Yep, happy fucking birthday to me.
Freedom was so close; waiting for me upstairs were my boys hidden in their little closet. They were waiting for me to open that door, gather them close and tell them everything was fine, that we were free.
I couldn’t let him beat me to death; yes, it had always been a literal dream of mine to give in and let the sweet release of death take me away from this sick world, but I had them now.
I gritted my teeth in anger and pain, the rage that boiled the blood in my veins always calling me to answer. I held in the need to climb to my raw knees, lift a piece of that leaking pipe and swing it at his greasy head, to keep swinging until all that was left was a pile of brain matter and his blood staining the concrete of this delightful basement. My head was always noisy, always full of dark and dangerous thoughts that I’m sure would have worried others.
I tried to stave off these desires with the true crime books, immersing myself in their horror and gore, but all it did was feed whatever was inside me. Those books were more like instructions on what you could and couldn’t get away with than working out what happened.
My face stretched into what I knew would be a deranged swollen smile at the thought of Lyal and his brains spread across the floor.
“This is funny to you? This is ALL YOUR FAULT!” He roared as he slammed his foot down onto my face. One of my eyes was now unable to fully open. The pain was pulsing through every inch of me.
He was always ranting and raving about things being my fault, how I didn’t do anything right. I literally had no idea what he was on about. He was just a disgusting, mean, abusive drunk. When I asked, I always landed up here, staring at that damn leaking pipe.
Another one of my fantasies was a blade to his throat, slicing his chubby neck open and watching as the life drained from his meat sack sounded heavenly.
He wasn’t the only person I had those fantasies about; most of the town had their deaths planned out, by me of course. Each one perfectly thought out, each intricate detail planned. I had suffocations, mutilations, acid coffee and so on and so forth. Now I wasn’t some kind of head case, as these plans were only for the people who genuinely deserved it: child abusers, bullies, ignorant sheriff’s and bitch social workers.
Yes, I know I had a problem.
But I knew I couldn’t act on these wonderful thoughts, because the boys upstairs needed me, and we were oh so close to being free.
We had plans, plans to get the fuck out of this damned town. The time we tried to run before had landed up with beatings similar to these, and it had been really damn hard to hide the twins from his anger then. So we figured, once I was eighteen, they couldn’t search for us, because I would be legally an adult and didn’t need to stay with Lyal. The brothers had no legal paperwork, no birth certificates nor foster forms, nothing. I knewthat social worker bitch had stolen them from somewhere and given them to Lyal. I just had never been able to figure out why. There was nothing in his office; I had ransacked the house looking and nothing could be found.
However, it worked to our advantage I suppose, because without them having paperwork, we could run. We just needed to wait until midnight, to get this beating over with and sneak out when Lyal was exhausted and passed out in his armchair with his whisky.
However, it really wasn’t going to plan; the beating was taking a turn for the worse and I really feared I was going to pass out or die.
I would never let him put his hands on those boys, so I took his beatings, took his anger and days’ worth of labour. And I let it boil inside me; let it fester and grow into a hatred even he would be shocked at. Because one day, I was going to go back to Bluewater Valley, and I was going to act upon every single one of my fantasies.
My ears rang from a swift kick to the head; if he carried on, there was no way I was crawling up those steps to the boys.
The drip from the leaking pipe had now gone silent, as had his raging voice. There was nothing but a muffled screech.
I was pretty sure he’d damaged my ears.
He had to stop.
He was going too far.
I pushed to my hands on the wet floor as I heaved myself to my knees and looked at him standing there with his chest heaving, his hands clenched and his face red and sweaty.
“S-stop.” I tried to croak out. My throat was full of blood and I couldn’t hear anything but the muffled screech.
His mouth moved but no words reached me. Lip reading was impossible due to my swelling eyes and the blood and sweat dripping into them. I was an utter mess.
I squinted behind Lyal. I swore I could see a black bird watching me from the stair railing.
Was I delirious? Potentially.
Was I panicking that I was dying? Nope.
Was there a cold churning in my stomach at the thought of leaving my boys alone without me?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
I had never been afraid of being alone, of pain or the cold release of death. Of being different. But the thought of leaving them had my heart racing and mouth clenching in utter fear.
