Just black.
40
MADISON
Ishould feel something.
Anger. Sadness. Relief. Anything.
But all I feel is hollow. Empty. Like I lost something before I even had the chance to fully hold it in my hands.
I should be used to this feeling by now; it’s not the first time I’ve had someone ripped away from me.
I was twelve when my mom died, twelve when I sat beside her in that sterile hospital room, her frail hand resting limply in mine, her body so different from the mother I used to know. Cancer stole everything from her—her smile, her strength, the warmth that used to live in her hazel eyes, the same ones I inherited.
The ones that now only seem to reflect pain.
I’d held onto her fingers so tightly that day, as if my grip alone could keep her here, as if the force of my love could fight something as merciless as stage four cancer.
It couldn’t.
It never could.
She took her last breath while I sat beside her, a part of my soul breaking with her as the monitors flatlined.
And my dad?
He was supposed to be the one to take care of me, to be my safe place.
Instead, he destroyed me.
It started with the drinking.
At first, it was just bottles left out, slurred words, forgotten dinners. Eventually, it became more. He stopped paying the bills, stopped coming home some nights.
And then came the anger.
The shouting.
The slamming of doors. The violent rage that burned in his eyes when the grief got too heavy, when he needed something—someone—to blame.
That someone was always me.
The first time he hit me, I convinced myself it was a mistake, that he was just hurting, that he didn’t mean it.
But the bruises kept coming, and I learned real fast that mistakes don’t happen over and over again.
I kept my head down. I stopped speaking unless spoken to. I did everything I could to avoid setting him off, to avoid the way his hands—the same hands that used to tuck me in at night—left bruises on my skin.
But it was never enough. One night, he got behind the wheel drunk.
I was in the passenger seat, begging him to stop, to slow down, to let me call someone to come get us.
He didn’t listen.
He never listened.
The impact came fast. One moment, I was gripping the seatbelt so hard, my knuckles turned white, and the next, everything was flipping. Glass shattered. Metal twisted.
