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Dad stands, and I swallow hard as I gaze at him. His fist hits me in the face before I’m ready for it, and my mom flinches, standing as she drops the letter on the table.
“Don’t hurt him,” Mom whispers.
“Stay out of it,” he growls. “Shouldn’t you be making us dinner?”
It’s after seven, but she just nods, heading to the kitchen. Something about the anger in his face tells me that I won’t be hungry tonight.
“What is with the hat in the house?” he asks, his hand slapping it off my head. “Are you hiding something under there?”
“What could I possibly be—”
Dad turns on the overhead light, his dark blue eyes narrowing on me. He’s a big man, one who has worked countless hours in factories. He’s been moving up the corporate ladder into management, and it’s changed him.
He has too much power and time to think.
“That’s what I thought. When did you get that shit done?” he roars. “Maura, your son is a fag! Is this what hockey is teaching you?”
“What? That’s ridiculous. Oof—” I gasp, bending forward as he kicks me in the stomach. He’s the only one allowed to wear shoes in the house, and a part of me thinks it’s so he can bring me down a peg.
He fucking hates that I’m taller than him. Dad’s hand fists my hair, dragging me by it across the house.
“Let go!” I yell, struggling to pry open his fingers.
“No son of mine is going to look like a pansy ass bitch,” he grumbles, pulling me into the bathroom.
I left my electric razor plugged in, and the following seems to happen in both slow and fast motion. Time is such an odd construct, especially as he turns it on with his thumb and runs it right over my head. He’s left with a fistful of my blue and black curls while I look on in horror.
He flings it into the air, and I get a sick sense of deja vu. Is this what Noor felt when I cut off her hair?
Dad kicks my knees out from under me until they hit the cold tile floor.
“Dad, don’t. You can’t even tell there are blue parts!” I yell.
“Save it,” he grunts. “You’ve got a bald spot. I need to fix it.”
He holds me still as he shaves my head completely. I know it’s just hair, I fucking know this, but I’m a vain bastard, okay? It’s part of my identity, and it’s gone now. I can feel the tears building from humiliation and I’m losing the battle to keep them from falling.
“I better not find out that you’re fucking around with guys,” he says. I’m so in my mind that I don’t notice that he’s shoving his knee up until he’s pushing my head down to meet it.
“Ugh,” I groan, feeling the blood begin to gush.
“If there’s blood, don’t use my nice towels!” Mom yells.
“She doesn’t think I see it, but I know she’s drinking too much,” Dad mutters. “You better pay attention to her or she’ll be after you next.”
Stepping around me, he leaves me to drip blood on the tiles. This isn’t the first time that he’s hurt me, so I pinch my nose, leaning forward as I reach for one of the older towels my mom won’t beat me over. It bleeds forever, and I can hear my parents fighting before my dad slams out of the house.
“There won’t be dinner,” Mom says, walking to her room and slamming the door.
“Awesome,” I grunt, cleaning up and stumbling to my feet. A glance at the mirror shows that I’m not only shorn of hair, but the area around my nose is getting purple as well.
It’s going to be difficult to make a plausible lie since I was just at practice earlier today and completely fine. Fuck.
“Goddamnit,” I growl, my voice sounding as if my nose is clogged. Technically it is with blood.
Pissed off at the added personal cost of living in this hell hole, I storm to my room and lock the door. My mind has moved from feeling sympathy toward Nope to needing to punish her for making me feel like this.
I don’t want to change my trajectory of terror in her life. We’ve already been laying off her as it is, and Mrs. Denton is still riding the board of directors about every little thing. I need something!
