Fear trip-hammering in his chest, and he knew it wasn't his heart beat. It was just fear. This is stupid, he thought, it's just Joey. But he knew it wasn't. He knew it wasn't Joey he was afraid of. It was his father. It was the memory of that beating from last year when he had seen Joey and Angela, when he had made that photo album with them in it, when he tried to run away. It was the ghost of the ache in his healed broken bones, the fact that a golf club hurt much worse than a belt.
Joey. He remembered what it was like being at his house when his mother was still alive, when he still had someone to go to when things were bad. Things were so much easier when she was still alive. Now he had nowhere to go.
"Craig, how are you?" Joey said, squinting at him in that concerned way he had, and Craig felt like he could almost read his mind. Joey was thinking, 'why are you out so late?' and 'how come you live in Toronto and me and Angela never see you?'
"G-good," he stammered, looking down, wanting to get away. He knew Joey would tell his father he had seen him, he'd call him, he'd tell him. Craig knew it. He couldn't ask him not to without sounding…weird. Suspicious.
He looked at Joey from the corner of his eye. He remembered the way he would joke and laugh with his mother and with him. He remembered how much happier she had been with Joey. He licked his lips. It didn't matter. He'd had to let them go. Him and Angela. He couldn't have them. His father had made sure of that.
"Listen, would you like to-"
"I gotta go," Craig said, cutting him off. Would he like to do what? He couldn't do anything.
"Oh, uh, okay. It was nice seeing you-"
"Yeah," Craig said, walking away, "it was nice seeing you, too, bye,"
He held onto his camera and he ran, trying to outrace the fear and the memories.
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He could climb up onto that roof and get back into his room, which he did, the camera slung over his shoulder by the strap. He was holding his breath, half expecting his father to be standing in the center of his room. His room was dark and the pillows he'd placed under his covers were just as he'd left them. He let out his breath, almost shaking in relief. Joey. Seeing Joey always upset him.
He undressed in the dark, leaving his clothes in a pile that he promised himself he'd clean up before his father saw. Albert's temper and reactions to things varied so widely that Craig never knew what to expect. The clothes on the floor, for example. He did that a lot, or used to. Sometimes Albert wouldn't notice. Sometimes he'd say, "clean that up," like a normal parent. Sometimes he'd shake him, pulling roughly on his shirt, his eyes narrowed to slits, "pick it up," he'd say and shake him.
He slipped under the covers, thinking about the last time he tried to run away. He'd been almost out the window, one leg up and over the window sill. But Albert had smashed through the door with the golf club and undid the locks that mattered, and he'd grabbed him before he could leave. Before he could get away for good.
He'd still been sore from the beating from the day before, and Albert had grabbed him and threw him to the floor and he felt like he could not breath, eyes wide. It was like one of those nightmares where you just can not move and he'd watched the club come down, flashing metal and his father's fist curled around it. At the last second he had moved out of the way but it still connected, hitting the top of his shoulders, his back, his arms. Curled up and pleading with Albert to stop, to just stop. His pleading voice coming through his hitching breath, and Albert wouldn't stop. Then he couldn't plead anymore, he could hardly speak, and he passed out from the pain.
