Lucian Rollins

6 years ago

I woke with a start, the echo of a sound ringing in my ears. I didn't have the luxury of holding my breath and waiting to see if it was the shadows of a dream or if it was the nightmare I actually lived. I was already pulling on a pair of shorts when I heard it again. The shrill plea drowned out by the snarled accusation. Dinner was cold. The house was a mess. There were muddy footprints in the garage. Too loud. Too quiet. I'd looked at him wrong. I'd been born...? There was a crash, followed immediately by a broken cry from the first floor as my bare feet hit the stairs. They were too loud for this to have just started. I'd fallen asleep. Stupid. I never fell asleep before he did. It wasn't safe. I didn't trust him. But I'd been fucking tired. Between the last weeks of my senior year, a part time job, and the pretense of college preparations, I crawled into bed, mine or [users], exhausted. Mr. [user last name] had done so much for me. He'd helped me apply for and receive a scholarship and two grants. I wouldn't even have to play football in college. Football had already taken a toll on my body. Football and...living with my father. In public, the three of us acted out the same ridiculous farce over and over again, pretending that the darkness didn't exist behind closed doors and dark nights. That we weren't living the same nightmare over and over again. But no one can hide the truth forever. Especially not when it was this ugly. I wasn't going to leave this house, not while my parents shared it. I couldn't. I was the only think stopping him. I'd been watching him closely, knowing it was going to happen again. The clock had been reset weeks ago with his last violent explosion. I still didn't have full range of motion back in my shoulder, and my mother had a new scar at the corner of her mouth. She was wasting away before my eyes as if she were purposely erasing herself from reality, from me. I'd wanted to hurt him that time. Not just stop him but really hurt him that time. I'd wanted to show him what it felt like. But I'd held myself back. Barely I'd thought of Mr. Walton as red had bled in on the edges of my vision. Sometimes the best offense was a good defense. I knew better, yet I'd still fallen asleep. It was my fucking fault. I flew down the stairs as the sound of fist against flesh, the dull thud of a body crumpling, and alcohol-fueled shouts tore through the house. I found them in the living room. He stood over her, right hand clenched in an angry fist. Bicep bulging. Jaw clenched from the rage that ruled him. He'd put on weight while my mother had lost it. Almost as if he were sucking the life out of her like one of those vampires in the books [user] was obsessed with currently. "I'm sorry," Mom whispered brokenly. She was crumpled against the baseboard. Blood from her face smeared the drywall and floor. It soaked into the T-shirt that hung limply off her bony shoulders. He kicked her viciously in the ribs. "Stop!" The command ripped its way out of my throat. He turned to stare at me with those dead, bloodshot eyes. "It's the booze," he'd say after he'd sobered up. After mom had bandaged the knuckles he'd bloodied on us. "It won't happen again." Bullshit. I hated him. In that moment, time froze, and I was so overwhelmed with hate that my knees threatened to buckle. "What did you just say to me?" he demanded. The words were precise and loaded. He didn't slur when he drank. Everything just got sharper, meaner. Just like his hits. "I said stop," I repeated as that familiar haze of red began to appear. My heartbeat thumped at that base of my skull, and I reveled in the adrenaline that dumped into my bloodstream. "Lucian, go," Mom pleaded, now on her hands and knees. He kicked her again, without even looking at her. It was like muscle memory. The blow of his boot knocked her back to the floor where she curled into a ball, whimpering. That was when I saw it. The long, jagged cut on her forearm. The glint of metal in his left hand. "You don't ever raise your fucking voice to me in my fucking house, boy" he said. My eyes were fixed on the knife I'd washed and stowed in the block on the kitchen counter. There was blood on the blade. He'd cut her. And now he was brandishing it and me. "Fuck you!" I shouted. The snap in my head was like a rubber band breaking. I wasn't the dutiful teenage son anymore. I wasn't the peacekeeper or the protector. I was him. A fury like nothing I'd ever felt before propelled me across the room. My hands fisted in his sweaty T-shirt. They looked like his. Big, bruising, capable of destruction. It struck in my head, longed there like a jagged stone. He seemed distantly surprised. Because I knew my place. I didn't fight back. But tonight, I did. Tonight, it ended before he ended one of us. I used his surprise to my advantage and threw him bodily into the wall he'd pinned me and my mother against countless times. My fist flew and connected with his concrete jaw. Pain exploded distantly. I could hear my mother's screaming from what seemed like miles away. He was shouted now. Horrible, disgusting abuse. The kinds of things you saved up for the enemy who took everything from you. Not the son who'd one only wanted to make you proud. He slashed at me with the blade. But I felt nothing except a burning anger that would never be quenched. A need to destroy. It felt so good to finally unleash it all back on him. Fresh pain fueled me. I snatched the knife out of his hand and threw it on the floor. His fist caught me in the temple, and everything went sideways. But I didn't crumple. I didn't fall or beg or cry. I couldn't give him the satisfaction. I snapped. I wouldn't stop until he fell. Until he begged, he cried. Like father, like son. I heard it in my head like a mantra on repeat. Over and over again. Over the faraway sound of breaking glass. Like father, like son. Over my mothers low wail. Like father, like son. I kept going. Kept swinging, kept dodging his fists, kept going even as my head rang. Even as the red changed and became flashing red, white and blue from outside.