2
Skye
With a growing sigh, I increase the volume of the music blaring from my computer until it can go no higher. I need to drown out the shouting and arguing from downstairs. I lie back on the bed and shake my leg to the music, but the movements are propelled by my anxiety.
Even over the bass ripping through the speakers, I hear my mother’s screams. I put my hands up to my ears. Bodies crash against the wall, and the sounds make it past my barriers. Wood breaks and glasses shatter in the kitchen—familiar noises.
I can’t take it anymore. I’ve listened to various versions of this for eighteen fucking years.
My hand grazes a bruise on my wrist before reaching up and touching the healing cut on my lip. My mother isn’t his only punching bag. He’s an equal opportunity abuser.
I slam the laptop shut, and silence washes over the room . . . but not over the house.
“Goddamn it!” I yell as I unlock the bedroom door and walk into the hallway. I listen for the sounds of recognizable carnage: screams and flesh on flesh. They lead me to the living room.
Blood drips from my mother’s nose and head. My father beats his wife relentlessly, unaware that I’m standing behind him. He releases an otherworldly grunt as he slams his fist into her face, and her eyes roll behind her eyelids. I always said he would kill her one day, but it’s not going to be today.
His actions propel me. I walk into the kitchen, grabbing various knives from the block. I pick up the chef’s knife and shake my head as I rub it along the sharpener. So methodical. Pre-meditated as fuck. I’ve always said I would kill him one day, and with any luck, it will be today.
I creep into the living room. I don’t know why I tiptoe as I approach him. Even if I blow an air horn behind him, he probably won’t hear me over the crunching of my mom’s face. With a sure and steady motion, I grab his shoulder and sink the knife into his lower back. I misjudge and miss his spine.
Shame.
He throws his head back and releases a roar. His hands scramble behind his back, trying to grab the knife. His fingers graze the handle, but he can’t get a grip thanks to the oil slick of blood. He turns toward me with wild and crazed eyes. My mother yells at me. Fucking yells at me.
“Fuck you both,” I say with a flat, icy voice.
I go to the door and grab my jacket off the rack. I shrug it on and watch my father fall to his knees before collapsing onto his side. I expect this to feel better than it does, but the moment my mother screams and climbs over him, I know it’s futile. She pleads and cries while she attempts to withdraw the knife from his back—a sad sight to see.
“If you don’t want him to die, I suggest you leave it in,” I say before slamming the door behind me. Pathetic.
I walk down the street of our quiet suburban neighborhood where nothing ever happens. I stop and look at the mundane picture of my home. It looks like any other house on the block—double driveway, well-groomed landscape, and a two-car garage. Not a bit of peeling paint in sight. It looks perfect on the outside. No one knows about the devil that waits within or the wrath he unleashes upon us.
A cold rush of air wraps around me and bursts through the light jacket covering my arms. I rub them, trying to warm myself with the friction. Sirens call out, getting closer with every passing moment while I stand here. Neighbors gather outside as police cars roll up, the red and blue lights reflecting off the siding of the perfect houses.
I shake my head, knowing all too well where my mother's allegiance lies. With my father. It always has. He put me in the hospital countless times while I was growing up, and she always placed the blame anywhere other than where it belonged. With him. He’s almost killed her more times than I can count, and she still falls to his feet. At what point do I stop trying to save her and just work on saving myself?
I think it’s time.
Rolling my eyes, I walk toward my house with my hands raised. Where else am I going to go but back to face my consequences? Since I am the only one with consequences.
An officer races out of his car and draws his pistol on me. In his defense, I did attempt to murder the man. In my defense, that man is a piece of shit.
“Put your hands up!” he yells.
“They’re already up, idiot!” I shout back.
I imagine what I must look like to him. An eighteen-year-old girl who would blow away in a stiff breeze, wearing her father’s blood on her hands. Probably not a sight he sees very often, especially in this town.
The officer rushes toward me, spins me around, and encases my wrists in cold metal. I turn my head to look at him. His eyes find the bruises on my wrists—angry colors washing up my arms. For a moment, his eyes soften, but the seriousness returns when his radio reminds him of my crime.
“Be advised, we have a seventy-six with injuries. Male victim with stab wound. Suspect is the teenage daughter. Eighteen years old. Black hair. Blue eyes. Last seen wearing dark shorts. Possibly armed.”
“I’m not armed,” I say as my shirt rides up my slim waist, exposing more bruises and pale flesh beneath my open jacket. My shorts hug my body, unable to conceal a damn thing.
The officer grabs my arm and walks me toward the police car. Another officer radios in as they come out of my house. An ambulance pulls up—now that the scene is “secured.” The dangerous suspect is apprehended. But the most dangerous person is still inside that damn house.
“Is he dead?” I ask.
The officer drops his lower jaw at my question. I raise my eyebrow. I see nothing wrong with that inquiry.
“You’re lucky he isn’t,” the officer says before putting me in the back of the car and slamming the door.
The red and blue lights flash across my line of vision as I watch them take my belligerent father away in an ambulance. He’s still yelling obscenities about me, I’m sure, but I can’t hear his hateful words over the deafening thickness of the air in the back of the police car. Phantoms of real criminals haunt this place.
My sobbing mother points at me and cries hysterically. Her accusations cross the driveway and hop beside me in the car. She probably should blame me—I stabbed him—but she should also point another finger at herself for letting him be such a piece of shit.
The officer gets back in the car and puts it into drive. We head toward the station. The handcuffs slide down my wrists and slip over my hands. I wiggle out of them until the metal falls behind me. As I rub my wrists, the cop cocks an eyebrow from his rearview mirror.
“Are we going to have a problem?” he asks.
“Nah. Have you seen my wrists? You’d need some kid handcuffs to keep them from slipping off.” I look out the window, calmly watching the yellow lines disappear beneath the car. I don’t feel like an attempted murderer.
The officer shakes his head, torn between getting mad and letting my temporary freedom go unaddressed.
“Why’d you do it?” he finally asks.
“You saw my mom’s face, right?”
“How long has that been going on?” He gestures toward the bruises on my arms.
“How old am I?” I tug my coat sleeve down, heat flushing my cheeks. I’m not sure why I’m the one feeling shame when I didn’t put the bruises on myself.
“Miss . . .” He begins to speak with a compassionate sternness in his voice. Fatherly, almost. I’ve never had a real father, just this piece of shit disguised as one. He tightens his lips and halts the sentence, rethinking whatever he planned to say.
“The only way he’ll stop hurting people is if he’s in a body bag,” I say as I drop my gaze.
The officer shakes his head once more before turning back toward the windshield and staring ahead. For the rest of the trip, a thick silence hangs between the law and the lawless. He pulls into the parking lot of the police station and parks the car.
When he helps me out, he puts the handcuffs on my wrists again and tries to ratchet them tighter. He leans close to my ear as he works them closed. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
Everyone always is, but no one does a damn thing about it.