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Bruised cheekbone.
Busted lip.
I couldn't decide what was worse; the fact that I couldn’t hide the bruises or the fact that I couldn’t stop him from putting them there.
Reaching for the tin that I kept hidden behind the back of the sink, I flipped the lip off and quickly set to work cutting and then snorting a line of coke, feeling some semblance of control return to my body when my head began to function again, and my heart began to thud harder.
Rubbing a hand down my face, I exhaled a sigh of relief before kicking off my clothes and climbing into the shower, willing the water to wash away my sins.
To wash away my pain.
* * *
“I don’t wantto go, Joe,” Shannon mumbled, as I practically dragged her ass to school. “Please. It’ll be the same this year.”
“No, it won’t,” I lied through my teeth and told her. “You’re in second year now. It’ll be better.”
“I really don’t think I can do it.”
“Well, I know you can.”
“You do?”
“Yeah,” I told her. “I promise.”
She looked up at me with her big blue eyes. “You really promise?”
She had our mother’s eyes and it made it hard to look at her sometimes.
“I promise, Shan.”
She smiled and visibly sagged in relief.
The word seemed to comfort something inside of my sister, even if we both knew that I didn’t mean it.
She needed the word, and I was more than willing to give it to her if it meant that she was out of the house and away from our father.
“I still can’t believe you let somebody do that to your skin,” she offered then, reaching over to touch the black ink covering my forearm. “It’s so permanent.”
Shrugging, I resisted the urge to tell her that the intricate hoops and swivels permanently etched on my forearm helped conceal the huge permanent scar our father had put there when he took a broken bottle to us last Christmas, after too many whiskeys at the dinner table.
There was no point in reminding Shannon of something she was very much aware of. Especially since she was the one who had spent the entire ride to the hospital keeping pressure on my arm, to stop me from bleeding out.
I was just glad it had been my arm andnother face that he maimed – like I had a feeling he had been aiming for.
“You’re not a fan?”
She scrunched her nose up. “Not at all, I think tattoos are hideous; although, I have to admit that the Celtic crucifix on your back isn’t entirely terrible.”
“Is that a compliment I hear?” I teased, elbowing her playfully. “Come on, you can say it.‘Joey, my favorite, most amazing, most devastatingly good-looking brother, I love your tattoo’.”
“Fine, it’s a nice tattoo.” Chuckling, she pushed me back and then hurried to catch up with me, her short legs slowing her down. “There, I said it. Are you happy now?”
“I didn’t quite hear that.” Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, I gently rustled her hair with my knuckles. “Say it.”
“Fine, fine,” Shannon squealed through fits of laughter. “Joey, my favorite, most amazing—"
“Don’t forget the most devastatingly good-look brother. That’s the best part.”
