Chapter Two #3
“Gonna head back early tomorrow morning, though. Kristen’s got a bridal party she’s booked to do hair and makeup for.” I listen to Nick talk as I step through the door, closing it behind me.
Jade’s voice filters through the open window as she chats with Kristen and our mother, and I slump down, taking a seat on the back cinder block steps.
I’m close enough to listen, yet enough distance away to let go of the breath I didn’t want my father to know I’d been holding.
Placing the now empty plate beside me with a clunk, I light up a cigarette, attempting to tame the rage that numbs me from the inside out.
The clouds above are dusty and gray, shadowing away the sun, yet the air remains sticky, thick, and suffocating.
I take a deep hit, relishing the swirl of nicotine when the back door creaks behind me.
I don’t turn to see who it might be, keeping my eyes focused on the splintered shed in the back corner of the dead and neglected yard.
My mind tunnels to a day that will forever haunt me, hearing the memory of words I’d never wanted to speak: “I need you to climb out the window and go to the shed, then I need you to count to five-thousand and if I’m not back by the time you reach it, go next door, okay?”
I squeeze my eyes closed, forcing the memory back into the cellar of my haunted and poisoned mind. But hatred rises, fury prevails.
I hated my father.
I hated him more than I knew it was possible to hate another human being.
A large palm grips the top of my shoulder, and I know it’s not his. Because I’d know the calloused, clammy palm of my father’s hand even if I somehow found a way to eradicate the nightmares.
He always slapped before he punched.
It’s the way he beat her, and it was the way he had beaten me.
“That shit’ll kill ya, you know.” Uncle Nick scoffs, taking a seat beside me, nudging my elbow.
I let silence hang.
I didn’t like the small talk.
We weren’t close, never had been. I think he thought we were though because we were closer in age than most uncles and nephews. But he was in with my father, and anyone that associated themselves with that human waste, I didn’t let close to me.
The pipes that sit behind the cheap cladding creak and clunk when the shower inside is turned on.
“Will it?” I take a deep, hopeful drag, turning my head and levelling my eyes to my uncles, exhaling a lungful into his face. “Good.”
The smoke knocks him backward, he tries pushing it away, his dark hair loosening from the gel he’d used to hold it off his face. He shoves the crunchy strands from his eyes, extends his black denim covered legs outward and crosses them at the ankles.
“Is it all for show?” he asks when the smoke dissipates.
I throw the cigarette down, squashing it beneath the heel of my Vans.
“What?” I retort with a laugh.
He angles his stubbled jaw upward, his wrist hanging over the top of his knee as he flicks a finger up and down the length of me, following the line of his hazel gaze.
“This whole tough guy act?”
I laugh again, louder this time, placing my elbows on my knees and shaking my head. “Yeah, alright, let’s go with that then, Unc.”
The pipes to the side of us fall silent, and Jade, my mother, and Kristen skitter through the back door, making to join us.
My mother takes a seat next to me, while Jade and Kristen stand in front of us, a can of Coke in their hands, quickly picking up a conversation with Nick.
Kristen diverts her eyes toward me, her cheeks blushing pink. I try not to laugh, looking away, dropping my arm over my mother’s fragile shoulders, pulling her closer.
And it’s then that I feel a violent shiver extend from her, to me, slicing up my spine.
“You okay?” I whisper, and she places her hand on my knee. Her long, thin, fingers squeezing, signaling that she heard me.
And I palm my jaw, wondering—not for the first time—if money wasn’t an issue would she have left years ago? After that night?
Jade’s voice booms, Kristen and Uncle Nick both laughing with her, and I find myself dropping my mouth to my mother’s ear, breathing, “I will fucking kill him one day.”
The back door slams and everyone looks over their shoulders, except me.
I keep a firm hold on my mother when something cold touches my elbow.
And out of the corner of my eye, green glass catches in the shallow sun, glittering at my side.
It was the bullshit offering I knew was coming, and I wanted to shove it down his throat, but tonight, I took it, only for her.
I crack the lid on the beer, and when I push it to my lips I let the alcohol bubble to the surface, pretending to take a pull.
The dusting of gray clouds in the distance have turned darker, the promise of a storm on the horizon, and I don’t notice that Jade has slipped back inside until she reappears with a cotton tote bag at her side.
It bulges off her petite frame, filled with clothes and whatever other shit girls pack when they plan to leave home for more than a few days.
“Can you take me to Laik’s?” she asks me, bending at the waist, already pressing a kiss to Mom’s cheek, whispering her goodbye.
“Yeah,” I tell her, but I haven't moved yet. I turn to speak to Mom, but she stops me with another squeeze at the knee. And I knew it was her way of offering me quiet reassurance that she would be okay, even though we both knew she wouldn’t be.
It heats me, wrings me out, because we’d been here before. I’d tried to stay, tried to keep her safe, and she’d told me that my insistence on protecting her only made things worse. And that bothered me, because you see, it put me between a rock and a hard place, a choice she’d already made.
So, I place a kiss on my mother’s temple, then another to her forehead, whispering to her the only protection that she’d accept from me, hoping that tomorrow, I’d have another chance to do it all again. “Call me if you need me.” Then, I shove up from the concrete.
I don’t look at my father. I make toward the side gate, Jade trailing eagerly behind me, and when we come around the edge of the one-story mustard-colored house, I feel a jab at my ribs. Peering to my side, I watch a familiar spark of mischief light in Jade’s blue eyes.
“Bryce is throwing a party tonight, out at his house in the woods, up Devil’s Peak mountain.” She grins, sing-songing her words.
And I clench my fists, then rub my temples, trying to ward off the headache her words bring.
“What the fuck are you doing going to one of his parties?”
It’s not Bryce I have a problem with. We’ve always got on well. The problem I have is that he’s one of those guys that’s friends with everybody, including the trash.
Jade walks in front of me and shrugs, biting into her bottom lip, stifling a grin.
“Colton is going to be there. Laiken likes him.”
Said trash.
Fury heats.
Colton James is eighteen, the same age as me, and I’ve never liked him.
Doesn’t help that his father is the town's deputy sheriff who has it out for me, too.
Oh, and did I mention that I fucked Colton’s girlfriend? Yeah, I’m a fucking mess.
Laiken likes him. Jade’s voice bounces around in my head, and I scoff because I didn’t believe it for a second.
I knew Laiken, and I knew she was smarter than that. I drag a hand through my hair, letting go of my breath.
Laiken is Jade’s best friend, and she was forced to grow up as quickly as Jade had been.
Seen a lot.
Been through too much.
And I’d always felt the need to protect her from all of life's extra bullshit because I guess I care about her, and not just because Jade cares about her.
I step in front of my sister and unlatch the metal gate, holding it ajar at my back as Jade walks through.
“Tell Laik to stay the fuck away from him,” I murmur my warning to her back.
She twirls around grinning. It’s so free, and it fucking terrifies me. “Yeah, maybe you should—”
Jade is cut off when our father comes out of nowhere, stepping up behind her, throwing his sunburned and freckled arm around her shoulders.
I look toward the front of the house, pissed that he slithered out before we could get away, then I turn back because none of that matters now when I see the way Jade bristles.
Anyone else would have missed it because it was subtle, but I saw it; because I was watching for it.
“Where are you headed tonight, Jadey? Anything I should be concerned about?” he coos.
Uncle Nick steps through the gate I’m still holding open, tapping my shoulder casually with his closed fist, like the interaction happening between father and daughter is entirely normal.
And when Jade tries to speak and her voice comes out raspy, trembling, I do it for her, “Why the fuck do you care?”
Our father snorts, then drops his knuckles to the top of Jade’s head, digging his grimy fingers into her skull. She raises her shoulders to her ears, closing in on herself, trying to counteract the pain I know would be vibrating from her neck to her spine.
“Dad, you're hurting me,” she whimpers.
And he doesn’t listen.
“Boys like brains, Jadey.” He digs his knuckles deeper, and the veins in my arms start to pulse with rage.
The steel edge to our father’s tone freezes Jade. “Be a lady, do you understand me? Don’t fucking embarrass me.”
Jade remains silent, and it’s the last response our father would want, because the sadistic prick doesn’t get off when he’s forced to fight with himself.
I take one measured, wary step toward Jade, anticipating the incoming eruption, and my uncle tries to stop me, his clammy palm wrapping around my bicep. But I’m quick to shrug him off.
My eyes remain locked on my father’s, ready to jump, ready to spill blood.
A drop of rain splatters on my cheekbone, followed closely by another, trying to falter my intention. I don’t shove them away. I let them crawl down my face.
My father’s hand is quick when he wraps it around Jade’s jaw, yanking her closer to him with a force that makes my entire scalp prickle.
“Did you hear me? Or do I have to make it a little clearer, my princess?” he spits the last word out like it’s something bitter and poisonous, pinning her with a look of unbridled hatred.
Silence crawls, then, “Why do you always hurt us?” Jade asks so quietly I barely hear it. A tear rolls down her cheek and when our father tightens his grip, they only fall harder and quicker.
Her chest jolts as she tries to stop them.
I take a step closer when he begins to whisper, “You are just like your mother, a useless—”
Then, I dive.
My arms coil around my father’s core, taking him to the ground. The earth beneath our bodies cracks and I scurry until I’m perched directly over his torso. Both of my hands wrap around his throat and as I start to squeeze, he does the same to me.
His dark eyes latch onto mine and the challenge in them is nothing but sinister.
His smile, malevolent.
The picture staring back at me is pure evil, and the chill that breaks out across the base of my neck is something I haven’t felt for years, not since…no.
I squeeze my eyes closed, try to blink the memory away and when I open them, he spits in my face. That move surprises me enough that I don’t register he’s crunched upward, cracking his forehead to mine.
Stars burst in front of my eyes, darkness crawling across the corners. The thud that echoes off all four walls of my skull sends me off-kilter.
A tug on my arm brings me back, and I find my mother’s eyes in the distance. She’s walking around the side of the house, her hand curled in Kristen’s as they watch my uncle peel me off my father; as if I’m the monster.
I shove him off me, spitting on the ground, wiping the back of my hand over my mouth, fixing my T-shirt on my shoulders as I turn to look at him.
“Let it go, hmmm,” I seethe toward Nick, and he stays silent, running a collected palm down the length of his face.
I’d told him about our father—his brother—a couple of years ago when I thought I could trust him, when I thought someone could be there for us. He’d brushed it off, and told me to let it go. I wouldn’t let it go, not ever.
I throw my hands out. “You just gonna let that go…”
A pause, then nothing else but silence.
I shake my head in disgust. “Fucking coward.”
And Uncle Nick looks straight through me.
I scoff, work my jaw, turn back around, my breath like fire in my lungs. I want to scratch our shared blood from my veins.
My father’s weak ass is still on the ground. He is laughing, and I step forward, reeling my leg back, kicking a cloud of loose dirt into his face before taking my foot to the center of his stomach, making sure he chokes on it.
“Fucking trash,” I rasp, and he chokes on another laugh, curling over, cradling the ribs I hopefully snapped.
I move toward Jade, my arm trembling when I wrap it around her, pulling her into my side and guiding us to my old red beat-up truck parked in the front.
“You're gonna regret that, boy!” my father shouts, laughing harder as if he’s thoroughly enjoying every minute of this familial quarrel.
And I don’t reply, hauling the passenger door open with a little too much force, the steel almost falling off the hinges, springing back, a clean attempt to take me out.
I stop it with my back and jerk my head toward the old fabric seat.
Jade climbs in, and I slam it shut, before doing the same, then shoving my key into the ignition.
The engine roars to life, along with “Already Dead” by I Prevail.
I shiver, throwing my arm over the back of the passenger seat and ripping out of the driveway. I hammer the gas, spin the steering wheel roughly in the palm of my hand and whisper on a growl, “I never should have missed.”