spiking, and feel every joint, like bones clashing against each other.
I gulp in nervous air and nod, reminding myself that I can get away from this if I keep chasing my dreams. That my mom is looking out for me.
I twist the doorknob and step into the brightly lit sitting room. The sound of the football match playing on the television is muted. My father is not on the dirty white and gray patterned couch watching it.
I gulp as I tilt my head away from the couches placed around a wooden center table with worn-out ornaments and plastic flowers in a white basket to face the glowering eyes dagger shooting at me.
“Hey, Dad,” my voice is as small as I feel, with his lofty height now stalking towards me like he wants to crush me under his boots.
“What part of get home before…” his voice thunders, making me and the walls clatter.
“I’m sorry. I was doing a school project, and I wanted to…” I keep my eyes on his boots and the seam of the pants of his cop uniform. “I’m sorry.” I shut my eyes, knowing I will get hit regardless, so it’s better to mentally prepare for it.
“Project?” He sneers, and I foolishly nod. “Do I look like I care about your stupid projects?”
I shake my head, “I thought I could…”
“You what?” He leans down, bringing his face closer to mine, and I fold, taking a step back and then away from him, “Are your projects more important than your father?”
“No! Of course not-! I-I…” I stutter. I might be able to get through this without getting beaten.
“I got home after a long day at work, and my dinner wasn’t ready,” he throws casually, “I work all day, every day, to pay for everything you need. And you can’t do one simple job? Is this the way you pay me back for my hard work? You ungrateful brat!”
I shake my head, finding a narrow slip by the wall with family portraits used to deceive people of what doesn’t exist anymore.
“Let me show you what I think of your school projects, Zoe,” he stomps away, heading towards my room.
I like to surround myself with fabrics, sketching materials, and things for sewing. They give me hope. They make me want to wake up every morning.
He throws my door open with a hard kick, and I don’t mind as long as he is taking his rage out on anything but me.
He stomps into my room, and I follow him. I stand humbly behind him as he goes rabid around my room, cussing and throwing fabrics in different directions.
Fuming with more rage, he turns toward my stool and sewing machine, and with that, I try to get in the way. The machine is not worth much. But like everything else in my life, it’s a reminder that I was once happy.
A reminder that there was a time I could have screamed at the top of my lungs that I had the best dad in the world. A time when mom was still alive.
He slams the sewing machine to the floor, and parts fly, as do I as he grabs me by my sweater and tosses me to the side. I throw my hands forward, protecting my camera, not minding that I might twist my wrists.
“School project,” he scoffs, not done. “You never learn,” he stomps to my desk like a hound in search of its next meal, “What is this?” He picks up the flyer for Moore’s contest and glances at it, taking in the information on the flyer as quickly as possible.
“I stand on my feet. “It’s a contest…”
“I can read, Zoe. What is it doing here?” he barks. “In your room, in my house,” he flares.
“I wanted to…” I sniff, “Dad, please, it’s important to me.”
“This is why you come home so late?” He roars, his voice climbing up in a way that makes me feel like he will burst his windpipe.
I try not to look into his eyes. They are the worst. They have lost every bit of humanity.
“I will make dinner now,” I start to scuttle toward the door. “I will make dinner,” I’m trembling, and my lips are twitching.
“Ungrateful brat,” it comes with a hard smack that sends my brain riling in my head, making me go slightly deaf. Luckily, my earphones had fallen out earlier. “You have only one job,” he is on to something, but I’m still brain-frozen from the hit.
It is when his hand yanks the camera off my neck, snapping the strap and, I’m sure, cutting me in the process, that my brain spins back to functionality.
“Dad, no,” I reach for the camera, but he doesn’t hover before slamming it against the wall behind him, the broken parts clattering to the floor.
“Keep your mind on important things, Zoe,” he spurts. “I will be out.” He stomps out of my room, and I scramble after the parts of the camera strewn across the floor.
It was my mother’s, and he knows. But he threw it without even flinching, deliberately killing every part of her that could have kept him human.
I sniff, picking up the shards with tears blurring my vision. I gather as many parts as possible and crawl to my bed, not minding that I might be climbing on needles and pins. I crawl into a corner, pull my earphones out from inside my sweater, and plug them into my ears.
The classical music cloaks my eardrums and I let myself slip into the comfort of dreaming about a place different from this one.
I hug the broken parts of the camera to my chest as I stare blankly at my fashion magazine-covered wall, which is adorned with models that remind me of something good that happened today.
Virgilio.
I smile sadly, my tears burning down to wet my pillow.
He is something good. I can focus on that.