Chapter 3 #2
Two eyes of the prettiest color in the world blinked my way—twice.
“How old are you?” I wondered, sensing it was much younger than he appeared.
Woody lifted his hands. A thumb and four fingers on his right hand floated into the air, along with two on his left.
Seven. This boy was stuck in the past. I struggled to keep my stare looking as even as possible as my eyes tried to bulge in my head and my mouth dropped.
I took a minute, offering a sad smile during the silence.
“How old is Woodrow?” I asked, wondering if they were the right words to use. I already knew the answer, but I wanted to see the response.
His fingers flashed again, full hands, and then another flash. A thumb and four fingers on one hand, two on the other. Seventeen.
I blinked in confusion, taking in the silent statements. I had no idea what to say next, no idea how to befriend a teenager who thought he was a small child.
“How do you wake Woodrow up from his rest?” I asked, my fingers playing with the pretty white flowers at my side. His eyes locked there.
“You can’t. He’ll wake on his own, when he’s feeling better, not before. We aren’t meant to interfere. You don’t want to unleash Hell.” Nessie mouthed the last word, following her brother’s previous instructions of not saying it allowed.
Her little face was different now—paler than before. Her pretty features, laced in dread and worry as anxiety pulled her happiness away from her playtime.
Hell. . . the name rang in my head, thinking how strange a name it was for a person, but I didn’t question it.
I kept all my questions inside, burning with the desire to know all the answers but afraid to ask.
Afraid to voice the word. . . because they were afraid.
The siblings at my side sat frozen, waiting to see if it would slip through my lips, but I sucked my lips inside my mouth, and I shook my head, allowing them to relax a little.
“Let’s get back to our game,” Nessie said with a smile, this one mimicking so many of mine—false.
Woody
So many hours had passed. Dinnertime was getting close, but nothing had been mentioned of it.
The temperature lowered as the sun prepared to move its shine to another part of the world.
Jolie’s long hair bounced in the wind; I’d never seen the style before. Her strands were somewhere between a curl and something else—I didn’t know the right word. . . but her hair fascinated me, just like everything else about her.
I’d watched her all day, paying less and less attention to the toys or the game I was playing with Nessie prior to her arrival.
I guess, this is a childhood crush, I thought to myself.
Jolie’s pretty face had a smile, but it wasn’t real. I couldn’t say how I knew; I didn’t know much about anything, but I knew that was true. It was a painted expression like the fixed face of the figure still in my lap.
My smile was false, too, even as I looked over her pretty face and watched as her fingers played in her hair. I was hiding the pain my father caused me this morning. I had no idea what put him in a mood. Woodrow had gotten us out of bed, and he was still at the front arriving downstairs.
Daddy had woken up grumpy and he behaved awfully this morning at breakfast, treating Woodrow so badly. I had no idea how his shouting hadn’t woken Jolie. She was either super tired or she had chosen to ignore it. . . just like my momma.
Daddy wanted to unleash Hell, who he was only brave enough to face after he’d been drinking his bottled drinks, the ones I wasn’t allowed to touch. Those drinks made him angrier, somehow.
And he’d been drinking them today.
He tried to wake Hell by saying horrible things to Woodrow, but he got me instead. It was always a gamble—no one knew who’d come to the surface, not until they floated to the top.
Daddy was still screaming when I got to the surface. He didn’t stop when he realized it was me. He didn’t stop when he felt my fear and dread. He grew angrier. He grabbed me and shook me. . . before he put his fist to my throat.
He told me I was a f-word disappointment. That he’d had enough of me yesterday and the day before, and didn’t want me back for a third day running.
He hit me again, and when I asked him to stop, he hit me harder.
Before I knew it, his fingers were closing around my throat, and I couldn’t breathe.
Nessie was panicking, and it was only because of her he stopped.
She was making too much noise. And for whatever reason, he wanted her quiet.
So, he stepped away from where he had me pinned to the floor, and told her to get me out of his sight.
She looked terrified. And I hated him for that.
For a while, I hated her, too. Hated that she never got hurt the way I did. Hated that she only got love. . . but she gave love too, so over time, my feelings changed, and she became the person I’d do anything in the world for.
She brought me an ice pack from the freezer while my mother did nothing to help me. The bag of crushed ice helped with the swelling but the pain was still present.
My gaze drifted her way, watching her now—still in the grass, a fresh smile on her lips.
The tiny fingers of my sister plucked the petals from a daisy, dying in the fading sunlight. Darkness was looming near, casting shadows over our heads. The largest shadow, created by a graying cloud above, overcast the pretty scene of our home.
“Shall we pluck more?” my little sister’s voice questioned, her smile making her tone light and airy like the summer breeze.
“We shouldn’t pull out flowers for no reason; they die,” Jolie told her.
“They die?”
“They do. . . without a purpose.”
I knew her words had an alternative meaning, but I knew nothing about her, so I had no clue what that purpose was. And I couldn’t ask. . . she had a pain in her heart that hurt me each time a tear appeared in her eyes.
And I saw too much of it because she was all I focused on. After hours out here, I was starting to bore of our game.
But I didn’t want to go home.
I wanted to stay until the darkest shadows of the night came out to play, and I wanted them to steal me, so I’d never have to set foot in that house again.
I shifted to stare into the distance, to the veranda where my father stood surrounded by a billow of smoke.
Letting my eyes sit on him brought all the pain back, and suddenly, my throat started hurting more.
He was still there, standing on the veranda when I turned away.
I turned back, hoping he’d disappear, but he hadn’t. His eyes fixed on the image ahead of him—us. A smile I couldn’t see sat on his lips.
“I’ll see you inside, kid. I want everyone in before six p.m.!” he shouted across the lawn, and he was loud enough for me to hear.
I blinked twice, silently stressing myself stupid over concerns with the time. I had no watch on my wrist, and no ability to read it even if one did magically appear. Not without Woodrow. And today, he was so lost inside me, I couldn’t even feel him there.
A feeling of uselessness washed over me as my attention moved back to the girls. I struggled with everything; reading, writing, and often wondered how Woodrow and Hell knew so much more when we shared the same brain. I wondered how I didn’t have access to their thoughts.
I couldn’t even imagine how Woodrow could even spell his own name. Of course, it didn’t help that our parents had signed his birth certificate with a name like Woodrow. They must have hated him from the moment he began to exist. That was certainly how they felt about me.
My name, given to me by Nessie, was something I was grateful for. Grateful that it was written on so many of my toys, so I had help when I had to learn to spell it.
I glanced around to the sound of the glass door swinging shut; my father was lazy, with a little too much weight around his stomach because he did very little for himself.
A man who never ever closed the doors behind him.
My mother was the opposite—looking like her body would snap at any second as she constantly walked around behind him, vexed and stressed by his every half-assed move, cleaning up his mess and righting his wrongs.
But she never voiced her anger for him. . . only me.
I tried my best to be well behaved, be the son she wanted me to be. But I couldn’t. Because she never wanted a son, at all.
I was worthless to her. A skinny runt. Long-legged and lanky, starved of nutrients, vitamins, love. Woodrow believed we were neglected, mentally and physically. We hadn’t been to a hospital in years, despite the issue with our throat making life a painful chore.
By trade, my father was some kind of doctor. . . or by qualifications, at least, but he no longer worked that job, and had no interest in assessing the pain I was constantly in.
He had another job now, something to do with traffic management.
. . something that paid much more than a medical practice.
Something he wanted me involved in. Something I knew nothing about.
He said that didn’t matter, that my looks would be enough, enough to draw attention, enough to attract those with dollar signs stamped in their blood.
He once told me, during his abuse, he was molding me, creating a future for me that would bring in lots of money, but there were times where my body felt so weak that I felt I wouldn’t even make it to that future. . . but still, he wouldn’t help.
That hurt me.
I needed those thoughts out of my head. I needed all thoughts of him as far away from me as possible.
“It’s time to go inside. Daddy said to be in before six.” I spoke with confidence, acting like I had some idea of the time.
I was the first to my feet, eager not to disappoint my father for the second time today.
Nessie’s little arm waved Jolie inside as she rushed away, leaving her toys in the grass ready for tomorrow’s playdate. . . “Come on, Jolie; we can play upstairs after dinner.”
I left my toys behind, too, following the delicate footprints my sister left in her shadow.