Pushing him off me, I grip his jaw and snap a picture.
I’ve never seen Cole so helpless.
So utterly delicious.
So mine.
“Sleep well, big brother.”
He collapses back onto the bed, and I pick up Mia, cradling her against my chest. She snores softly, limp in my arms.
I take one final look at the destruction I caused, seeing Cole asleep, and Allie curled up on the floor.
With a final grin and a shake of my head, I walk out.
If he wants to ruin my squeaky-clean reputation with a video, I’ll happily implode his world too. If I’m going down, he’s sure as hell going down with me.
There’s a crashing sound coming from outside my room that pulls me from my sleep, the door thrown open, making me tense everywhere.
“Did you spill my fucking coffee?” Dad asks in a firm, angry tone.
I kick off my duvet and hurry to get under my bed like I always do when he’s mad. He’s scary when he’s drunk – and he’s always drunk.
Mom pulls his shoulder, trying to drag my dad away from coming for me. “I told you it wasn’t him! It’s only damn coffee, Malcolm! It’s three in the morning, go to bed!”
“Stop fucking lying for him!”
“I’m not! Please don’t hurt him. He’s only ten years old. Please, please don’t hurt him. It’s only coffee. You need to stop?—”
I cover my ears and press my face into the dust-infested carpet the second I hear the slap and my mom crying out. She falls to the floor, facing me with a trickle of blood coming from her nose. Her eyes are telling me to run, to remember what we talked about when he was like this a few days ago.
I’m scared. I love my dad, but sometimes, when he drinks too much beer, he changes. He shouts, breaks things, and when Mom tries to stop him, he hits her.
If I don’t hide on time, sometimes he hits me.
Dad grabs her by the hair and yanks her to her feet, and I take the opportunity to crawl from under the bed and run, just like my mom told me to do.
I want to help her, but she’d made me promise to get out of the house and go straight to the neighbor’s place before he gets more violent. If I try to help, I’ll only get hurt again. My arm is still sore from when he broke it nearly a year ago.
He told Mom I fell off the trampoline, but I didn’t. He lied. He always lies, and then blames everything on me.
My bare feet smack the ground as I run as fast as I can, reaching Mom’s phone, then rushing down the stairs, pausing when I hear a loud scream. I step forward and freeze, a tear slipping down my cheek before I turn and leave the house.
I bang my small fist on the neighbor’s front door, full-blown crying now, still hearing my mom’s cries for him to stop. The door flies open, and I gasp as my dad grabs my face and drags me into the darkness.
My entire body flinches as I jolt awake in a confused state.
I’m struggling to fill my lungs, a thick layer of sweat all over me.
Hair tickles my nose, and there’s a weight on my chest that stops me from sitting up. I’m weak, breathless, and everything hurts like I’ve been struck by a fucking car. My vision is still completely nonexistent, and I can smell sex everywhere.
There’s a bitter taste in my mouth, a mix of alcohol and something else.
I blink a few times, groaning when my head aches, and slip in and out of consciousness while battling with reality. I can’t fallback into that dream. I can’t. I’ll fucking lose my mind if I need to re-live that memory ever again.
Not that my dad was ever arrested for being an abusive asshole. He talked his way out of everything, since the only evidence was the word of a kid and a few bruises on my mom’s face that could have been self-inflicted. She was a nurse, after all, so she healed our wounds.
And my dad was a cop. Still is. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since I was a teenager.
