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If you had asked me a year ago if something other then my work would be on my mind, I would tell you no. Work is what has driven me for as long as I can remember, yet all I can think about lately is a little redhead who doesn’t know how to say fuck.
The day I killed my stepfather wasn’t planned, it just kind of happened. I was older, and I wasn’t going to continue taking his shit, no matter how much my mother pleaded his case. I didn’t expect to take his life that day. I just wanted to beat him real good, so he understood exactly what it was like to wake up the same way he woke me up for years on end.
My mother was on nightshift because she always worked while he sat on his fucking ass and drank whatever he could get his hands on. He used her like a toy as if she were a puppet for his imagination.
I went to my bedroom and shut the door like I normally would, but I couldn’t lock it since he removed the lock when I was younger.
On Friday nights, he would always pass out in his recliner before he would wake and visit my room, so I knew it was the perfect time to show him that he could no longer do what he was doing to me.
When I heard something drop from my bedroom, I got up and crept out of the room to see him in the recliner, lounged back and fast asleep. The remote had fallen to the floor and the bottle he was drinking from dangled loosely from his hand. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what I intended to do, but I knew now was the only time I could do it.
When I stood over him, and he didn’t move, I leaned forward and placed both my hands around his neck, and started to squeeze. He woke, his eyes bloodshot from either lack of sleep or the alcohol. I wasn’t sure which. Nor did I care. His hands clawed at mine the same way mine had his countless nights when he would visit me in my room.
There were days that he would beat me so badly my mother would tell me not to go to school and to sit in the backyard where he couldn’t see me. It was hard covering bruises around the neck, and sometimes teachers asked questions. But I didn’t really answer them, and I guess they weren’t paid enough to care.
He tried to punch me, but the thing is, when you’ve been punched so many times by the same person, you become numb to it after a while.
I intended to let go. I really, really did. But the look in his eyes told me that he was going to make me pay for my insolence, and I knew that couldn’t happen. So I applied more pressure, blocking his windpipe. His fingers dug deeper into my arms, trying to dislodge me, but he was drunk, and I was dead sober. He couldn’t beat me this time, no matter how hard he tried.
I remember the smile that touched my lips as I watched him pass out from the lack of oxygen and how my hands wouldn’t release their grip.
My mother came home that night, or maybe it was the next morning—I kind of lost track of time—to find him in the recliner, not breathing, and me on the floor just watching him, waiting for him to jump up.
In my mother’s eyes, all I saw was the relief wash over her face.
She went to prison for his murder in my place. It was the only act of love I ever remember her showing me. I haven’t seen her since that day and, to be honest, I never intend to see her again.
I wonder if that’s why I’m so attracted to Oriana. Her composure, her sweetness, they’re just not something I’ve ever dealt with before.
And I quite like how that feels.
To have someone so kind.
Gentle.
Demure.
Actually, I quite like her.
