Page 92 of Relapse

Oh God, why?

Another piece of me felt like it was dying.

Why me?

“Noah, you know it only pleases me to hear you cry for mercy,” he said with a twisted smile.

I continued to battle his prying hands, struggling beneath him.

I couldn’t stay silent this time. My body filled with the need to remind David of what he already knew but ignored. I knew it wouldn’t change anything, but the tears came either way, and I couldn’t stop myself from saying it.

“I’m your son,” I sobbed.

David said nothing. Felt nothing.

“Your son!” I screamed, choking on my tears.

David’s hands ripped at my boxers, surely bruising me as he pulled the elastic with force.

I am your son.

And you are trying to fuck me like some cheap whore.

Trying to rape me. Again.

I grabbed one of David’s hands with both of mine and forced it back up to my throat. He stopped and locked eyes with me, nostrils flaring.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” I asked. And I meant it.

I never wanted to feel this way again. This…sickness. Filth. This godforsaken torture.

“Just fucking kill me already!”

“If I killed you,” David said with a little smirk. “Then this wouldn’t be as much fun, would it?”

The word “fun” hung in the air between us, a taunt that was more chilling than the actual threat and pain that awaited me. This was about hurting me. Whether I understood why or not, David thrived on my pain, and he was enjoying every last bit of my struggle. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted me to scream. He wanted me to cry.

He wanted me to hate myself so much that I did the hard part for him. He couldn’t kill me.

He wanted me to kill myself.

His comment had somehow sharpened a single, dire point of focus in my oxygen-starved brain. The hospital. He’d just come from the hospital. He had a weakness.

With a surge of adrenaline burning through my limbs, I stopped trying to block his prying hands and aimed. I rotated my arm back and slammed my fist up with all the force I could muster, driving it hard into his side, right where I knew the bandages would be. Where the knife had gone in.

David roared, a sound of pure shock and pain, his body buckling into my fist, hands instantly shooting to the spot where I had hit him. His moment of falter was all I needed. I bucked my hips, throwing him off my waist and crawled away. My back hit the far wall of the closet and I stopped to catch my breath. My chest was on fire, and my vision was swimming, but I was free. For a moment.

“You little shit,” he snarled, clutching his side. “You’re going to regret that.”

I watched as David eased himself up off the ground, using my bedside table as support. He was moving slowly now, but I knew it wasn’t over. I had to do something.

And it’s true I never learned from my mistakes.

“Dad—” I pleaded, hoping that I could reach him somewhere. The man who raised me. Who took me to my first day of school. Who used to hold me on his shoulders.

Wasn’t he in there somewhere?

“Dad, please,” I urged, “Let’s end this.” I hoped he could see. How badly I wanted it to be over. I’d take a vow of silence, if he would just…stop.