I didn’t pick them up. Instead, I stepped over them while I wrapped myself up in the white terrycloth and ambled to my bedroom door.
My mother’s eager face awaited me when I pried it open. We looked so similar, her and I, only her face had wrinkles, and her hairwas speckled with a few gray wisps around her temples. She held a teacup in her hands with the bag still steeping inside.
Her eyes that were the same shade as mine, took in my wet hair and skirted back up to my face when they found the bruises.
“Delilah, how about some tea? We could talk?”
My lips formed into a hard line. I could tell she regretted hitting me, though she would never apologize. But I wasn’t interested in talking to someone who didn’t believe a word I said.
“No thanks,” I said, going to close the door.
Her foot wedged between it as I went to close it, halting my progress.
“Delilah, I really think we need to talk. There are things that might transpire because of what happened and I need you to be prepared for it.” Her tone was firm and I knew from experience that there was no denying her. As much as I wanted to slam the door in her face, I had no strength left to argue. All I wanted was to fall asleep and erase the last few hours from my brain.
“Fine,” I said, stalking off to my bed.
She swept into the space, towering above me as I sat on my plush comforter. Rivulets of water sluiced down my legs as I waited for her to speak.
“Well,” she cleared her throat and held onto the teacup tight enough that her knuckles blanched. “After that display downstairs, I would normally ground you, however, you’ve been through an—” she searched for the right word to use,
“—ordeal and your father and I think it’s best we pray for you and give you some space to heal from that boy.”
I flinched from her words, wanting to correct her, but she continued.
“Now, as for what happened, the Lord never gives us more than we can bear, and while it’s unfortunate, we must use this moment to understand what He might be trying to teach us. In the event that you fall pregnant, we will look at it as a welcome blessing. A child is always a welcome gift from The Lord.”
A baby?
I hadn’t even thought about a baby until now. I’d been soconsumed with the ‘ordeal’ itself that I hadn’t gotten there yet in my brain. And the thought stole my fucking breath from my lungs.
No. No way am I having my rapist’s baby.
My mom must have registered my expression because she set down her cup and walked over to me, sitting next to me on my bed. Her weight made the mattress dip down. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.
She wanted me to think of this as a blessing. A blessing?
“Delilah, we must remember that this is all a part of God’s plan.”
I lost my shit and stood up with my fists balled, my towel barely hanging onto my body.
“You have the audacity to sit here and tell me that I was raped because it was all apart of God’s plan? I didn’t ask for this to happen to me!” I was shaking and could feel my heart beating hard against my chest.
My mother just sighed. She sighed, like my emotions and what I went through were a major disappointmentfor her.
“Alright, Delilah. Get some sleep. Say your prayers, it’ll make everything better,” she said, pushing off my bed and leaving the teacup she brought behind. I closed the door— hard. My hands pressed down on the wood as I willed my heart rate to calm. Tears that I didn’t realize I’d shed had leaked from my eyes, falling freely from my cheeks.
Disgust and rage became twin flames in my chest, begging for me to let them out. My nails scraped down the wood leaving ten claw marks in the door as a primal scream ripped out of my throat.
I knew it was a mistake the moment I did it, but I had no fucks left to give.
Within seconds, my father was barreling through the door, making me back up and had me nearly tripping over my own feet.
“What is the meaning of this?” He demanded, looking down his nose at me. He was a tall man. Well over six feet, and he worked out regularly. Where I got my features from my mother, I got my rage from my father. He was quick to anger and a firm believer in corporal punishment. When I was younger, he made me my own paddle for when I misbehaved. He carved my name into it and hung it on thewall of our kitchen. An ever-present threat looming over me should I even think about misbehaving.
The look in his storm gray eyes was one I’d seen many times. It was the look he got when he was about to unleash that anger on anyone close, and my muscles reacted before my brain even caught onto the danger I’d just put myself in. He hated screaming and loud noises and being back here in my childhood room made me feel like that scared five-year-old girl all over again.
“I—I’m sorry,” I spat out, trying to manage the situation. But it seemed my father was out of patience, because he raised his hand and backhanded me across the face. My parents were two for two today.
