33. Kinleigh
THIRTY-THREE
KINLEIGH
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO.
My knee aches, and I grab it with both hands, hoping the pressure absorbs some of the throb. The door slams and I whip backward, eyes wide as I wait for the boots to appear. A moment later, they stroll through, the ornate metal toe ominous at this angle. Then again, they’re ominous at any angle when he’s wearing them.
His favorite pair.
The ones that hurt the most.
I cup my palm over my mouth, hopeful to quiet my already shuddered breathing. I didn’t expect him to be home early. He never comes home early on Tuesdays. I know because I write his schedule in my diary, so I know when I have time to run out to the pond after school.
I had today, because school was bad. The kids were mean. A boy stole my sandwich and stomped on it, while another boy called me an orphan because my mother didn’t drive me to school.
All I wanted to do was pick dandelions by the pond and make myself a necklace.
He didn’t want me by the water all alone. I could’ve drowned, he said. He didn’t wanna whoop me, he said, didn’t want to punish me. But my ignorance forced his hand, and after the first few blows, I ran.
I’ve never run from him before. Never.
He never used to hit me.
Scare me with his voice? Yes. Frighten me with threats? Always. But actually put his hands on me and cause me bodily harm? It’s new in the last few weeks, and I’m terrified.
I don’t like being hit and worse, I don’t like being scared at home. My bedroom door doesn’t have a lock. I have nowhere to go where I can close my eyes and feel okay.
I tripped as I ran up the stairs, and my knee has been aching since. But I stay clambered beneath my bed, hopeful that if he chooses to look under, I’ll be covered by hat boxes and stacks of magazines.
The boots stay at the foot of my bed, and my heart beats frantically.
Then it happens. Without warning, he reaches beneath the bed and fills his hand with my hair, yanking me as hard as he can. He pulls me so hard that my head slams against the beam beneath the bed, forcing me to duck so he can drag me out. Blood trickles from the cut in my hairline, slithering down my cheek like a tear. I can’t cry, though.
I think I’m in shock.
My father grabs me from the floor and throws me onto my bed, and I bounce off the mattress into the wall, only to crumple onto the bed again. “This is my goddamn house, my goddamn rules,” he shouts, the vein in his forehead throbbing to the beat of every angered word.
“You want to run off? You do that when you have a house,” he growls, his fingers tracing the buckle of his belt as his bloodshot eyes come to mine. Sickness crawls up my throat, the way I feel when I have a tummy bug. I don’t know if it’s because somewhere, deep down, I know I’m going to be whipped despite the fact I never have before, or if it’s the hit against the bed frame or wall, but I drag myself to the edge of the mattress and vomit.
Forrest curses at me, the cool glide of leather against denim making hairs on my neck rise as he yanks his belt free from the loops. The belt comes across my thighs then my stomach. I twist and writhe on the bed, pained hisses slipping past my lips as I struggle to stay quiet. Something tells me if I’m loud, I’ll get it worse.
“What am I saying?” my father questions rhetorically, this time wrapping the belt around my throat as he drags me to the edge of the bed. I’ll have to wear turtlenecks for a week to hide this. His arm shakes as he lifts me up, air draining from my lungs. My toes graze the carpeted floor as he strangles me freely. “You’ll never have a home of your own. You’re too lazy and stupid. Just like the whore that gave birth to you.”
I don’t know what happened next.
I remember the warmth spreading through my pants, and how just a few minutes later, I felt very, very cold. I remember waking to Neely’s voice, hearing him say I pissed myself, though I don’t know. I can’t remember anything.
When I’m finally awake, I can’t stop replaying it all in my mind. The way my father hurt me, so easily. And it’s then I realize, I can never disobey him again.
Or he’ll kill me.