Page 1 of Diesel
ONE
DIESEL
PAST…
The air hums with tension.It sits heavily around me like weights on my shoulders. My movements are small, purposeful, and I keep my distance from Michael who is standing at the counter, slurping back a cup of coffee, his focus glued to the small TV in the corner.
I hate the way my chest clenches, how small I feel. I’m not big enough to hit back. Not yet.
“Can you believe this shit?” His voice is loud. Everything he does is loud.
I lower my gaze, focusing on the dishes in the sink and the way the soapy water feels on my hands. I breathe slowly, calm and steady.
“That’s your future, Zane,” he continues, like he’s doing me a favour pointing this out, “if you don’t get yourself together, you’ll end up in jail before you hit your teens.”
The knife glints in the light.Maybe sooner than he thinks…
I make a noncommittal sound in the back of my throat. I know better than to get into this conversation with him. It never goes my way.
Michael’s not done. He’s like a dog with a bone when he gets like this.
“You see, that’s what happens when you’re raised wrong. The same with dogs. You get a bitch of bad breeding and put her together with a reactive dog, well… You’re proof of what comes out.”
I grind my teeth together, locking my jaw so tight my face hurts.Don’t rise to it.That’s what he wants. The excuse to put me in line. Fuck him. I’m not giving him that satisfaction.
I focus on the suds popping in the bowl and not the knife inches from my fingers.
Just keep washing the dishes. Just keep?—
A meaty hand fists into the shoulder of my T-shirt, dragging me around. My heart leaps into my throat even as my brain screams at me for letting my guard down. Always know where he is. Always. One eye on Michael, and one on Sharon. Quiet, small, don’t breathe, don’t exist.
Sometimes it works. Most of the time it doesn’t matter.
Michael tugs me close to his face so he can get right into my face. “Are you deaf, boy, or just fucking ignorant?”
I don’t know what that word means.Ignorant. I know it’s not good, because he says it with that same tone he uses when he’s calling me ‘stupid’ or a ‘waste of space’.
My lungs constrict until sucking in a breath feels impossible, and every part of me wants to scream and yellat him, but I don’t. I can’t. It’s like my tongue gets trapped inside my mouth and the words won’t come out.
I hate when this happens. It makes me feel like I’m broken, defective.
“Creepy little cunt.” He snarls, baring his teeth. They’re all straight except for the front ones on the bottom. They overlap like little wonky gravestones. “It pisses me off that you just wander around my house like a fucking silent spectre.” I brace as his hand raises, angling my body away, protecting myself in the way I can against a man double my size and strength. “It’s no wonder your mother didn’t want?—”
The doorbell rings, slicing through the double blow he was about to deliver. The silence that follows for a split second is unbearable and then the irritation ripples through his expression. Michael hates being interrupted.
“Fuck me. Can a man not get any peace in his own home?” He lets me go with a shove and I stumble from the force. My stomach hits the edge of the counter behind me, a cry tearing out of my throat before I can stop it. I suck a breath in through my nose, dizzied for a second before I can shake it off. He doesn’t care that he’s added yet another bruise to the patchwork already hidden under my clothes. “I want these finished before I come back, you lazy shit.”
He heads to the front door, and I hear Sharon’s voice from somewhere in the house. I block it all out, sucking a breath in through my teeth.
I hate him. I hate her. I hate everything.
I wish I could set fire to this fucking house. To them.
My body trembles, not with fear but anger. That slow,steady build inside of me that feels too much, too big and I don’t know what to do with it.
But getting angry never solved anything, not in this house, not with these people. I swallow my frustration, my feelings and rinse the last dish, stack it on the draining board.
Then my attention snags on the knife dripping in the rack. The hair on my nape stands up. It would be so easy. Too easy to pick it up. He wouldn’t be laughing then. He wouldn’t be calling me names or trying to hurt me. Then I’d be the one in control.
