Page 1 of Bleeding Hearts

PROLOGUE

Demi - Eighteen Years Old

Love. A four-letter word describing a feeling that most children grow up surrounded by. I haven’t. The only emotion prominent in my childhood home has been hatred.

I’m not a hateful person. In fact, most people would describe me as the opposite. My father likes to say I’m too kind, too loving, too soft. He claims it makes me weak, and maybe it does. But giving up on the idea of love, giving in to the hatred that surrounds my life is what feels weak to me.

I still allow myself to feel a sliver of that hate, though, in moments like these, and all of it’s directed toward him. Alexander Rhodes. My father.

My shoulder throbs from where he just drove his fist into it, although I can tell it’s just a bruise. I dislocated it a couple years back when he slammed me onto the hard floor in our home after getting angry at me for being home two minutes later than expected.

I remember feeling paralyzed as I lay on the cool marble while he stood above me, his harsh blue eyes locked on my curled-up frame. The same eyes I see every time I look in a mirror. The same eyes that stare down at me now.

He watches me, waiting for my tears to come, waiting for me to apologize, to beg for his forgiveness, to beg for him to stop. He’ll be waiting a hell of a long time.

I promised myself at ten years old that the monster that is my father would never get the satisfaction of my tears again. So, I give him nothing. I look away from him, staring at my own reflection coming off the freshly polished floors, willing the pain to subside.

“What the fuck do you mean you’re not going to Brown?” my father’s voice booms throughout the otherwise quiet foyer of our house. His anger ricochets off the walls, all painted a pristine white, reminding me just how clinical everything in this house is.

“I mean, I’m not going to Brown.” I look him dead in the eyes, not backing down from his angry stare piercing straight through me.

There was a time when I wouldn’t have dared to defy him. There was a time that a simple look in my direction would have caused fear to take root deep within me, giving him all of the power. But then I turned eighteen, and I realized that just about anything would be better than staying under my father's thumb.

So, I have nothing to lose.

I knew this conversation wasn’t going to end well before I started it. I’m sure he thinks he can manipulate me with his words and his fists into doing what he wants like he always has.

Not this time.

My bags are already packed in the car and there’s absolutely nothing he can do to change my mind.

“Well, isn’t that cute,” he sneers at me. “You think you have a choice in the matter? You are my daughter and you will go wherever the fuck I tell you to go. Even if I have to drag you by the strands of your hair to get you there.”

“You can try, but you won’t succeed.” The words barely leave my lips before I’m pushed roughly against the wall.

He wraps his hand around my neck, his fingers squeezing across my throat and cutting off my air supply.

I remember back to a couple months ago when a girl on my cheerleading squad told me about her boyfriend choking her during sex. She was gushing about the experience, saying how the act enhanced the whole thing for her. I couldn’t understand it.

I knew that there was a big difference between her boyfriend choking her for pleasure and my father choking me for pain, but I couldn’t figure out how they were both still considered choking.

How could the same thing feel so good for one person and so terrible for another?

I guess wanting it is a huge factor, but still, there had to be more. So, I did some research and it turns out I was right.

There is a huge difference between the two acts because while her boyfriend may have been choking her, my father was strangling me. Strangling his daughter. Harsh, but nevertheless, the truth.

“You spoiled little brat. I raised you better than to disrespect me that way.” He holds tight around my throat until I start to feel woozy.

My lungs scream for air, but I don’t gasp for it. I refuse to let him see me struggle. Just before I feel as though I’m about to pass out, he lets go.

I can’t help the gasp that leaves my lips as my lungs struggle to take in all the air they have been deprived of. I lean against the wall, hands clutched onto my knees as I try to regulate my breathing, all while he stands towering over me. Finally,I stand up straight, forcing my eyes to meet his.

This is the moment he’s been waiting for. He thinks he’s scared me into compliance. He thinks the next words out of my mouth will be, “Okay, Father.” They’re not. Instead, I shock him.

“Goodbye, Father.” I walk toward the door, grabbing my purse off the entryway table as he watches me, confusion etched into his face. I open the door and walk straight to my car.

That’s when it hits him because he stalks out after me, careful to keep his anger under control because God forbid the neighbors might see.

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