Hurt Like HELL (new adult contemporary romance) (2 page)

I understood that feeling.  I felt it too.

~3~

My father had a business meeting and it didn’t go well.
  I didn’t understand what his meetings were about, but I understood the term
millionaire
because he threw it around behind closed doors.  In front of people, the ones who he said mattered the most, he was about compassion.  I remember once he held an elderly woman’s hand with his hands and told her some sob story about my mother passing.  All I could see were those same hands attacking me.

I’ve always had an urge to kill my father, but again, when you’re thirteen, who doesn’t have urges like that?  I had other urges though.  Those urges were mostly for Jack.

As my father tore through the house, a line of destruction from the front door to the kitchen, I knew he was looking for his whiskey.  He often hid it in different places, accusing me of either checking up on how much he drank or accusing me of drinking it myself.  Neither of the two I ever did, but talking back to my father wasn’t allowed.  I caught myself at the top of the steps, holding the railing, already shaking.  I looked back to my open door, the small light flooding from the room, creating a triangle.  The light called to me, reminding me that if I went back into my room, I could open my window and call for Jack.  His window was close to mine, but not close enough.  I thought about jumping from my room to his, but the fall onto the old rusted fence separating our houses would kill me.

I didn’t have Jack but I had the glass shattering sound from my father on a frenzied search for his comfort. 

“Goddamn… Theresa!  Get down here.”

That was it.

My calling.

I had about five seconds to respond, in person, or else the night would get much worse. 

I took the steps two at a time, and twisted my ankle on the last one.  The pain was burning.  It brought tears to my eyes, but the pain and tears were swept away when I saw the damage waiting downstairs. 

My father had torn a large mirror from the wall.  The pieces were shattered in large chunks on the floor and the wall was missing a large piece of the paint and plaster.  I stepped over the glass and saw myself in the jagged reflection, repeating again and again. 

“Theresa!”

The scream made me jump.  I spun around and moved towards the kitchen, following footprints of dirt and glistening tiny pieces of glass.  At the doorway to the kitchen I forced myself to smile, still convinced that a smile could cure anything.  Wasn’t that what they taught kids? 
Just smile.  Always smile.

“What are you smiling about?”

Never mind, smiling doesn’t work.

My father moved at me like lightning.  His hands were fast and his eyes were captivating and cruel.  One hand was against my chest, forcing me into a wall.  The other hand was already back, open, ready.  I looked at that open hand and turned my head a little, closing my eyes. 

It was best to just get the first one over with.

“I’m going to ask once,” my father said.  “Where’d you put it?”

I opened my eyes a little.  My heart felt like a clay ball being tossed around inside my chest.  My stomach was like a pool of acid, my knees rubbery.

“I was upstairs,” I whispered.  “I swear…”

I should have known better.  I was only given one chance to answer a question.  There was no chance to explain anything, no chance to try and point out the simple truths in my life or my father’s.  My saying
I was upstairs
told him all he needed to know.

That’s when his hand came down at me.  He caught me with my mouth open, sending the stinging pain through my cheek into my mouth.  The inside of my cheek cut along the edges of my teeth.  My head snapped and I winced, fighting the urge to scream in pain.

Screaming was not allowed.

Showing pain was not allowed.

This was part of my life, something I had to except. 
That was what I was told, time and time again.

His grip pushed harder at my chest. 

“Look at me,” he growled. 

I felt his spit spraying at my cheek.  He was hungry… for a drink and violence.

I looked at him, blinking, fighting back tears.

“Not smiling now, are you?”

I shook my head.

“Now, how am I going to get you to stop drinking?  You’re the daughter of a prominent man.  How would it look in the papers if you got busted with an underage?  Or were you stupid enough to get knocked up?”

I swallowed and felt myself blush.  My left cheek was already red and swollen, thanks to his hand, but my other cheek turned red.  For some reason, I thought of Jack then.  Something about getting
knocked up
made Jack’s face pop into my head.

“Or is that what you were doing?”

My father’s eyes opened wider, flared more.  The amount of evil that poured from him showed me why he drank so much.  I actually would have preferred him drunk right then.  At least when drunk there was a chance he’d try to hit me, miss, and then pass out. 

But not like this.

Completely sober, my father was dangerous.

He wiped his mouth with his hand and then licked his lips.  He looked unstable, unsure, ready to…
kill
.

“You have a boy upstairs?  Is that what this is?  I’m at a business meeting and you sneak a boy and some whiskey upstairs?”

I shook my head.  I opened my mouth but snapped it shut.  Words would only make it all worse. 

“What’s upstairs then, Theresa?”

I hated when he called me Theresa.  Everyone called me Theresa, and I hated it.  Jack called me Tessa.  I liked Tessa.  Until I was able to be Abby Wednesday.

“Nothing,” I said. 

“Nothing?  Don’t lie to me.  Don’t try it.”

“I promise,” I said.  “I heard glass break, and I came down, and I…”

Fool me once…

The back of his hand came across my face with a rumble of pain that literally spun me around.  I managed to hug the doorway of the kitchen, keeping myself from becoming a heaping mess on the floor.  My hair was everywhere, hiding my face, allowing me to finally cry.

“Let’s go upstairs and check.”

A second later I felt my father’s strong grip on my hair.  As he dragged me up the steps all I could picture was taking his razor and cutting all my hair off.  I hated having hair in those moments.  The way he twisted his hands around my hair made the pain intense the entire time, no matter how much I went along with him. 

I also thought about Jack.  I wished Jack would come in and help me.  Jack wasn’t as tall as my father or as thick, but Jack had a bigger heart, a better drive, and I wanted to believe that whatever emotions we had for each other would be enough to overpower the giant that was my father. 

Then Jack could sweep me away. 

And we could become Abby Wednesday and Danny Thursday.

My father swung his arm and I spun, stumbling into my room.  I fixed my hair and stood still, breathing wildly, looking at my father.  He looked to the window and saw it closed.  Of course it was closed.

“Were those curtains always pulled back?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You lying?”

“No.”

He looked at the bed.  “Those covers are a mess.”

“I was in bed,” I whispered.  “Falling asleep.”

“With a boy in there?”

I shook my head.

My father lunged forward at the bed, grabbed all the covers in one shot and threw them across the room.  They hit my small desk in the corner, knocking everything over.  I refused to look back.  My father put his hands to the bed and leaned over it.

“Where’s the whiskey?” he asked with a growl in his voice.

“It’s not here,” I said.  “I swear.  I don’t drink.”

He looked at me and scoffed.  “You don’t drink.  Yeah, right.  Where’s the whiskey?”

I bit my lip. 

I didn’t want to answer the question.

I knew where it was.  I always knew for this situation.  If I didn’t know, he’d take it out on me.  Then he would trash the house and I’d spend my entire day the next day cleaning it all up.  If I told him, he’d leave and drink. 

But before that…

“Tell me where it is.” 

He stood from the bed and reached for me, his hand back to my hair. 

I cried out and nodded. 

“What are you nodding about?  You know where it is?”

I nodded.

“Tell me, Theresa.”

“Top of the ‘fridge.  All the way to the back, behind the junk basket.”

“Ah, so you do know it all,” my father said.  “That’s smart.  Drink young, drink early.  And you’ll end up like your mother.”

I let out a cry, hating when he mentioned my mother.  Then he twisted his hand, making my knees give out.  I tried to cry more but he threw me, taking my breath away.  I saw my hair, my bed, and then the wall.  When I was on the floor on the opposite end of my bed, I didn’t move.  I had no reason to move.

My father laughed and left the room, working his way downstairs to find a drink.

I put my hands to the window and pulled up, looking out to Jack’s house and window.  Everything was dark.  Sometimes Jack would leave after his mother left.  He told me he would just walk for hours, hoping to find something new.  But the roads would turn, run into each other, and bring him home.  Sometimes he just stayed in the darkness of his house, not wanting to let people know he was home.  And sometimes, there was no electricity at Jack’s house, because his mother would spend the money elsewhere.

“Jack,” I whispered. 

The night, at that point, was only halfway over.  Jack would come, but it wouldn’t be for hours.  By then, things would have gotten much worse.  However, by the time Jack would knock, I’d have enough time to endure my father and clean myself up.

~4~

Three taps with a fingernail, two taps with a finger, and then the raking sound of four fingers.

Our signal.  I rushed to greet him.

I slowly turned the deadbolt.  It wasn’t too loud, but in the quiet of the night, knowing my luck, it would have sounded like a gun going off.  The last thing I needed, or wanted, was for
someone
to wake up.

The lock came undone and I froze, holding my breath.  My heart pounded like a pendulum against a stone wall.  Outside, he waited for me, knowing my routine.  He knew everything about me, the horrors of truth and the scars of reality.  And I was okay with it.  He was the only person I ever trusted in my life.  Then again, when you’re thirteen, you really don’t want to trust anyone.  Not when you live with the heavy hand of
the law
upstairs, tucked away, sleeping off another night of too much whiskey. 

I pulled the door open and at first, I didn’t see him.  All I saw was the darkness of the yard.  The penetrating darkness had a blanketing effect on me.  I suddenly felt alone and dead.

“Jack?” I whispered, my voice cracking. 

It didn’t take much those days to break my fragile soul.

“I’m right here,” Jack said. 

He pushed from the side wall. 

I grabbed the strings of his hoodie and pulled him into the basement.  He crashed into me and we embraced each other.  I gasped, not wanting to cry.

I refused to cry right then.

“Jesus, Tessa,” he whispered.  One of his hands went to the back of my head, stroking my hair, just the way I liked it.  We had discovered things about each other in the basement ever since our midnight meetings grew more and more frequent.  “I was right there, just leaning against the wall.”

“I didn’t see you,” I whispered.  “I thought… you left me.”

Jack took my face into his hands.  He held me tight, his blue eyes beautiful and calming.  I wanted him to be the one to protect me forever.  It didn’t matter that he was two years older than me, six months shy of becoming sixteen, on the verge of getting a driver’s permit, then a license, then a girlfriend his age…

“I would never leave you, Tessa,” he whispered.  “I promise.”

I nodded and blinked, feeling the tears forming in my eyes.  I managed to keep them from spilling, which was a feat in those days. 

One of his thumbs ran down to the corner of my lip.  I felt a sting of pain and whimpered.  I closed my eyes, knowing I messed up.  I was in such a hurry for my father to fall asleep that I didn’t check myself in the mirror before coming to the basement.  I licked at Jack’s finger, tasting the blood. 

Shit.

“He did this?” Jack asked.

His voice was deep, the voice of a man.  The voice of a protector. 

“It wasn’t that bad,” I replied.  “Honestly.  He tried to slap me.  I turned my head in time to avoid most of it but one of his nails caught me in the right spot.”