My arms came up to block my head from the hard blow I knew was coming, yet unfortunately I knew this left my waist and below completely exposed. He noticed this too, I realized as the wind was forced out of my chest along with a low grunt I'd tried, and failed, to suppress. Because this one powerful hit had thrown me even off my feet and to my back, I made certain to stand back up as quickly as I could manage. I ignored the pulsating pains which resonated throughout the majority of my body. No way was I about to let him win this round so easily. I had yet to ever win, but with each new beating, I believed I grew nearer.
Instinctively, I threw myself at the relatively larger man's knees in an attempt to knock him off of his feet. He was a step ahead of me though, and instead I received a nice big knee right into my jaw. This time when I fell back to the ground, it was considerably more difficult to get back up, not helped by the blood I had to spit out now. My teeth'd hit my tongue very hard with that last hit, which was where the viscous red liquid was coming from. Because I was now out of the fight physically, I knew, I'd have to deliver some blows verbally before the fight was over.
"You stupid," I began, fighting through the now extreme pain I felt in my jaw, "sadistic, abusive, FUCKING cunt!"
I felt myself nearing passing out as the chair came down on my struggling body as punishment for those words.
"Clean up your fucking mess," was all I heard—about the blood I was spewing, I knew—and then right before I did end up passing out on the grungy and bloody floor, all I heard were my father's steps heading up the stairs and away from me. I'd lost again, but that just meant he'd vented his anger, and my sister wouldn't have to face even a glare from him.
"Oh Riley, sweetheart," my mother cooed as she gently treated my battle wounds. She'd not been expecting for this to happen again upon returning from her work trip, I could tell. Each time she knew her cleaning stung me and I held in a gasp, she flinched too. "I don't understand why you won't just tell me which of the boys at school are doing this; it's already completely out of hand. We would be able to stop this."
She finished by sticking on some gauze, and sealed it with the softest and most caring of kisses upon my head.
"No you wouldn't," was my only, partially mumbled reply; my jaw was still bruised and swollen, causing speech to be a bit more difficult.
Now as I glanced over, I spotted Samantha's young eyes poking over the edge of the table. I returned a look which showed that I wanted to speak with her, and I knew she'd know what I meant. It was a look we exchanged often. So, with that, I stood, and proceeded upstairs to the bed room shared with my younger sister. She followed.
"I don't understand why you won't just tell her," came Sam's naïve comment as she closed the room door behind her casually.
"Well I just wanted to thank you again for not doing so yourself," I replied. I'd answered her previous comment more than once, my answer hadn't changed, so I didn't bother to address it. Mom wouldn't have believed me, and it wasn't worth the risk of my father going through with his threat of making it worse. "Also, for not tattling about my sneaking out."
"I don't understand that either," my sister said. "You're only provoking him. You're bringing it on yourself, and I hate that you won't stop it."
She really didn't have any concept of the real truth, did she? I was of the belief that she did, but I guess I figured wrong. She had no idea that I took all the bullshit I did to stop that responsibility from spilling onto her. My father had to get out all of his pent-up rage every so often, and so I always put myself in the way. Samantha might understand that one day, but right now she and mom didn't have to really know.
"Well, I can't stop it. I'm finally finding somewhere to fit in, so be happy for me," I said back, but my tone didn't hold the bossiness that my words did, then said even more gently, "c'mere, you've got some dirt on your nose."
She complied, and gave one of her small faerie smiles as I licked the fingerprint of my thumb and used it to rub the bit of dirt from the tip of her button nose.
"There," I gave with a quick smile back at her.
That night, things went as usual. I slept for maybe an hour before waking up. I assured that everyone else was fast asleep, before then proceeding to the window which was far too easy to pry open, climbed down the tree directly next to it, and then was off to meet with my friends.
My return this evening, however, didn't go as perfectly with the plan. It had rained while I was out, which had happened before (this was England after all, where damp is a practically a colour) but I hadn't been counting on my own body betraying me this time.
As I made my way back up the tree, I went to reach for the last branch I'd have to grab before being able to climb back through the window, but a sharp unexpected pain then shot its way from my wrist through my body. It had to have been from my most recent beating. But that didn't concern me anywhere near as much as he fact that I was now falling towards the hard, sodden ground. Had the tree been dry, my hand and feet probably would have kept grip on it, but evidently, that wasn't the case. I blanked out then, and don't remember hitting the ground.
The next thing I do remember was waking up, the night sky still dark, but feeling completely soaked, and my family stood around me. I knew that it was my father's strong hands which yanked me up unceremoniously from the ground. My decent must have caused a fair bit of noise. There was talking going on between them, but my head didn't bother trying to decode it all right then.
The first thing which came out clearly as ringing chorus bells, as opposing as they were, was my father telling my mom and sister to head back inside to bed, while he would take me to the hospital. Like fuck he would, I thought, but could only release a long, slow moan.
Promising he would call when he had an update, my father convinced his wife to just trust him, but that didn't take as much effort as it did to get Samantha to leave him with me. As much as I knew she would have wanted to tell me, "I told you so," from what I picked up from her voice, she was almost as against this idea as I was.
But eventually, without a doubt, my father got his way, and I was laid across the back bench seat of his Mazda, before driving off into the night.
Even without being able to see out the window, and the fact that the rattling of the car was helping egg on a migraine, I could feel that we weren't headed for the hospital. Not yet, anyway.
Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later, the brakes squealed, tearing into my hurting head, and we had pulled over. In the split second that it took him to climb out of his door and come around to get me, I wished to just pass out again and not wake up. The Gods had no reason to listen to me, though.
His powerful grip could be felt at my ankles as he dragged me out. Ever since losing my grip in the tree back home, this night had been passing like a dream, and now was no different. The only big difference was that in a dream, there was no pain, and my body was in the opposite of that. Before I knew it, he'd pulled me out into the seemingly abandoned field just outside of the city. I now had scratches covering my skin to add to it all, and during this I think I might have vomited, but I'm not at all positive on that.
"How fucking long have you been sneaking out?" he demanded in a shout that engaged every nerve in my head that was already pulsating with pain. "You little fucking bastard."
Since he'd let go of my ankles by now, I attempted to stand, and even had I been able to, he assured that I wasn't by throwing a punch directly into my stomach, and I coughed up blood all over again while falling back into the mud.
"Well, Riley? What's your excuse this time, fuck-up?" he said to me now even more harshly. I'd heard it all though: this couldn't faze me again, and so I didn't allow it to. "What if people had seen the window you left so blatantly open? Never mind the people you were no doubt meeting with. What if they'd followed you home? Gotten into my house, into the room of MY daughter?"
I writhed, trying to reach something to hold onto, anything, but all I was met with was mud. He placed a boot upon one of my struggling hands, and immediately twisted his foot in a way that caused me to hear and feel my wrist snap. My lips suddenly released a cry of pain. I instantly resented them for it.
"What if they'd harmed my wife? Violated my daughter?" He was still shouting. But I had to fight back; I couldn't back down like this, because if I did stop trying, he might just have killed me here and now.
"You mean before you had the opportunity to?" I shot back loudly, somehow. I knew it was one of the stupidest things I could have said at the moment, partially because I was almost positive that my father would never dare do something like such (besides, I'd have killed myself before ever allowing it), but it was what had come out.
"Sick, disgusting little faggot—" I never heard the second half of his brilliantly thought up insult because he'd then pressed my face down into the mud. It was now all I could taste, except for blood, too.
At that moment though, I found a small saving grace by some gift from above. My usable hand came across a rock the size of my fist, give or take, and so, I held onto it for dear life. I just had to wait for the right opportunity.
He was, at the moment, circling me, I believe, spewing vulgar insults, and delivering the occasional blow to my beaten, bruised body. When I was allowed a prolonged moment without kicks, my legs started working almost of their own accord. They used any available energy and strength to drag me up to a standing position I would have believed impossible to hold at that moment had it not actually have been happening.
Then, with a quick swing of my arm, which felt aided by an external power in an indescribable way, I brought my hard blunt weapon across his face. I would later learn of the gash this caused and to boot, a permanent scar which would begin to mirror his tainted soul despite his overly handsome face.
I considered this my first victory.
"I swear to God," I spat with unparalleled coldness, "the day I get to watch you die, I'll be laughing so hard it'll hurt more than any blow you've ever delivered to me." I still wasn't sure where this sudden but limited burst of energy had come from.
All the same, moment later, I must have passed out again, because my world went completely obsidian black. My words or actions must have made an impact though, because much to my disbelief, this next time I woke up, I was in the hospital.
After the whole incident, I was allowed to stay home from school for a week, to 'rest', but I'd rather have gone. It would have been less of a prison. My father made certain that's exactly what home now was.