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Our eyes catch and his arm extends to my face, but he stops himself.
“I know I should have stormed out of his office the second he proposed what he did. But the things he said… they were so vile. They reminded me of who I was before rehab. Who I’d been my entire life. And I couldn’t let him dig any further into our pasts. All I was thinking was that you’d protected me my whole life and how it was my turn to protect you because if he found out that you’d…”
“Killed your father,” he whispers.
My eyes close. The words are finally out between us.
I crumple in on myself, leaning forward in my chair, my arms around my waist as quiet sobs surge out of my throat. That day is burned into my mind for eternity.
My father’s angry eyes are right in front of me. Soon, I’m not on the porch with Jimmy, I’m back in that shack of a house…
The front door slams and my pen freezes over the page of my diary.
Was I that enthralled in my own mind that I didn’t hear his beater of an old pick-up truck pull up to our makeshift home? Scrambling off my bed, I shove my diary and pen underneath my mattress. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I don’t have to see to know that my father is standing in the doorway.
Turning slowly, my eyes close and my stomach clenches.
He leans against the doorframe, his eyes half shut and glossed over, his clothes wrinkled and half untucked. His drinking grows more out of control with every day. “Whatcha got there girl?”
He eyeballs my mattress. Shit. If I have any chance of getting out of here unscathed before he inevitably passes out, I have to walk the delicate line of not angering him and not gaining his interest.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
His heavy footfalls stomp into the room and he pushes me aside before lifting my mattress off the bed. The sheets slide off, and a picture on the wall crashes to the floor from the mattress landing across the room. He wobbles when he bends over. I send up a little prayer that he’ll pass out before he finds what he’s looking for.
But as usual, God doesn’t answer my prayers.
“What’s this? Don’t look like nuthin.” He holds my diary in his dirt-caked hands.
I stand as still as the thinnest tree branch before a big storm, waiting, hoping for a miracle.
He thumbs through the book to the last entry—the one where I wrote about Jimmy and me slipping down to the creek yesterday to fool around. How much I like the way I disappear inside myself when we’re together.
His entire body tenses, and without warning, his hand snaps out and backhands me across the face. I fall to the floor, tears stinging my eyes but they don't sting nearly as badly as my cheek. I blink several times, waiting for my vision to clear.
“You fuckin’ that boy?” he roars.
“No, Daddy. It’s all just made up.” I wobble to stand, but he swats me on the side of the head and I tumble back down, blood coating my mouth.
“Bullshit! You little slut. Just like yer mama.” He throws the diary against the wall and it slides down to the floor, sprawled open.
A sense of profound loss hits me when I look at it open for anyone to read. I wanted one thing for myself. Just one thing that was mine alone and wasn’t tarnished by all the terrible and lacking things in my life. I only ever wrote my happy moments between those pages, but now that’s gone and ruined too.
“How long you been lettin’ him take a dip in-between yer thighs?”
I look away from my diary and up at my dad. His fists are clenched at his sides. When I don’t answer, he grabs me by the front of the shirt, yanking me up.
“Ow, that hurts!”
“You little bitch. Opening up what’s mine for everyone on the mountain.” He pushes me down onto the mattress that now lies on the floor and rips open the front of my shirt, revealing my bra.
I bat his hands away. “No, stop!”
“That’s enough! I’m gunna teach you a lesson.” He smacks me across the face and everything goes black.
Coming to, I blink. My dad’s dirty beard is right in front of my face. I’m sprawled out on the mattress, and my pants and underwear are down around my ankles.
