Chapter 15
Fifteen years ago
It’s winter in Beacon Hill. Outside my bedroom window, snowflakes the size of silver dollars drift down in slow spirals.
Inside, I’m tucked into bed, face pressed against the cool cotton sheets, comforter pressed between my legs.
The creamy warmth of tonight’s chicken potpie still lingers in my belly.
The remains of woodsmoke seep under my door from the downstairs fireplace, mingling with the faint trace of pine from our Christmas tree.
I drift toward sleep, dreaming of Ryan Gosling and the boys at school who don’t know I exist.
The crash of broken glass rips me awake.
My father’s voice—slurred, low, furious—curses from the living room.
The slam of a cabinet door. A crunch.
I glance at the clock.
2:04 a.m.
He’s having another one of his nights.
I slip out of bed. I’d rather go to him than wait for him to come to me. That’s how you stay safe. You move first. You stay in control.
A blast of winter air leaks through the old windowpanes. I shiver. My terrycloth shorts and thin tank top offer little defense. Still, I start toward the stairs, bracing myself. I pass my parents’ room and hear my mom snoring. She’s taken to wearing earplugs these days.
“Goddamn it,” he snarls again. A thud. Another crunch of glass.
I wince.
I left my textbooks on the living room floor. He must’ve tripped over them.
I pad down the stairs, careful not to make a sound. The cream carpet is warm and soft between my toes. On the third step from the bottom, the stench hits me. Vodka, dense and caustic, as if I’m drowning inside the bottle.
Then I see him. Or what’s left of him.
Gone is the man who used to wake me early for nature walks in Noerenberg Gardens. Who slipped me extra whipped cream at The Original Pancake House and whispered, Don’t tell your mother. Who sat beside me at Twins games and taught me how to keep score. Who called me Cha-cha.
That man had sun-soaked skin and warm blue eyes, raindrops. Charming kinks in his brown hair. A voice like honey. This man is a zombie.
His hair hangs greasy around his face, unwashed and wild.
His pupils are bloodshot. Even the way he looks at me is different.
He paces, crunching glass into the oriental rug.
A shattered vodka bottle lies like a gutted animal on the coffee table, red Smirnoff font gleaming like blood.
He stumbles into the kitchen, unscrews a bottle of Jim Beam.
He catches me watching.
His lip curls. His eyes narrow to slits. He points to the living room floor. “How many times have I told you to pick your fucking books up off the floor?”
He’s never said that. But I know better than to argue.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Clean this shit up.” His voice is low. Controlled. That’s worse than shouting.
My hands clench. It’s two in the morning. I have a trig test tomorrow.
“I said, clean it up,” he growls, louder now. A stranger.
I drop to my knees. The carpet pricks my skin as I reach for the glass shards one by one. I feel him watching me. Pacing. Smirking. Like he’s evaluating a new recruit. Splotches break out on my chest. I can’t meet his eyes.
A piece snags on the rug, slicing through my thumb. A rivulet of blood trickles down my palm. I suck on the wound, the metallic tang mixing with salt and anger.
“You’re fucking worthless,” he says.
Something snaps—a part of me that’s been suffocated for too long; someone else standing up inside my skin, taller than I remember being, steadier than I should be.
My vision narrows, colors too sharp, sound too far away.
I’m watching from somewhere just behind my own eyes.
My voice comes sharp, strange in my throat.
“Then why don’t you clean it up, you fucking drunk.”
The bloody shard drops from my hand and clinks against the coffee table.
His face slackens in shock as though waking from a dream.
I turn, half in disbelief at myself. I’m already moving toward the stairs when—
Slap.
His hands slam into my back.
I crash into the bookshelf, ribs jolting. Hardcover spines tumble like bricks.
He stands over me. Sneering.
“Don’t you ever talk to me like that.”
His fist arcs downward. It lands against my cheekbone with the dull thump of bone on flesh. My vision spots. My skin splits.
I brace for more. Sometimes it’s not the fists that hurt the most. Sometimes it’s the breath on your neck. The whispered sorry after.
“Now clean this shit up,” he hisses.
Years of fear, of grief for the man I lost, surge through my veins like stray voltage.
My body moves before I decide anything—feet against the bookshelf, shoulder slamming forward. A jolt of strength I don’t recognize barrels through me. Like I’m stealing someone else’s rage, someone who knows exactly what to do. We crash into the coffee table, onto the floor, limbs tangled.
The world stutters, jumps.
Glass everywhere. He reaches for my neck and squeezes. The oxygen halts.
My hand grabs something. The bottle.
A swing. A slash.
Black.
When the scene flickers back, he’s on the floor. His carotid pulses once, then pours. A dark tributary down his chest. He gurgles. His legs twitch. His eyes—those familiar, tear-shaped eyes—flicker. Then fade.
My hands drip. I stare, waiting for him to move. He doesn’t.
I search my face for a wound. Nothing. I can’t move. My hands are wet. My heart vibrates. My mind blanks.
I hear a creak behind me and turn.
My mother stands halfway down the staircase, barefoot in her bathrobe. Her eyes land on the blood, the bottle, the body.
She raises a hand to her mouth.
Her voice, thin as smoke.
“What have you done?”