Chapter 4 The Past
THE PAST
AMELIA’S brEAKING POINT
The roar of voices drifted like a bomb throughout the house. I winced as I listened to my mother and Lillian snapping at each other like wild beasts.
I had sensed something terrible would happen today as soon as I saw my mom using drugs early in the morning.
Nothing good ever emerged from a drug binge.
“What is your fucking problem, Mom?”
“You are my problem! You kids ruined my fucking life!”
Something metal crashed against the wall, sending a jarring sound echoing through the house. Silence followed, then cries and more terror-filled yelling. Another object was thrown. I couldn't endure it.
Every night felt like a descent into hell, and the days were no better. I shut my eyes and let out a long breath.
One day, I would escape and never return.
The walls here were too thin, the air too thick with all the things we never said. Some days, I dreamed the drywall would collapse beneath the pressure of our secrets, bring the whole house down in a pile of splintered remains.
Then, maybe, we could start over and get it right.
But the world doesn’t give second chances to families like mine.
The tears came slow and silent. Not the racking, gasping kind, but the ones that slid out without permission, soaking the threadbare carpet under my cheek.
When the shouting dulled to a low, guttural moan, I snuck out of my room and padded down the hallway on bare feet. The carpet was sticky from some spill; I had long ago stopped asking what it was.
The living room looked like a crime scene.
Mom sat slumped on the arm of the couch, mascara smeared. Lillian lay on her stomach, clutching a throw pillow with white knuckles, lips pressed tight to keep in the animal noise.
Mom caught me in her periphery and jerked upright. “What’re you looking at?” she spat, dragging a sleeve across her wet face.
I shook my head and shrank into the wall, wishing I could melt through it.
She staggered to her feet, swaying, then advanced on Lillian, voice cracking like a whip. “I gave up everything for you ungrateful shits.”
It didn’t sound like her at all. Barely human. She was somewhere else behind her eyes, watching the scene on a busted projector while her body moved on autopilot.
Lillian rolled over, not even trying to wipe her face. There was blood at the corner of her mouth. “You never gave up anything. You just took and took.”
Mom’s hand lashed out, catching a fistful of Lillian’s hair and yanking her upright. Lillian didn’t scream, just stared back, daring Mom to hit her again.
For a second, I saw the whole past play out in their locked stares. The way Mom used to stroke Lillian’s hair and sing to her, back when warmth was still possible.
“Don’t touch me,” Lillian sobbed, flinching away. Mom’s shadow blotted out what little light leaked in from the kitchen. She bared her teeth, the shape of a woman stretched so thin that bone glimmered beneath the surface.
“I should have left you both at that hospital,” she howled. “You and your goddamn sister are leeches, every last one, just like your father.” Her fingers flexed, trembling with some animal urge.
For a moment, I thought she might strike Lillian’s bowed head, but instead she spun and hurled the nearest mug against the far wall.
Porcelain exploded, shards tinkling over the floor.
“Look at me!” she shrieked, words slurring into one another, language unraveling with her self-control.
“I could’ve been something. I could’ve had a life.
But you—both of you—just take and take and take—”
Lillian lifted her face, eyes red but cold. “That’s enough, Mom. You’re high.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, you little—”
“Enough!” Lillian’s voice had the sharp edge, and for a split second, Mom reeled back in surprise.
Somewhere in the kitchen, a faucet dripped. The smell of wine, sweat, and bitter narcotics filled my nose.
I felt myself floating above it all, watching from the cracked paint of the ceiling, like a ghost haunting the wreckage of the only home I’d ever known.
Mom let go of the fight and stumbled into the kitchen, just barely missing the doorframe.
I wanted to follow her, to see if the monster had eaten her whole or if there was a scrap of my mother left in there, but Lillian curled a hand around my wrist and pulled me down next to her on the floor.
I let her, my body loose and numb.
We listened to the sounds of pill bottles being shaken, cabinet doors slamming.
The refrigerator opened, then shut. A glass fell and shattered. The kitchen light flicked off and on, off and on, in a sick little rhythm.
A scream built behind my teeth, but I buried it and let my eyes burn instead. Someday, I would scream until the world heard me, until someone came to dig me out from beneath all this ash.
I waited until the house fell into a dead hush.
My mother was passed out and left a mess. We were the ones that had to clean up after her drug-infused rage.
The only noise was Lillian breathing, slow and uneven, like she was learning how for the first time. I reached over and squeezed her hand, and after a moment, she squeezed back.
We didn’t say anything. We didn’t have to. I wanted to comfort her, to say that I would always be there.
But I couldn’t speak, because words meant nothing in this house. Words were walls and doors, things to be locked and battered down.
I slipped out the back door, my phone cold in my hand. My legs took me down the block, where the pavement burned with memories and the streetlights flickered on like nervous glances.
I texted Dante on my flip-phone with trembling fingers.
Amelia: Can I come over?
Dante: Dad’s not here. Mom’s home but she won’t bother us. Want me to meet you halfway?
Amelia: No I need to walk. See you soon.
I let the phone drop into my pocket and moved through the dusk as if the air would swallow me.
The town was quiet, all the houses dark and hunched against the coming cold. The only sound was the soft thwack of my shoes and, far off, a siren screaming for nobody in particular.
His house was exactly two blocks away. The paint had peeled back to gray in most places, and the front walk was littered with busted yard toys and last year’s Christmas lights.
But it was warm inside, and I could pretend, for an hour or two, that I belonged somewhere.
Dante answered the door before I could knock. He wore a frayed T-shirt and sweatpants, hair wet from a recent shower.
“You okay?” he whispered, but I shook my head and stepped past him into the warmth.
We didn’t go to his room, because his mom’s bedroom was right across the hall and he said the walls were thin.
Instead, we headed down to the basement where Dante’s dad kept a pool table, a couch and a battered old TV. It was cold and smelled like laundry soap, but I didn’t mind.
Down here, the world above felt impossibly far away.
Dante led me to the far corner, away from the naked bulb and the mildewed laundry basket and gestured for me to sit on the threadbare couch.
He grabbed a fleece blanket from the arm and draped it around my shoulders, tucking it in with a gentleness that made my eyes prickle.
Then he sat down, a careful foot or two away, and waited.
I don’t know what I looked like, but he must have seen something in my face that scared him.
He didn’t say anything right away, just drummed his fingers on his knee and watched the carpet, quiet.
There was a deep sense of panic clawing its way through my skin, as if to say, ‘you’re not safe anywhere.’
After a while, when my hands stopped shaking so bad, and my heartbeat lessened a bit. Dante offered me a can of Sprite from the mini fridge under the stairs.
I opened it and drank, the cold sweet fizz scraping the raw places in my throat.
“It was bad, huh?” Dante said, his voice a low hush.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
He reached over, slow and uncertain, and put his hand over mine. His palm was warm, and I didn’t pull away this time.
“You can stay here tonight if you want,” he said. “I’ll make up the guest bed, or we can both crash here.”
I wanted to say yes. But I also wanted to curl up and disappear, to claw my way out of my own skin and escape whatever I was carrying.
Instead, I just stared at the pool table’s green felt, torn in one corner and patched with duct tape. A perfect circle of cigarette burn in the center. I wondered if the scar would ever fade.
“My mom was scary tonight, I just need a break from it.” I admitted, ashamed of appearing so vulnerable and shaken.
He looked at me with a tenderness I didn’t deserve, that made me want to punch something, maybe even him. “You can stay as long as you need,” he said, voice full of that rare patience that I always wanted but couldn’t accept.
I tried to say thank you, but my throat squeezed shut around the words.
All my life, I had a warped sense of love.
Love wasn’t soft, kind or pure. Love was filled with screams and terror. It was bloody and dark.
I said, “If I stay here, she’ll get pissed. She’ll take it out on Lillian.”
He didn’t argue. “You could tell someone, you know. I could help.”
“I don’t want help. Not from anyone.” My own voice sounded mean, not like me. “I just want it to stop.”
There was a pause while I stared at the cracked ceiling, counting the web of pipes and the water stains spreading like bruises. I wondered if it would be easier if I just disappeared. Would my mother notice? Would Lillian feel relief?
He squeezed my hand, thumb circling the bone. “You ever want to talk about it, you can.”
“I don’t want to talk,” I said, and then, “Maybe I just want to forget.”
Dante nodded, a small, sad smile on his lips. “I could distract you. We could watch something? Or I can blast music until you can’t hear yourself think.”
He was trying. His hands were gentle, and his voice was soft, and for a moment I hated him for being kind when the world was so ugly.