Chapter 3: The Breaking Point
The door slammed into the wall so hard the whole flimsy frame shook. I was awakened, my heart pounding instantly like a frantic bird in a cage.
“Get your lazy ass outta that bed!" His whiskey-sotted, sleepy voice was a snarling growl. The reek of stale alcohol and unbathed fury rolled into the dingy basement. "Now! Or you want to see how quick I can belt you outta there?
Fear, cold and slick, shot through my veins. No thought, only response. I pulled myself off the thin mattress, my bare feet landing sharply on the chilly concrete, the rough blanket catching at my ankles. "Coming! I'm coming!" The words tumbled out, croaky and frightened.
He was in the doorway, a dark shape in the dim light that filtered down the stairs. "Breakfast. Now. Eggs. Don't mess 'em up this time." He waited for no response, but turned and stamped back up again, each thudding step echoing through floorboards above my head.
My fingers shook as I pulled on last night's clothes, skin still raw from the splinters of the beer bottle embedded in my palms. The lingering burn flashed. The kitchen was a minefield upstairs. He was hunched in the chair at the table, a fresh beer already dripping wet in his hand, eyes bloodshot slits scanning every motion. Mom sat silently beside him, her cold cup of coffee facing inward.
The eggs. Don't burn them. The instruction echoed in my mind, louder than his actual voice. My hands fumbled clumsily with the carton. The sizzle of touch with the pan sounded like a deafening quiet. Every grease crackle startled me. I focused with horror-struck intensity, stirring continuously, hoping the eggs wouldn't darken, wouldn't stick, wouldn't be wrong. Miraculously, they arrived on his plate pale yellow, slightly runny, but passable. He grunted, shoveling them in silently. A tiny, inadequate wave of relief coursed through me. One little battle won.
The break was fleeting. The litany of chores began. Clean the kitchen. Sweep the floors. Clean the bathroom. The house reeked of abandonment and rotgut booze, and I was the unwilling janitor. Each chore was performed in the shadow of his glowering figure or Mom's vacant stare.
Passing by Ethan's room was the worst. It was always closed. Dad's decree echoed in my mind: "Stay out.Don't desecrate his sanctuary." My fingers touched the knob for a moment, a familiar pain tightening across my chest. His laughter, how he'd ruffled my hair, it felt like a lifetime ago. I sighed, the coarseness of it choking in my throat, and pushed on. Even grieving was forbidden territory here.
By the time the house had a faint smell of bleach and damp rags, weariness weighed on my bones. Lunch consisted of stale bread, dipped in lukewarm, watery soup from a can. It stagnated in my belly, but it was sustenance. Just barely.
In the basement again, I began the comforting ritual. I pulled up the squeaky floorboard at the foot of my bed, my hand tracing over the worn-out cloth bundle hidden so deep within the crevice. My heart pounded for a completely different reason. My money. Years of saving small bits of money, lost change, a buck bill hidden under a mat after Mrs. Henderson's cleaning, birthday cash from a neighbor long past, scrimped and saved. A thousand dollars. A fortune. A fragile lifeline. If my dad ever found out, it would be gone in a whirl of booze and bets, and my punishment would be severe beyond anyone's wildest dreams. I clutched the bundle for a moment, savoring its weight, its potential, before secreting it back into its hiding place.
The stillness above cracked, taut and ominous. Then, the inevitable bellow shattered it.
"AMARA! GET YOUR WORTHLESS SELF IN HERE!"
The fear was a palpable thing, a cold hand around my lungs as I climbed the stairs. He was in the living room, tottering on his feet, another beer half-empty in his hand. His glassy, venomous eyes locked onto me.
"Useless," he snarled, the word dropping hard. "Whole damn day, what'd you even do? Moochin' off me. Eatin' my food. Takin' up space." The practiced incantation. I stood there, head ducked a little, shoulders scrunched, trying to shrink, fade away. The words stung, a dull ache overtop of the new welts of yesterday. Habit never made them sting any less; it just made the scar tissue tougher.
And then the knife, writhing with practiced venom. "Shoulda been you," he slurred, advancing, his hot, rank breath on her face. "That day. Shoulda been you in that accident. You killed him. You killed my boy."
Something cracked. A thin frayed wire deep inside me finally snapped. The fault, all the years it had been inside me, it surged up, burning and bitter. Before I could stop it, before fear had a chance to close my mouth, my head jerked up. My voice, high and shaking, hardly loud enough, sliced through stinking air. "I didn't."
The world froze. The sneer remained on his lips. His bloodshot eyes flashed. "What did you say?" The question was husky, threatening.
The fear swept over me, icy and paralyzing. But the words had been said and I had opened the dam. Shuddering uncontrollably, tears blurring my eyes, I spit them out once more, a frantic, wispy terror. "I… I didn't kill Ethan."
The silence that followed was the moment of suspense before the explosion. Then hell let loose.
"YOU LYING LITTLE BITCH!"
The yell was bestial. The bottle of beer sliced past my head and shattered on the wall. And then his hand cracked against my cheek, a clap of thunder that rattled my head. I was hoisted off the floor. I toppled to the floor, the blow taken out of my body. Stars exploded behind my eyes.
He was down on me before I could catch my breath. Boots slammed into my ribs, stomach, back. "MISTAKE!" Kick. "WORTHLESS!" Kick. "SHOULDA DROWNED YOU AT BIRTH!" Kick. Pain, white and total, burst from each impact point. I curled up on the floor, arms helplessly wrapped around my head, trying to shield myself from the onslaught.
The world turned gray with pain, beer and rage, and his yelling face looming death.
Time ceased to have any meaning.
It lasted forever.
And then, another voice, tight and biting, cut through the fog of pain. "That's enough, honey! You'll kill her if you continue!"
Mom. She was pulling on his arm, shaking but firm. Miraculously, the kicking stopped. He backed up, gasping, muttering curses. Mom's hands, somehow so strong at that time, cradled under my arms. She half-dragged, half-carried me down the basement stairs and dumped me on my mattress with a thud.
The pain was a burning fire. Every wheeze was a knife in my ribcage. I could taste blood in my mouth. Through puffed-out eyes, I stared up at her shadowy form in the doorway. A spark of wretched, futile hope flared. She'd halted him. She'd seen. Maybe…. maybe now….?
“Mom.” I fought my way out, the word a knot with tears and blood. "Can't you see? Can't you see he's hurting me?" The words were raw, ripped from the most hurt, most battered part of me. She faltered. For an instant, I thought, but then her voice came back, flat, without warmth, without remorse.
"Next time, don't talk back to your father. You know he has a quick temper."
That was all. No touch. No comfort. No recognition of the broken girl bleeding on the mattress. Only blame. She turned and went back upstairs, shutting the door quietly behind her, leaving me in the suffocating darkness with nothing but the echoes of his boots and her cold dismissal. The sobs that wracked me then weren't merely from the pain. They were for the murder of that little dumb spark of hope. They were for Ethan, whose memory had been used like a weapon. They were for the mother who went blind. They were for the life that had been a slow, suffocating choking. They were for the cold, paralyzing futility of it all.
I cried for death.
A clean ending.
A respite from the pain, the shame, the crushing burden of existing in a world that hated me.
But when the storm of tears had blown over, leaving me shivering and freezing on the damp mattress, something else flared up in the void. Not hope, not exactly. Desperation. A gritty, cold certainty.
He'll kill me. Next time he was angry, next time his kick came down bad. Or the time after that. And Mom would just stand there and scold. I need to escape here.
Now.
The resolve was sharp and clear. It sliced through the pain, thinner than his boot. Liberty was not an illusion; it was living. I did not move, listening. The heavy, drunken slumber began rolling beneath the ceiling. Mom's stealthy movements ceased. The house slipped back into its familiar stifling stillness. I counted the agonizing minutes, each one consuming eternities, until the glowing face of my watch ticked the exact 10:00 PM. Exiting was like tearing open festering sores. All my muscles howled. All the air was a serrated gasp. But the fear of staying was stronger. I stuffed some essentials, underwear, spare shirt, socks, into the small, worn-out backpack I used to carry to school a couple of years earlier.
My shaking, sweat-damp hands struggled with the loose floorboard.
The cloth-wrapped package of money felt as heavy as lead.
I jammed it deep in the backpack, zipped it up with trembling hands.
My weapon was silence. Each groan of the creaky stairs under my feet sounded like a shot to my ears. I froze on top, holding my breath. His snores continued, relentless and unaware. The living room was empty. Mom's door was closed. The front door loomed there, a door to nowhere.
The cold night air slapped my bruised face as balm as I slipped out, carefully easing the door shut behind me with a lifetime of caution. And then I ran. Downplaying the fire in my ribs, the scream of strained muscles, the swaying dizziness that threatened to engulf me. I ran for my life, as though hellhounds were at my heels, fueled by raw fear and the hope of the damned.
The fluorescent glow of the bus stop sign was a beacon. I stumbled to a halt beneath it, my chest heaving, blood and sweat mingling on my lip. I gazed at the frayed print. "CITY CENTER. LAST DEPARTURE: 10:45 PM."
I checked my watch. 10:30 PM. Fifteen minutes. A sob of sheer, disbelieving relief parted my swollen lips.
I made it.
The journey was a blur. Reciting my destination, fumbling with the valuable bills, feeling the weight of the ticket in my hand. The doors of the bus opened with a hiss. I climbed up the stairs, the driver barely giving me a glance.
I slid into a rigid, plastic seat at the back. The motor snarled to activity, a fierce vibration throbbing through the seat. The bus inched closer to the curb, abandoning my black, loathing form of a street.
Outside, the familiar dirty town lights began to dwindle into the deeper blackness of the open road. The tears ran again, unobtrusive this time, raked paths through the dirt on my face. Not pain tears now, but of a thin, trembling freedom. The thrum of the engine, the interior lights flicking down, the strangers not even seeing me, it was like a dream. A hellish, beautiful dream.
I'm free.
The words built in my mind, tentative first, then more solid. I'm out. I'm away.
The weight of a thousand thrashings, a million accusations, felt a little less heavy. I laid my head on the cold glass, shut my eyes, allowing the rumble of the moving bus to soothe my bruised body. The city center was alien, huge, intimidating.
A tremulous breath escaped me, a near-sigh. The air was fresh for the first time in years.
I was finally free.
Or so I thought.