Page 81 of War Games

“Because of the day you confronted your father about it,” Subira answered.

I was twelve. I saw myself working on something on the dining room table, angry about something.

“Your mother is visiting your grandparents this weekend with your sister,” Michael Duray said as he walked through the dining room.

“Why couldn’t I go?” I asked, revealing the source of why I had been angry.

“Because liars don’t get to go visit their grandparents. You’re grounded here,” Michael snapped, stopping at the table.

“I am not a liar! I was just helping the other kid! You told me we should help people!”

“Jacqueline, we are done having this conversation! You got into a fight on the playground. I don’t care what the reason was anymore! No one else saw the boy push that girl. You need to stop making up stories about people.”

“Like how I must have made up you kissing Margie?” I snapped at him. “I know what I saw, but Mom started calling me a liar when I told her. Now, I’m always the liar, huh?”

I froze. My childish temper had gotten the better of me that day. The scene froze with me.

“You told your mother what you saw. She called you a liar,” Subira said, whispering as she rubbed my back. “But you never saw Margie again.”

“No, I didn’t,” I confirmed, remembering all of it, knowing what happened next.

I stood there, letting the memory continue, knowing.

He was angry that I had been the one to catch him. He hadn’t known it was me. My mother must have confronted him and Margie but hadn’t revealed it was me. She let me live the lie, to be the villain to her for some reason.

My father, knowing his perfect image had been smeared by me, was furious.

He’d beaten the shit out of me.

A twelve year old couldn't run fast enough or scream loud enough. He’d taken the belt to me—not just to my butt, but my back and legs—until I gave in. I never outed Gwen, never said she saw it, too. She’d already shown me she wasn’t willing to say anything, and I couldn’t let her get hurt, too.

“I lied! I’m sorry,” I screamed for him, sobbing in fear and pain.

“You will never lie again. Do you understand me?”

And I would never mention any of this to anyone, knowing everything that came out of my mouth would be a lie to them.

“They made me take two weeks off school, telling me that sometimes bad kids needed to be punished.”

“They were monsters who didn’t deserve you,” Subira snarled. “And they were very good at making you believe that no one would help you for what they did. That they were just being good parents, that they had the right to treat you like that.”

I was shaking as I sank next to my twelve-year-old self. Alone, sobbing, having lost everything—all her trust in herparents, her faith that they were supposed to raise her right and protect her.

I became the problem child. I couldn’t say anything, thinking no one cared about me or my truth. I worked my ass off to get good grades, always falling short of Gwen, always tainted by the crimes I had supposedly committed as a child. My truth didn’t matter to them because it didn’t fit their narrative.

“How did I forget?” I asked.

“You wanted to,” Subira answered. “You needed to.”

I wanted to pick up the young girl in front of me and take her away.

Something had died inside me that day, and I knew it wasn’t over.

“When she got home, my mom said I must have deserved it.”

“I know.”

“It’s not even that bad?—”

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