She was great, you know, my mother. I just really missed her. I didn't think it would ever stop. It had been three years since she died.
Even when she was alive I never told her about this. This was my relationship with my father. It was confusing to say the least. Sometimes he acted like I was the best kid, I mean, he acted all proud of me, supportive, all of that. But then sometimes I guess I made him so angry.
"Dad, look, I'm sorry…" I was always apologizing, but I wasn't sorry half the time. Half the time I didn't even know what the hell I did. But I'd say that I was sorry in the hopes that he'd be less, well, angry. It didn't work, it never worked. If he got super pissed at me there was no changing it. Nothing could change it. Not words or actions or anything.
He'd yell at me, and he had this way of yelling that was frightening. There was this depth of anger behind it that was staggering. Yelling was bad but hitting was worse. He'd hit me, and strap me with his belt and kick me and punch me. A lot of the time I hated him, and the rest of the time I hated myself. I blamed him and I blamed myself and I blamed my mother for dying. I blamed everyone. When I was lying in my room and crying and feeling whatever it was that hurt from being beat, I blamed everyone.
But then there was school and my friends and when I was there I pretended that everything was fine. I pretended like nothing was even happening. Like I was normal just like them. Of course I didn't come home to my father's mountain of anger and get strapped with his leather belt, of course not. Of course he didn't kick me in the stomach and the ribs until I couldn't breathe. That didn't happen. He didn't tell me how I was worthless and always screwed up one day and then tell me how much he loved me and was proud of me the next day. That wasn't my life.
It was so nice to pretend that things were okay, to live in that pleasant lie. To eat potato chips and popcorn and go see movies and ride my skateboard and play at being a normal kid, like someone on a stage in a play or something. It was nice to let the bad parts of my life go.
I thought things might just go on like this. I was almost in grade nine. That meant I had only four more years that I'd have to put up with him. But as it turns out I couldn't put up with him nearly that long.
You know how sometimes you think you're fine with something, or you're able to put up with it but it turns out that this other part of you was getting more and more fed up? Like the subconscious or something, it was just building up and up and then you end up screaming at the teacher or the boss or the bully or the parent that is beating the shit out of you? I was getting more fed up then I knew or realized. Every little thing was starting to push me to the edge.
I hadn't been home from camp long, summer camp, when I ended up being late for dinner. I was indulging my hobby at that time, taking pictures. So I missed six o'clock and was late for dinner. You'd think I started world war three. My dad was so pissed about it.
"So you just lose track of time and miss dinner?" he says in this half angry, half sarcastic way of his. I'm eyeing him at the table, my plate of food in front of me. I start breathing faster. I know the signs. The narrowed eyes, the clenched and unclenched fists, the sarcasm. He pushes my plate of food off the table in this sudden burst, and I watch the food and the plate go flying, and then he gets up suddenly, his chair flying back. I'm watching with wide eyes, my fingers gripping the edge of the table. He starts to leave and I feel something in my chest start to loosen.
"Clean it up," he says, spitting the words, and shakily I move to do it. I put the food back on the plate and get the sponge and clean the food stains from the carpet. All the while I'm waiting for my breathing to come back to normal.
The next thing that pushes me millimeters closer to the edge is when I go to that party at Emma's house and he finds my photo album and all of that. I go home and I see that he's trashed the dark room and destroyed the photo album.