Page 8 of Jerk
Checking the time tells me I only have a few hours. Pulling my rollers out of my hair, my curls tumble against one cheek, framing my good side. My left collar bare, my eyes zero in on my skin like I can still see the faint mark he left.
What he did was no worse than a papercut, but the humiliation cuts far deeper. Heat dances on my cheeks when I remember how the sharp edge of the glass kissed my shoulder, hardly breaking the surface. He made me freeze like some lovestruck bimbo. Like I was under a spell. Everyone saw me under his control. It took a trip to Bali and a dozen Mai Tais to forget it.
It’s a new era. A new reign. One that doesn’t include him.
CRASH!
“Carlos, please!” My mother’s scream makes my shoulders rise. She’s louder than usual. “Carlos! Stop!”
BANG!
Thatcan’t be good.
Pulling my silk robe over my tweed Chanel dress, I exit the comfort of my blush-painted room to follow the sounds of chaos. Sparkles shine on my manicured toes as my feet patter against the hallway floor.
“Carlos! Don’t!”
My heartbeat quickens the closer I get. So does my pace as I pass framed Matisse and Picasso between crystal sconces on pale stone. When I make it to the double doors opened to the master bedroom, I gasp.
It’s worse than I thought.
My father ignores his snapped prized vinyls, broken Cubans, and his cracked vintage globe. They’re all collateral damage to their dangerous dance that’s only getting worse by the day. He hovers over my mother, her skirt hiked to her knees. My gaze follows my mother’s wide eyes to his hand, a glass shard in his grasp.
The tightness in my chest returns as my father raises the shard, glimmering under their chandelier. “Pa, wait!”
Mom’s eyes narrow at me as I rush into the room, kicking aside the leather suitcase open on the floor.
He doesn’t even look at me when he speaks.“Mira,your mother is a good-for-nothingwhore.”
“And your father is an absent drunk,” my mother spits, her Colombian accent heavy.
He raises that shard higher.
“No!” Reaching for his blazer, I tug on the fabric softer than his heart. He’s quick to retaliate, spinning around like a drunken tornado.
Slap!
A sting vibrates through my cheek as I stumble to the ground next to my mother. Looking up, my father towers over us, the light making him look like a fallen angel. Our provider. Our demon.
My parents are tragic beauties. Where do you think I get my looks? But right now, my father looks like a monster, sporting the stress of his life on his face. A devilish goatee and a jaw as sharp as the shard in his hand.
“Mister Alfonso?” The voice of one of our maids comes from the door. Carrie. My father’s muscles fall. So does his hand. My shoulders follow.
The only thing to stop my father in his tracks is an audience. People talk in The Hill, especially the help. He doesn’t turn around to acknowledge her, his gaze locked on my mother like an obsession. Not love. At least not one from a storybook. Their fairytale is dark, twisted and toxic.
My father tilts his head over his shoulder. “Clean this up,” he says, dropping the shard to the floor. My eyes settle on it, the whispers from the gallery in my head.
He turns to walk away, and as always, my mom reaches out. “Carlos!”
“Ma, let him go.” I reach for her outstretched hand, her massive diamond ring shining under the light. “He’s too upset.”
She pulls away from my reach, daggers in her glare. Her brown eyes used to shine brighter, her soft wrinkles deepening with every trip my father takes. “Why do you get involved?”
“Love hearing that right after I stopped my father from slicing into my mother.” I’ve always had her back but it’s a one-way street.
She ignores me, struggling to pick up her thinning body from the floor. She mumbles something in Spanish, too quickly for me to understand. When I reach out to help, she pulls away again.
“You think you’re different from me? You think you’re better?” she spits, but I know this anger isn’t about me. So I sit there, taking it. “I saw you let a man draw blood.”
