“Please,” I begged. “Please tell me what you think you know about me. Seeing as how you’ve never in your life taken any interest in any one of your kids, Mike.”
His glassy stare levels on me again and I sense a challenge in his eyes. Another humorless laugh leaves his mouth and I’m tense all over, ready for whatever insult he’s prepared to hurl at me next.
“Your just like your mother. You know that?”
This is his favorite insult, and the way those words leave his mouth, there’s no mistaking he believes them to be the most hurtful thing he could possibly say to me. Which speaks volumes about how he feels about her. For now, anyway. Were she to come home today, he’d welcome her with open arms. No questions asked.
“Well, maybe it’s because Mom and I have one thing in common,” I reply, staring him straight in the eyes. “We both hate your sorry ass.”
The muscle in his jaw hardens as my words cut deeper than I realize they will. And to push me to my limit, he swipes his hand across the table, knocking both mine and Scar’s dinner to the kitchen floor.
“There!” he chuffs with a big, satisfied grin. “Now you two bitches can eat it off the floor like the dogs you are.”
My blood is boiling. I’ve had my share of bullying already. The difference is, at school I can’t do anything about West Golden. But here, on the southside, under this roof, I can do whatever the hell I want.
“Blue, no!”
Scar’s voice sounds so faint in my ears when I lunge out of my seat. Mike tries to take off when he realizes I’m coming for him, but I’m too quick and he’s too drunk.
“Let her go!” Scar screams next, when Mike reaches behind his head and grabs me by my neck. I’m clinging to him like glue, though, while he spins wildly, trying to fling me off him. But I won’t let go. Especially now that I have a tight grip around his throat with my forearm.
I don’t know what my plan is. To choke him out, maybe? To drag an apology out of him for being the reason my sister will go to bed without a meal? I’m not sure, but I do know I want him to suffer like we suffer every day of our lives, simply because we were cursed to be born his children.
“I’ll kill you,” he chokes out with saliva gurgling in his mouth. He’s clawing at my arm now, but even with the deep scratch marks he leaves, I’m nowhere close to giving up.
“Tell her you’re sorry,” I roar. “And give me your wallet, so I can buy her something else to eat and be the parent you never were.”
My demand only seems to anger him more. Pissed off and gasping for air, he rears back with all his might, slamming me hard against the wall.
“Stop it!” Scar screams. She’s hysterical now and I can only pray Ms. Levinson doesn’t hear her.
“The hell are you yelling at me for?” Mike forces from his mouth. “Crazy bitch attacked me!”
For once, I didn’t totally disagree with him. I am a crazy bitch, and he’s the one who made me this way.
I tighten my grip and my action draws an even stronger reaction from him. One that doesn’t just leave me breathless, but sends a sharp pain shooting through my shoulder. With every ounce of strength I haven’t choked out of him, Mike charges backwards toward the wall, ramming me right into the sharp corner.
As badly as I want to take him down, I’m the one who gives in.
My arm loosens from around his neck and with a loud thud, I’m on the ground. He staggers away, pawing at his throat like he’s on the brink of death, finally teetering clumsily into a chair.
“You’ve lost your damn mind!” he croaks, sounding hoarse. Knowing I managed to hurt him is some small consolation for the pain I feel spreading through my back and shoulder. If it hurts this bad now, I can only imagine what it’ll feel like by morning.
“Are you okay?” Tears are streaming down Scar’s face when she asks me this question, which makes guilt spike in my stomach.
She needs reassurance, so I nod, even though the last thing I want to do at the moment is move.
A pink ponytail whips through the air when she casts a sharp glare toward Mike.
“What is wrong with you?” she screams, calling the tears to come faster. I lift a hand to push them away, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re falling in sheets now.
Mike volleys a look between the two of us, working his jaw in anger, and then stands. He casts a gaze around the kitchen as he kicks over his seat as one last pathetic show of dominance.
“Pull yourself together and get this mess cleaned up.”
He leaves us with those words, and I feel anger I didn’t even know I had in me, bubbling up from my gut, urging me to launch another attack on him. Pain and all. The only thing that stops me from leaping onto him again is Scar. She’s a sobbing mess and it’s on me to fix it.
Mike has a way of foiling my attempts at creating the illusion that we have a normal life here. Tonight is a shining example of that.
When Scar takes her phone from her pocket, I’m confused at first, but see that the first two numbers she dials are nine and one.
“Scar, no!” That plea leaves my mouth much harsher than I mean for it to, but it was one-hundred-percent necessary.
“He can’t just do these things,” she belts out from some broken place within her. It’s someplace hidden, so deep down I fear it’s too deep for me to mend it.
Her statement isn’t wrong, but there are things she doesn’t understand. As calmly as I can, I place a hand on her phone and lower it.
“Scar, if you involve the
