Page 25 of Collided

Please let me go.

Don’t hurt me like you used to hurt Mom.

This isn’t that night. He won’t kill me.

Why is it happening?

Dark eyes bore into mine. I try to find my father in them, but I don’t. This man isn’t the father who never abused me. Right now, he’s the man who’s looking for a bottle and is tuned out.

I always imagined what I’d do if he returned; how things would change, how time and space would give him some perspective, how he’d become a better man and treat Mom better.

This isn’t how I imagined it. He’s even worse than before.

I didn’t want to believe Nadina, but now, seeing him with my own eyes I’m having a hard time trying to grasp the truth.

My hands clamp around his wrist, and I try to get him off me.

My eyes fill with tears and blur my sight. But I keep trying.

“Please,” I beg.

Something snaps in him, and he lets go of me. He stands there and watches me, then storms out of the house.

Oh my God.

What just happened?

In disbelief, I sit down on the floor. My heart is beating so loud.

Opening my mouth, I attempt to inhale oxygen, but I get nothing. It’s like smoke is everywhere or all the air has been sucked out of the room, and there's a vacuum around me; something I only studied in Physics but never thought I’d experience in real life.

What just happened?

Wiping my tears away, I stand up by holding the edge of the counter, then lean against it.

Dad never touched me before. He always lashed out at Mom but never directed violence toward me. The most I got from him was a mean glare.

When I watched him choke her that night three months ago, I realized, perhaps, he was filled with darkness. Darkness thatlove can’t erase. Whatever he was dealing with at work, he projected it at home on her but never me.

What just happened?

My mind rewinds the last ten minutes trying to piece everything together. Nothing makes sense.

My neck hurts, and my throat feels like it’s been bruised from the inside.

Picking up the pots I put them in the sink to wash them. One of the dishes is broken, so I throw away the pieces. Turning on the tap I wash everything and then tidy the kitchen. I do everything on autopilot.

A while later, I lie in my bed and pull the covers over me. My novel is long forgotten.

One part of my brain tells me to warn Mom, but the other side screams not to. She’ll take him back and he’s in no state to return. He’s even worse than when he left.

He attacked me.

Some sick part of me was happy that he left. We were free of him.

I loved my father when I was very little, but when he started hitting Mom, that love disappeared. Tonight, he tried to choke me, and my heart is just filled with hatred and anger for him.

Is he going to come back?

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