Page 42 of Neverland

Chapter 11

THEN

“Go to your room and don’t come out,” Mom warned, frantically trying to untangle my arms from hers so she could close the bedroom door.

“No, Mom. Come in with me,” I cried. “We’ll put my dresser against the door.”

She gripped my chin hard and I squirmed in pain but she hadn’t mean to hurt me. Mom was used to fighting and sometimes forgot when to use her strength. “Lucy…” she seethed, patience running out, “… get in your room and stay there.”

In the kitchen, my father’s voice boomed. Once again, he was drunk and pissed with the asshole of a world that continued to rob him of what he thought he deserved.

“Bitch, get the fuck out here,” he yelled loud enough for the neighbors to hear, but they wouldn’t do anything to help. They stopped calling the police years ago. Around the same time they made it blatantly obvious we were the white trash that made it a white trash neighborhood.

“Go.” Momma pushed me into my room and closed the door but not before I saw that familiar look on her face. The one that told me she didn’t know if this would be that one fight. That one fight she may not survive. I’d seen that look all too often.

I cried angry tears, raging on the inside. The more their raised voices reached my ears, the angrier I became. Hurting him had become my wish. I wanted to make him pay in the sickest of ways for everything he’d done to our family. What I didn’t know at the time, was that it was about to get a whole lot worse.

My mother released a blood-curdling scream which was followed by a series of heavy, dull thuds. I covered my ears in a lame attempt to make it stop and paced before the door, unsure on what I should do. When Principal Rosser mentioned winning the scholarship, I wanted to tell him I saw my fate turning out differently. I feared one day I would lose all control just the way my father did every night, turning my fantasy into a real-life kill.

Shouts and screams tore through the night and came barreling down the hall. I jumped away from the door when someone smashed into it, rattling the entire room. The drywall next to the door suffered a sickening blow, my mother no longer screaming. Instead, I heard barely audible sobs, pleading and begging for her life.

Pressing my ear against the door, I listened as my father called her every derogatory name he could drunkenly recall.

“I will fucking kill you both,” he seethed. “I’ll make Lucy watch while I slit your throat and then I’ll kill her, nice and fucking slow. Make you whores pay for what you’ve done to my life.”

A repeated thud followed, like a booted foot walking down wooden stairs. Slowly turning the door handle, I creaked the door open just an inch, enough to see my mother lying facedown and unconscious. But that wasn’t the worst. My father straddled her waist, his hand twisted through her hair, and one after another, he smashed the side of her head into the drywall. It was an unnatural position and I feared he would snap her neck if he hadn’t done so already. Each time it created a bigger indent. Each time it caused more blood to spill down her already unrecognizable face.

He was really going to kill her this time. Maybe not the way he described, but my father was going to see this through.

“Get the fuck off her!” I screamed, charging forward. I became someone full of hate and the overwhelming desire for revenge. Fear no longer existed. His reactions were slow and he didn’t respond quickly enough to avoid my foot connecting with his face. He slipped off with the force, his own head smashing into the wall. Dazed and confused, he righted himself.

The mere sight of him had my blood boiling, years of hate taking its toll. Hovering over my father’s pathetic form, I smashed my fists into his cheeks, one at a time, systematically taking their turn. The skin over my knuckles split, but I didn’t care. I was a woman possessed. I relished the sound of skin against skin as long as I was the one in charge. I relished watching the useless sack of shit trying to shield his face. I relished the idea that I was finally able to give him at least a small dose of what he’d given us for years.

Like a wild bear, he started swiping at my legs, hoping to send me off-balance. I dodged but it was hard with my mother’s body in the way. Something beside him caught his attention and I managed to land two more punches to his cheek, blood from my torn-up knuckles smearing his skin. When I saw what he was reaching for, I had no option but to start my retreat. I was angry, but he now had a weapon I couldn’t match. With his hand around the neck of a beer bottle, he smashed the base on the ground leaving it dangerously jagged.

“You want a fight, you little whore, you got one,” he slurred, lunging for me. I moved just to in time to avoid having my thigh slashed open. “You wanna play a game? Let’s play,” he sneered. “How about you watch while I finish your mother off?” He wobbled to his knees and pulled my momma closer to him by her hair.

“Get the fuck away from her,” I screamed, frightened of the demon in his eyes.

He smiled, pressing the glass to her throat hard enough to split the skin, a river of blood trickling onto the floorboards. I felt another surge of anger and I welcomed it. I charged forward once again and tackled the evil son-of-a-bitch. To my surprise, I hit harder than expected and we both landed in a heap a yard away from my unconscious mother. We battled for top position but not before I felt my hip assaulted by pieces of the smashed bottle. I was high on adrenaline, so I didn’t care.

We grappled, punched and kicked, hoping the other didn’t gain the upper hand. My father wrapped his meaty paw around my throat and I swung, slapping his face, desperate for air. It didn’t work. Instead, my head was thrown into the drywall. The world didn’t spin like I thought it would. Time just seemed to stand still, the only thing moving was the pain that traveled throughout my entire body.

I clawed, drawing more blood from his cheek but he wasn’t about to let go. In the struggle, my fingers fell over something smooth and I hoped and prayed it was a healthy piece of broken bottle. It was. Gripping it so tight, I drew my own blood and went for the arm he used to hold me, dragging the sharpest edge through his flesh. As it tore, he roared in pain. Blood cascaded out at a horrifying rate. It coated me, him, the floor, the walls from the all the thrashing, like something out of a horror film. I turned to the side and vomited, the foul smell and taste of rust consuming my senses. My father reeled back cradling his arm, attempting to wrap it with his torn shirt. When that wasn’t enough, he started a crawl toward the kitchen.

I needed to get out of this hell and now was my chance. Leaning over, I stroked my mom’s unrecognizable face. “Mom, please wake up.” When she didn’t respond, I kept trying, shaking her until she roused. To my relief, she murmured but still didn’t move. “Come on, get up.” When she didn’t, I rose onto my haunches and rolled Mom onto her back, hooking my arms through hers. If she wasn’t going to wake up, I had to drag her. She was only a little thing, maybe even half my size. I dragged her through the mess of blood and gore and passed the kitchen where my dad had his back to us.

Once we were out on the front porch, I scooped her up in my arms. Losing my balance, I stumbled against the railing but adrenaline and determination to escape had kicked back in, like a mother lifting a car to free her baby. I wasn’t going to allow that monster to hurt us anymore. I wobbled down the stairs, taking each one carefully, and then on shaky knees I carried my limp mother down the street. It would have been something out of a horror scene each time we passed under a street lamp, its light revealing two bodies covered in wounds and thick, dark blood. When I arrived outside Romeo’s house, I stood, no longer able to will my legs to move. With tears spilling down my cheeks, adrenaline wore off and I felt the weight of everything. Falling to my knees on the front lawn, I lowered my mother down and cried. I didn’t even know if she were still alive.

A screen door creaked open and I heard the Spanish murmurs from afar. Mr. Sanchez was the first to arrive, scooping my mother up into his arms and rushing her inside. Mrs. Sanchez and Romeo helped me to my feet, and with an arm on either side carried my weight into the house.

I wasn’t a spiritual person, but if angels existed, the Sanchezes were them.

~~~

Mr. Daniels placed the test paper on my desk and slid it slowly toward me with two rigid fingers. I didn’t need to look in his eyes to see the hurtful mix of disappointment and pity. I also didn’t need to read the red C- to know I was lucky to scrape through with a pass.

“This is unlike you, Lucy,” he said, concerned. No doubt Mr. Daniels, my English teacher, had heard the rumors. Word spread around this town and my family was always the topic of gossip around dinner tables.

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