Category: Young Adult/Teen ISBN-10: B082GJF4QH
Type: Fiction
Pages: 154
Copyright: Aug 15 2018
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
Most life stories have people overcoming their demons. I'd just like to escape mine.
My name is Jay Richard Peters.I was born on the 24th of March 1967.In less than two weeks I'll turn seventeen, and I'll finally be moving out of my home... or maybe I should say my hell, and into a place of my own.
For as long as I can remember, a dark cloud, my father, has hung over my existence.An inescapable, unpredictable force, worse than the devil itself.He's made running away impossible.But I'm not planning to run away.I'm planning to move out.That's what you do when you grow up, you move out.
But first, I want to make a record of my life up to this point.Then, my first night in my own place, I’ll hold a ceremonial burning. Burning the past to cleanse the future, as Taylora would say.Not that everything in my past was bad... to tell the story right, I guess I'll want to talk about that too.
No, not want.Need.I need to talk about the good.I need to remember the bits of my life worth living.If I'm going to get through this... I have to talk about those bits too.The bits that kept me going. The bits that pulled me through. But... uh... I guess I should stop rambling and actually get started...
Excerpt
The look in his eyes terrified me, I thought it was the end of the world. And for every second I was forced to stare into them, the darker and more fearful they became. My heart pounded and froze inside of me with sickening dread, as he held my wrist in a vice-like grip and pulled me screaming into the kitchen. I wailed. I sobbed. I cried in protest. It was infantile of me to believe he would let me go. But I didn’t know better then. Didn’t know what he was capable of, or how powerless I was in comparison.
In one swift action, he moved his hand from my wrist to my hair. Now any attempt I made to pull away from him hurt every follicle in my head. But that didn’t stop me from struggling. Didn’t stop me from trying to get away from him, as my wails of fear became louder and more intense. I didn’t understand how we got to this point. Did I say something wrong? Did I do something he didn’t like? I was too young, my memories too ill-formed to tease out any solid moment which had led us here. All I knew for sure was that I wanted… needed… someone… anyone to save me. But no one heard my cries. No one came to my aid. It was just me… and him.
‘Damnit. Shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Shit. It isn’t fair. You’re not being fair. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This isn’t what I wanted. Shit.’
Those words… It sounded like they were coming from someone more afraid than frustrated. The voice didn’t match the eyes I’d seen at all, but it did remind me of the person I thought had been there before those eyes had appeared. Then again, half the time when I think back to that day, I’m not completely certain I really remember him saying them at all. Like it’s something I’ve added to that moment, because I want to believe he could have been someone different. But wanting something to be true, doesn’t change the facts. And, whether or not he actually said those words became quickly irrelevant the moment he spoke again. It was like a whole different person. A person who matched the eyes I’d been staring into. A person who, at that moment in time, was a stranger to me, but one I would come to know only too well.
‘You know; you scream like a girl,’ his lips curled. ‘A girl; that’s what you were meant to be. They all said you would be. Everyone,’ he spat. ‘Everyone told me you were going to be a girl. Do you know how happy I was to think I would have a daughter? I couldn’t wait to meet you,’ he gave a twisted kind of laugh, ‘that thought just makes me sick now. Forty-eight hours… forty-eight hours of labour, that’s how long it took for you to be born. When I saw Flow after, she was tired but happy. So beautiful… glowing… radiant. Everything she was supposed to be. Then I saw you, this… this… disgusting, pink, squash of flesh,’ his grip on my hair tightened, ‘and they told me you were a boy. A boy,’ he sneered the word as though it were the most disgusting thing he’d ever heard. ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen. But, hey, since you’re my responsibility anyway, maybe we can fix that mistake.’
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