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For a few years, we hardly see Kat and Dad, and life is actually better. Dad still flies off the handle, but as far as I can tell, it’s only when Kat has Natalie at her doctor’s appointments, and it’s only me he hits. I can handle it, as long as it isn’t ever them. Secretly, I admit that if it’s me and not them, maybe they’ll stay and I’ll have a kind of family.
But like all good things in my life, this one doesn’t last. When I turn thirteen, Natalie and I come home from school one day to find Katarina standing in the middle of the kitchen. It could have been like a normal day when she was home instead of somewhere with Dad, except this day, the cabinet doors are ripped off or hanging open, and there are broken dishes and glass everywhere.
“What the fuck?”
Kat flinches at the sound of my voice, and when she turns, her face is destroyed, just like the kitchen. There are dark streaks of mascara running down her cheeks, and the telltale sign of bruising on her upper arms. Something flashes in my brain—a memory so grainy it’s there and gone—and I know, without a doubt, before my real mom left, I walked in on a scene just like this.
“Mom?” Natalie whispers, and I catch her when she stumbles, her heavy and awkward gait making the walk across the kitchen impossible. “Mommy?” she cries again, and this time there are tears in her voice. Picking her up, I set her gently on the center island, making sure there is nothing there to hurt her, and then I turn to Kat, watching, waiting for her eyes to focus on me.
“What happened?” I ask. My fists are clenched and my chest is heaving, but I don’t move, because Kat looks scared enough. Taking out my phone, I hand it to Natalie. “Call nine one one.”
I push through the wreckage toward Kat, my only goal to get her to safety with Natalie. She’s tall and lean, but I’m built like my father, and though I’m barely a teenager, I’m taller and stronger than a lot of adults. “No,” she says when my arms wrap around her. She pushes away from me, and then she looks to Natalie, stepping over and around broken glass until she can take the phone from the girl’s hand. “Don’t call. I’m fine.”
“Fine?” I spit. “You aren’t fine. This isn’t fine. Who did this? Who did this?” I shout, the anger boiling so quickly it steals my breath.
I’m trembling, black and red swirling in my vision, my fists clenched so tightly there is pain in my wrists and my forearms, and then Natalie says my name, just my name, and I hear it. The same voice I used to use when my dad started getting this look, the one that sounds like fear, and disbelief, and a warning, all in one.
I deflate, stumbling back, shattering already-broken glass shards, and knocking into turned-over chairs. “Mal, he didn’t mean to,” Kat starts, but I cut her a look and she stops. But then she swallows, straightening her shoulders that are already showing marks from his hands where he grabbed her. “It was stupid—something I said. He didn’t mean to.”
I look at her—really look—and I see that even she doesn’t believe those words. She’s desperate to stay here, with him, and I’m no longer foolish enough to think it’s because she cares about me as much as I’ve come to care about her and her daughter. I scan her body, noting that the pants she’s wearing are silk, and her top, though a little torn, is like all of the other women I see at functions my dad goes to. Her wedding set sparkles, big enough to weight down her tiny finger.
All of these observations tell me one thing: Katarina is like everyone else, and I’m an idiot for thinking that Natalie made her different.
“Keep telling yourself that,” I spit. And then I turn and leave.
I stop taking Natalie everywhere, stop acknowledging her at school, stop showing up to dinner, accepting the beatings Dad gives as punishment. For some reason, those are easier to take than watching Kat and Natalie tiptoe around him, afraid, always afraid. Especially when I wanted to help and they wouldn’t let me.
A month later, I’m sneaking back into the house from five hours with Hunter at the beach and then the skatepark, and I hear it, the obvious sound of whispering and rushed movements.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“We can’t stay here anymore, baby. Leave your things.” I stop in the hallway where Natalie’s and my room are. The master suite is an entire length of the house away, on the other side. Shifting, I stay against the wall and watch through the crack in Natalie’s door. The lights are off, but the small glow from the track lighting in the hallway shows me moving bodies.
“Mom, what happened to your face?”
There is no answer, but I hear weeping. Inside my chest, my heart pounds. I clench my fists, but I don’t move, not even when Kat comes out of Natalie’s room, holding her daughter in her arms. When she sees me, she stumbles to a halt, and her eyes widen.
“Malcolm,” she whispers, and the raging of my heart stops, because her face is marred with black again, but it isn’t from mascara.
“I guess you finally figured it out.” My voice is hard, but I can’t make it any different. I hate this woman—hate her for not taking my warning when she showed up on my doorstep with her daughter all those years ago, hate her for not listening to herself when she knew that something was wrong. Hate her for being so desperate for love that she put her daughter in the position of living with a man who treated her like fucking dirt.
More, I hate her for breaking my heart.
“Come with us.” My eyes veer to Natalie, and that traitorous heart jumps back to life for just a second, until I see Kat’s face. Horror. Because she knows, like me, that my dad won’t chase her if she takes her daughter and goes. Preston Brady would never chase anyone, let alone a woman and her disabled daughter. But his son…he would chase me to the end of the Earth.
So I step back, pull on the armor I’ve been building since my first mom left, and sneer. “Run away with two girls, one who can’t even stand on her own? No, thanks.”
I walk away, casual, like my heart isn’t hammering and my throat isn’t closing at the thought of yet another person disappearing and leaving me here. I don’t turn around, don’t say goodbye, don’t tell Natalie to take care of herself, to live before her body gives out, to tell Kat that I’m sorry my dad is an asshole abuser I didn’t save her from.
But when I get to my room, I don’t get into bed, either. I slide down the wall and watch the door until the sun rises. I stay where I am, listening to the sounds of him waking up. The moment I know he understands what’s happened, I stand and wait, ready for him when he bursts in.
I let him take the first swing; I accept the blow, because for some reason, I need that pain as a reminder that love isn’t fucking real. And then I do what I never have: I hit back.Hard.
Blood leaks from his nose, fire blazes in his eyes, and I stand, fists clenched, waiting to do it again. I’ll take another blow if it means I can do it again. Anything to rid myself of the ache that tells me I’m destined to be unloved and alone the rest of my life.
