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When he’s finished, he tucks me into bed, kisses my forehead, and sticks his hands in his pockets.
“I’ll be back in the morning to bring you breakfast,” he says quietly. Still unable to say anything, I nod.
He reaches down and runs his fingernails over my scalp. My eyes drift closed, and just when I’m about to slip into unconsciousness, I feel a sharp prick on my arm. I gasp and open my eyes, but my vision starts to fade.
Ezra’s moving around beside me, but my vision is so blurred I can’t see what he’s doing.
“I’ll kill Vic if I see you look at him like that again.”
His words are a threat and a promise, and it’s the last thing I hear before I pass out.
INTERLUDE #1
EZRA BEGINS
Sixteen years old
“Dad, stop!” I scream from the corner of the living room, watching as Dad picks Mom up like she weighs nothing more than a few pounds, and throws her down onto the dining room table. It’s made of thick wood, and I can only imagine the kind of pain she’s in when the table cracks in half from the force of her falling on it.
“Mom!”
She screams in pain and arches off the broken table. I want to go to her, but that will only make things worse for the both of us; Dad doesn’t like it when we take care of each other.
“Shut the fuck up!” Dad roars. He charges at me, grabbing me by the collar of my t-shirt and throwing me to the floor. A pained cry rips from my throat. I try to keep it in because I know it’ll only make him madder, but when I fall on my elbow, I’m afraid it’s broken.
A kick to my stomach has me trying to catch my breath, and another has me dry heaving. Dad kicks me so many times that I’m almost positive my ribs are broken. When I start coughing up blood, I know I’m in trouble. Mom and I have to get to the hospital quick, but that won’t happen until Dad passes out from the alcohol he’s been drinking.
“I work way too hard and too long to come home to an unclean house and no fucking dinner.” Dad’s pacing back and forth now, clenching and unclenching his fists, breathing heavily through his mouth. “You’re useless. Both of you are useless. I put a roof over your heads and food on the damn table, and all you do is disrespect me.”
While Dad’s distracted by his own tirade, I crawl over to Mom to make sure she’s okay.
As okay as she can be in this situation, anyway.
“Mom,” I whisper when I finally reach her. I take her hand and intertwine our fingers. The action sends a jolt of pain through my entire body, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from throwing up.
“Baby,” she says softly, tears shining in her dark brown eyes. My heart hurts so badly; I wish more than anything that I could get us out of here, somewhere hidden where Dad could never hurt us anymore. Leaving Eastlake is obviously the safest option, but it’s my home, and I can’t bear the thought of leaving.
I just need to get us out of this house.
Mom touches her fingers to my lips, and when she pulls them away, she gasps when she sees the blood there.
“Ezra, you’re bleeding,” she says quietly, starting to cry. In the background, Dad starts throwing things around the room. I cover Mom’s face when a glass vase comes flying out of nowhere, hitting me in the back of the head and shattering around me. I curse and grit my teeth against the pain, but I don’t move, not wanting my mom to feel any more of the pain Dad insists on inflicting.
“We have to get out of here,” I tell her.
I feel her nod underneath me. “He won’t let us go to the hospital—” she starts.
“I’m not talking about the hospital. We need to leave this house, leave Dad behind, and start over somewhere new.”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment, then she starts frantically shaking her head. She looks to my father, who continues to destroy the house in a drunken rage. “No, no. I can’t leave him. He needs me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I hiss. I lift myself up just enough to look her in the eye. “He doesn’t care if we live or die, Mom. He has a whole other family to run back to once we’re gone. He doesn’t need either of us. He doesn’t. Fucking. Care.”
Another vase crashes into the wall above our heads and sprinkles us with shards of glass. I turn my head to see the damage he’s done, but my heart stalls when he grabs a hammer from the toolbox by the backdoor and chucks it at my keyboard.
My brand-new keyboard that Mom bought me just months ago for my birthday.
Do what you want with my other belongings, I don’t care, but my keyboard? That’s my fucking life. My escape from the abuse I’m forced to endure every day. When I come home from school, I can sit confidently in front of my keyboard and lose myself in my music for the few hours before Dad comes home from work. It’s not the piano I want, but it does what I need it to do, and I love it.
