Page 88 of The Dirty Saint

“My father was extremely violent. Being a kid and living under his roof was pure hell. He was an alcoholic who never sobered or controlled himself. He would scream, he would yell, he would demand things, but all of that my siblings and I could handle. It was the other stuff, like the hitting, and the whipping, and the kicking, that was harder to accept.

“My father never apologized afterward; never said he was sorry. Honestly, that was better because even if he did, I knew it wasn’t true and that all he was doing was lying right to my face. Even as a kid, I hated being lied to.

“I used to wonder why my mother stayed. After all, he was even shittier to her than he was to us. It used to make me angry that she didn’t have more respect for herself. But still, she loved him through all of it. Because, to my mother, my father was something she could fix. A long-term project. All she wanted to do was heal the wounds my father carried. She had this idea of the type of man he could be if he tried to be better.

“So many times, I watched as he disappointed her. He would put the bottle down for a day, maybe even curve the sides of his lips into his own version of a smile, half convincingmy mother that he was capable of once again being the man she made vows to.

“After my sister died, my father grew worse. It didn’t seem possible. I mean, he was a monster to begin with, but he found a way. The smallest thing would send him over the edge and into a fit full of rage. He once bashed my mother’s head into the side of the kitchen island simply for asking him if he was okay. She wound up in the hospital for nearly a week with a brain bleed.”

“Joey,” Ezra says, a sympathetic gaze roaming my body.

“My father has never once been proud of me. Growing up, it stung really fucking badly, but as I have gotten older, I have accepted the fact that he will never give a shit about any of my successes. I’m no longer mad at him for that. I can’t be. Not anymore.”

My father made me hate myself. Made me feel like a monster. Probably even turned me into one.

That’sthe world that I come from.

Ezra reaches out her hand for me to grab, but only the tips of our fingers brush one another. She looks at me with a gaze that fills my heart with a feeling I have never felt.

Love.

“Joey—”

“All I wanted was for him to be proud of me,” I whisper. “And yet he never was.”

“I’mproud of you. And I know it’s not the same, but I am. I am so fucking proud of you, Joey Odeh.”

I look at her, shaking my head.

“I have done some horrible things, Ezra. Look at where we are?”

“Hey, I’m right here with you.”

“How can you stand to look at me?”

Ezra rubs the scar on the tip of her nose with the padding of her left pointer finger.

“Because I have done some horrible things too.”

I shake my head.

“It’s not the same.”

“It may not be. But if a broken, damaged person cannot stand to look at another broken, damaged person, then how can they stand to look at themself?”

21

Chapter Twenty-One

After

EZRA

August 16th, 2023

Dear Diary,

Is it possible for another person’s screams to linger in your mind for the rest of your life? Because if so, I’d like to peace out here and now.

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