Chapter 5
When discharge day came around, Dad was MIA. I figured he was just tied up with work and caught an Uber home.
The moment I limped through the front door, Mom launched a half empty vodka bottle straight at me. It smashed against my already broken arm, and the pain made me see stars.
She sat sprawled on the couch, glaring at me like I was something she’d scraped off her shoe. “Why couldn’t you just die out there and save everyone the trouble?”
Blinking back tears, I looked desperately toward the recliner where Dad sat scrolling through his phone.
But this time, he didn’t leap to my defense. Didn’t even look up.
Mom, sensing his indifference, went full psycho. She yanked away my crutch and shoved me hard. I collapsed onto the hardwood floor, pain shooting through my broken leg.
I looked up at her through tears. “Mom, what did I ever do to you? Haven’t you beaten me enough over the years? Will you only be happy when I’m dead?”
She hawked and spat on the floor next to my face, then raised the crutch like a baseball bat.
“That’s exactly right. I wish you’d never been born!”
The crutch came down across my back. Again. Again. My screams bounced off the walls of our MC Masion, but no one outside would hear. The
neighbors‘ houses were too far away–one of the “perks” of living in an upscale suburb.
Dad just sat there, flipping through pages on his tablet like he was checking the stock market while I was being murdered ten feet away.
Until I broke and called for him.
“Dad! Please! Help me!”
I expected him to rush over like he always had before. To pull Mom off me, to stand between us.
But he didn’t move a muscle.
“You’ve upset your mother,” he said flatly, not looking up. “She needs to get it out of her system.”
His words hit harder than any blow. The fragile thread of hope I’d been clinging to snapped.
No. No way. Had he watched the video after all?
“Dad,” I choked out between sobs, “did you watch it? You promised you wouldn’t! You said you’d help me move out!”
After I shouted that last part, I noticed Mom’s hand shake uncontrollably for a second.
But Dad just stood up with an irritated sigh, walked over, and kicked me in the side.
He looked down at me like I was gum on his shoe. All the love, all the warmth–gone.
“What video? Stop making excuses. You deserve everything you’re getting. Your mother might as well finish the job.”
My father–the one person I thought would never abandon me–was telling my mother to kill me.
He’d seen the video. He had to have.
Just then, my sisters Chelsea and Zoe walked in from whatever Mean Girls convention they’d been attending. They glanced at me lying there bleeding, rolled their eyes in perfect sync, and walked upstairs to their rooms.
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Burnt Beauty, Family Beasts
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Chapter 5
After what felt like forever, Mom finally stopped–not out of mercy, but because she was too tired to continue her little workout routine on my body.
Dad slipped his arm around her waist and guided her upstairs to their bedroom like she’d just finished a hard day at the office instead of attempting filicide.
The beating had reopened half my wounds and probably created some new ones. But nobody gave a single glance.
And I still had no clue what I’d supposedly done to deserve all this.
I felt hollowed out, like someone had scooped out everything inside me and replaced it with ice. In this house, even Dad had joined the enemy camp.
There was no point to stay here anymore.
I packed what little I could carry and planned my midnight escape,
As I crept past Dad’s study with my duffle bag, I noticed the glow of a screen through the cracked door.
Something pulled me closer.
I eased the door open another inch and saw my mother staring at her phone, watching that goddamn video again.
I stood frozen, finally seeing what everyone else had seen–and what I saw would haunt me for the rest of my life.
I finally knew why my mother wanted me dead!!!
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