Page 73 of My Vows Are Sealed

“Don’t you fuckingdarecontradict me, woman!” he roared, backhanding her across the face so hard that she stumbled into the wall.

My eyes blurred with more tears as I stood frozen in place, staring at the huge, red mark on my mom’s cheek.

My father had just hit my mother. I’dneverseen his violence directed at anyone other than me before. Ever. He’d always told me that it was my fault for making him act that way because he needed to show me the way of the Lord.

So whose fault was this? What explanation could he give that would justify hurting his wife just because she’d tried to correct his inaccurate assumptions?

“Abraham, look at your daughter!” she pleaded with him, her voice shaking as tears started to trail down her cheeks. “Look at how terrified she is!”

“Because the little whore knows the punishment for sodomy and impurity isdeath!”

“She was here!” she sobbed, reaching for his hand. “You have to believe me!”

“She conned you with her scheme of lies!” he insisted, yanking his arm away and starting to walk back toward me. “She was fucking washing the stink of a man off when I walked in the door!”

She scurried over to him, grabbing his shirt as she fell to her knees, like she was praying for her voice to break through the haze of fury surrounding him. “No! She wasn’t! She spilled wood polish while she was refinishing her craft table in her room! She was taking a shower to wash it off!”

“This daughter of Satan spun a web of deceit and you fell victim to it!” he thundered as he started to raise his hand again.

“Go look in the bathroom, Abraham! I had her leave her clothes in there until I could wash them so the polish wouldn’t get on the rest of the laundry.”

My father’s fist froze mid-air, and then he stormed into the bathroom.

Quickly regaining my senses, I rushed back into my bedroom. For the first time in my whole life, I locked the door, and my breath came in short gasps as I sank down to the floor, hugging my knees, unable to make myself move to get clothes from my dresser.

I had to get out of here. I couldn’t stay in this house. I wasn’t safe here. Not anymore.

Struggling to take a breath, I forced myself to my feet and made my way over to my closet to find a duffel bag, then went to my dresser and yanked open a drawer.

I threw on the first clothes I could find and quickly tossed random garments into the bag, along with the charger for my cell phone and my Bible. Just as I was zipping the bag closed, I heard the bathroom door slam, the thudding of my father’s footsteps as he stormed down the hallway, and then their bedroom door slamming so hard that it shook the whole house.

I had to leave. I had to get far away from here. Somewhere he couldn’t get to me. Somewhere he couldn’t come and find me to finish what he’d started.

My mother’s cries and sobbing started to echo through the house, and a fresh round of tears filled my eyes. Even now that he knew he was wrong, he was still hurting her for stopping his tirade.

It was only a matter of time, and probably not much of it, before he came back and started hurting me again. Or did something much worse.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew what would have happened if my mom hadn’t interrupted him.

She’d saved me. My mother had saved me from being sexually assaulted by my own father.

I couldn’t stay here. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t just sit around and wait for next time to happen.

What if my mom wasn’t there to save me next time? What if the next time my dad thought I’d committed some heinous sin, he was alone with me? Would he actually finish what he’d started today? Would he violate me, use me, and degrade me, and then claim that I’d made him do it, just like he’d always claimed that I’d made him hurt me before?

Grabbing the bag I’d haphazardly packed, my school backpack, my purse, and my keys, I rushed out the door before my parents could even realize I was leaving.

I needed to get to the only place where I’d ever felt completely safe, and I needed to make a plan. Because I’d be damned if I ever set foot back in this house again.

Chapter 21

Brendan

Pompeii

My heart leapt into my throat when I heard my apartment door being unlocked just as I was stepping out of the shower.

In the entire nine months since I’d been living here, Darla hadn’t used the key I gave her once. I’d gotten texts and calls from her asking me to come to her house after her parents were asleep, just like had been the norm since we first started dating, but she’d never left her house to come here after something happened.

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