Page 38 of Vicious Behaviors

I just stand there, still, taking all these new feelings and emotions in, afraid they might suffocate me. As angry tearsstream down my cheek, I stare my father in the eyes. They look pained. As if that slap hurt him far worse than it did me. There’s guilt, shame, and regret in them, but something else, too. Something far more prominent. It’s resolve. Unshaken resolve.

When my father raises his hand again, I finally react. I push his chest back with both hands. Of course, he doesn’t move. How could he? He’s a grown man. I’m just a scrawny kid with too much rage and nowhere to put it.

“Again,” he orders.

“No!” I shout, my voice echoing off the gym walls—sharp, raw, and louder than I meant it to be.

“Again, Marcello. We’re not leaving here until you hit me!”

When he lifts his hand again with a threat of another slap, something in me snaps. I don’t hold back and punch him in the gut with all my might. He doesn’t so much as flinch. He doesn’t even move. But the moment my fist connects, something inside me lifts. Just a little.

However, I have no time to understand what is happening, since my father is yet again ordering me to do my worst.

“Again!” he barks, stepping forward and shoving me hard. I fall backward, landing on my ass in the middle of the mat.

‘HIT HIM!’ the monster in me starts to scream out. ‘HIT HIM! MAKE HIM BLEED!’

I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. I just react. I get up and just start swinging. My fists go to his stomach, his chest, anywhere I can reach. My father doesn’t block. Doesn’t dodge. He just stands there and takes it. Every single punch. And as my fists connect again and again on his tall, broad frame, I realize something. He wants me to hit him. He’s not fighting back because this isn’t about him. It’s about me.

With every hit, the angry voice inside me—the one that demanded my own father’s blood—gets quieter. It’s like every punch, every drop of sweat, lulls it to sleep. As if it’s satisfied bythe violence unleashed on someone who could take it. Like it’s finally sated and full.

Sweat starts to soak through my school shirt, my hair clings to my forehead, and my arms are so tired they tremble. I stop and drop to my knees, gasping.

And suddenly…It’s gone. The voice is gone. And I cry. Not because I miss it. I cry because I can breathe for the first time in months. I can think. I’m just…me.

I don’t know how long I stay like that—on my knees, sweat-soaked and breathless, tears slipping silently down my face. Only when I feel my father’s hands on my shoulders do I lift my head to look at him.

“How do you feel?” he asks, going to his haunches, his voice low and soft.

The cold mask my father wore before is long gone now, replaced by something kinder. Something more human.

“I feel…good,” I answer honestly. “I feel more like…myself.”

His shoulders relax even if just barely. But the softness in his features doesn’t last. It hardens again, like steel snapping back into its original shape.

“From here on out,” he says, “you’ll train here every morning before school, and every afternoon after it.”

“Okay,” I nod, completely unbothered by the idea. If this is what I must do to keep the monster at bay, then that’s what I’ll do.

“We’ll get through this, Marcello,” he mutters under his breath, pulling me into a tight embrace. “We’ll get through this. We have to.”

At first, his hug feels like safety. Like shelter. But as I sit there in his arms, something cold starts to seep in again. A different kind of fear.

Is my father scared of me? Is that why he brought me here? Does he think I might lose control again? That I might hurt the wrong person? That I might hurt our family?

The questions come all at once, no voice whispering the answers this time. Just silence. Heavy and raw. Suddenly, not having the voice to fill in the blanks for me makes me feel naked. Exposed. I know I need to control my anger. And I want to. But thinking that my father might be afraid of me? That’s worse than a slap. Worse than any shove. It breaks something inside me. A piece of my heart splinters under the weight of that thought. And I don’t know if a thousand fights will ever be enough to put it back together again.

Chapter 9

Marcello

“Marcello… Marcello… Mar?” Stella’s voice drifts through the fog of memories of the past as she gently nudges my shoulder to awaken me.

I force my eyes open, the last remnants of a nightmare still clinging to the edges of my mind like smoke.

“Hey,” I murmur.

“Hey yourself.” She chuckles. “Out of all the places to crash, I didn’t expect to find you napping in my school library.”