Page 7

I was riding high on a cloud far, far, far above the house or town I had grown up in.

I finished mowing the yard with a stupid, dreamy smile on my face, remembering the feeling of Laura’s lips against mine.

I had never kissed a girl, had never wanted to outside of the fantasies that kept me up at night.

But in that moment behind the tree, it hadn’t just been a want , but a desperate need .

Nothing in the world had mattered more than knowing what it’d be like to kiss her, and I felt it still as I pushed the lawn mower back into the garage and closed the door.

I was so happy , and I was convinced there wasn’t a way I could be any happier.

It wasn’t until I went inside and remembered that I wasn’t living on a cloud far from home that the happiness faded away to nothing, leaving quicker than it had come.

I was still here . In this house, where we walked on broken glass under a reign of tyranny .

My father wasn’t in the living room, where I had expected him to be, and he wasn’t in the kitchen either.

I knew better than to check his office—that hallway was forbidden—but not knowing his whereabouts rested uncomfortably in my chest, my heart racing and my gut bubbling with trepidation, yet I didn’t want to seek him out.

I’m eighteen. I can leave , I thought. No, I hadn’t graduated from high school yet, but that was okay. I could run; I could disappear. I could start over somewhere else, somewhere Dad could never find me. I mean, shit, would he even care enough to look ?

But … no . I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t abandon Lucy and Grace. They were fine as long as I was around to be my father’s punching bag. I had to stay for them, even if staying felt a lot like accepting my own death.

I waited there in the living room for a few minutes longer before deciding to take a shower.

I had to get to the grocery store; there were still things to do.

So, I went upstairs to my room, where the door was closed, just as I had left it.

Dad preferred it that way. He liked a uniform hallway—all doors shut at all times.

When I turned the doorknob, there he was.

Sitting on my bed.

Dracula in hand.

I froze, standing there in the open doorway, staring at my father and that book he had no business holding.

It was mine .

“What are you doing in here?” I asked on a held breath, my chest tight and my mouth dry .

Dad looked up, an expression of nonchalance on his face. “This is my house, Maxwell. I can go anywhere I want.”

“But it’s my room ,” I protested, as if it made any kind of difference.

He tipped his head, and his eyes flashed with anger. “No. It is my room in my house that I have been so kind to let you use .”

I opened my mouth to say something else, to argue further and stake my claim on this space that I thought had been mine since birth.

But then he looked down at the page opened before him and read, " Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss—and man is weak. ” He lifted his head again to bore his eyes through me. "Are you weak, Maxwell?"

I swallowed, but I didn't speak. I didn't move. I remained still, watching as my father rose from the bed, clenching the book in his raised hand.

"Answer me!" he roared, and I flinched for a fraction of a second. "Are you weak, boy?! Does that pretty little thing I saw you kissing outside make you weak ?!"

I gritted my teeth and stared into his eyes, now wild with rage. "Don't talk about her."

He cocked his head and took a step toward me as he raised the book higher and brought it down, hitting me squarely in the shoulder. I buckled under the abrupt strike, but straightened almost immediately.

"I will talk about whoever or whatever I want. Do I make myself clear?! "

He struck again with a backhanded swing, clocking my ear. Blinding pain pulsed through the side of my head as a loud, echoing ring filled the room. I brought my hand up to cover the radiating heat with my palm and felt something warm and wet.

I'm bleeding.

"Dad—"

"You do not have any control over me, you worthless, ungrateful piece of shit!" he bellowed, bringing the book down again and again, and all I could do was lift my hands to block the blows as the sharp, throbbing, agonizing pain in my ear continued endlessly.

"Stop!" I begged, burrowing my head beneath my bent arms.

And to my surprise … he did.

He took a step back, his breath coming out in short bursts, the book hanging limp in his hand.

"Look at you, cowering before me. What a sorry, pathetic excuse for a man.

You are weak. All these years, all that work I put into making you strong, thickening your skin …

and you're as pathetic and weak as the woman who raised you. Is that what you want?!"

I lowered my arms and straightened my spine, standing tall as I steadied my lungs and my quivering bottom lip. Keeping my face straight through the pain and blood streaming down my neck.

Dad's face was red, his eyes wild with madness and fury as he lifted the book again and shook it in my face, and this time, I didn't flinch.

"It's because you read this trash, isn't it?

! Where did this come from anyway?!" It was a rhetorical question.

He didn't care for me to answer, and he continued, "You want to live your life on your back, on your knees , like a woman?

! Like a pussy ?! Are you a pussy, Maxwell?

Is that how I raised you?! To read trash like this"—he frantically opened the book and shook out the pages—"and fuck other pussies like you? !"

I knew better than to reply. I knew better than to protest or deny when he was in the throes of one of his manic tirades.

But then he clenched the book in one hand, gripped a chunk of pages in the other, and tore them out.

And suddenly, that pain in my ear no longer mattered.

Because that book—that beautiful, wonderful book—was the one thing I had that was truly mine.

It was the one thing he hadn't known about, the one piece of physical evidence that someone had at some point cared about me, and he was proving yet again that he didn't.

Blinding rage washed over me as the ripped pages fluttered to the ground, and he tore out another handful.

I hunched over and rushed at him, ramming my head into his gut as hard as I could and ignoring the burst of pain that sliced down the side of my face from my injured ear.

I tackled him to the ground with a twin set of grunts and groans as we rolled and tussled over the carpet, until I was on top.

I raised my fist and brought it down, punching him in the face once, twice, as tears streamed down my face and spittle flew from my mouth with an incoherent string of curses and insults. "Fucking piece of shit. Worthless asshole. Intolerant, sorry fucking bastard! "

I punched him again, blind to his arm slowly rising, the book still in hand. And I didn't see it coming when he struck me again over my oozing, bleeding ear.

I cried out and held my hand up, and he shoved me off. I fell to the floor, clutching the side of my head and crying out from the pain and overwhelming weight of sadness that came from my book—my fucking beautiful book—being destroyed.

Dad stood, wiped a hand below his bloody nose, and spit a wad of blood and phlegm onto my chest.

"Like I said," he grunted, then spit again, " weak ."

***

I didn't want to go to school on Monday.

I didn't want to face Ricky, knowing that the book he had given me was still shredded on the floor of my room. I didn't want to see Laura, whose lips were still soft and perfect, but the memory of them was now tainted by my father's brutal belligerence.

He ruined everything.

He always ruined everything.

But I had to go to school because they would've called my father at work if I hadn't. And facing his wrath again so soon was about as appealing as sticking my hand in the garbage disposal.

So, I walked into school with my head hung low.

I avoided the eye of everyone who passed, afraid they’d sense the beating I’d endured just two days ago or how the hearing in my right ear had been muffled ever since.

I walked to my locker, miserable and bruised, and as I unlocked it to stuff my backpack inside, Ricky leaned against the closed locker beside mine.

“Hey, man,” he said, nudging his knuckles against my shoulder, right on one of my hidden bruises.

“Hey,” I muttered, keeping my eyes trained on the contents of my locker.

“So, Molly told me you kissed Laura.”

I swallowed, wondering what else Molly knew. “Yeah.”

He leaned his head back against the cold metal and sighed wistfully. “Feels like just the other day when you were an innocent little boy, a fragile cherub. Never kissed, never—"

“Yeah, I know. It’s fucking pathetic.”

Ricky changed his stance abruptly. Pushing off the locker to stand straight beside me. He leaned against his arm, bringing his face close to mine.

“What happened?”

I ground my molars together. “Nothing.”

“No. This”—he gestured toward my face, my body—“isn’t nothing . What happened? Was it your dad? What did he do?”

God, I hated how much he cared. Life was so much easier when nobody gave a crap. It made it easier to keep a straight face, to push through. But this interrogation, that look he was giving me … I needed him to stop, or I was going to lose it in this fucking hallway.

“Max?”

“Go away, Ricky,” I told him, slamming my locker door and spinning the combination lock shut.

“What the hell? ”

As I stormed off, I thought about my fourteenth birthday.

The day we had become real friends. The day he gave me Dracula and invited me over to his house and his mom made me two grilled cheese sandwiches.

That had been nearly four years ago, and it was the best day of my life.

When was I going to have another good day?

Would I ever be allowed to be happy again?