AllFreeNovel
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I round the corner into the alley next to our building. There’s a dingy orange security light attached halfway up the brick facade, but it doesn’t offer light so much as a strong sense that I’ve stumbled into the apocalypse.
I kneel down in an orange puddle to unlock my bike.
“If I’d known it was going to rain, I would have carried you up the stairs,” I say.
If maniacal laughter wasn’t already a clue that I’m losing my mind, talking to my bike surely is. I fumble with the lock chain in the dark. My fingers are slippery from all the water, and when they slip and I accidentally bend a fingernail all the way back, I want to curl up in a ball and cry right then and there.
Shower. Pajamas. Pizza.
I repeat my evening plans like a mantra as I finally pop the lock free, loop it around the base of the sopping wet seat, and tug my bike away from the rack.
Then the world tips sideways.
Correction:someonetips my world sideways.
For a second, the hands around my throat blend in with the pounding rain. My brain is overloaded with things to notice, so when I’m yanked to my left and thrown unceremoniously into the garbage-filled stream of dirty water running down the alleyway, I’m confused.
“What the—”
“You fuckingcunt,” a deep voice hisses.
That was definitely not the wind. Or the rain.
Panic lashes through me. Someone fists the wet material of my shirt and hauls me to my feet like I’m a sack of potatoes. I look back over my shoulder, but rain is pouring down my face and the man is backlit by the orange safety light.
So much for safety—I can’t see shit.
I try to scream, but the man slams me against the brick wall. The air in my lungs leaves me in a whoosh.
“Not so tough now, eh?” He pins me in, crowding so close that he blocks some of the rain.
And for the first time, I get a good look at my attacker.
“I know you,” I wheeze. “I—I—”
“You—you—,” he mimics, his voice going unnaturally high. Then he lets out a deep, bitter laugh that isn’t mirthful in the slightest. “You took my kid away from me.”
The past few days have been a blur of meetings and home visits and filing case reports. The faces that stand out are few and far between. The woman who spat out the word “coochie” with zero humor at all definitely stands out.
This man, with his prematurely wrinkled skin and dark, worn clothes, didn’t make an impression. He was just another in a line of parents too deep in their own addiction to recognize the child in their care needed, ya know,care.
Until now. Suddenly, he’s in Technicolor.
“It wasn’t my decision.” I hate the way my voice breaks. An unspoken plea wedged between the words. “I make the reports, but someone else—”
“You said I was ‘unfit.’” He draws closer. The alcohol on his breath washes over me.
The smell takes me right back.
Back to being five, seven, ten years old. Back to being young and helpless. Back to making myself small, hoping if I stay quiet, it will all go away.
He slicks his yellowed tongue over his teeth. “You wrote in your fuckin’ paperwork that I hurt my kid.”
The little boy had bruises after every visit with his dad and tiptoed around adults like he was walking through a minefield. It wasn’t hard to guess what was happening.
I’ve seen it too many times.
I’velivedit too many times.
