The next day, I walked to school with Gerard. The day went by as normal; was bored in class, peers beat me up in the hallways, tried to escape going home, but just got my ass beat again. It was not as bad, however. Gerard was able to walk out the front gates, but there was no way I could get away with that. I simply waved him a good-bye and headed out on my route home.
While I was walking I began to think about Gerard and I as little kids. I wished that I could still live in that blue house two doors down so he could trail behind me. I wished that I did not have to move to several different neighborhoods so that the neighbors would not call the police for disturbance on my father. I wished, most of all, that my mother would come back to protect me. I knew this was all too much to ask for, however I was comforted by the guitar pick. Gerard was watching over me now, that is, in my mind.
Snapping out of my daydream, I opened the front door to my shitty house. It was always a mess because my dad was always too drunk to clean it and I could not be a full-time maid because of school.
"Hey ass-wipe! Finally come home, eh?" My dad spit on me, acting as if I were a revolting piece of rubbish.
As always, I tried to walk past him and just ignore his snide comments. It was hard because every one of his wicked words stung. It hurt me on the inside, and later the out. It felt as if there were no escape.
"You think you can just walk away from me? Come back here!" To emphasize his point, he threw a green beer bottle at the back of my head. It wasn't hard enough to break on my skull, and the throw didn't have much impact either, allowing the glass to thankfully shatter on the floor. However, I had a huge bruise that left my head pounding afterwards. I could feel a bad migraine arising and I had a funny feeling that it was not going to go away easily.
As I was gripping the back of my head, my father came up to me and picked me up by the collar of my shirt. As usual, he began his torment by spitting in my face and declaring me, "garbage." He shoved me back as he let me down. Afterwards he lunged at me, throwing punch after punch, never missing. I was too weak to dodge his furious fists. The only time he stopped was to tilt back a bottle of alcohol into his despicable lips. The only thing I could detect in his eyes was rage and hatred. I never thought someone could be filled with that much anger, that much despise.
He sent a punch towards my lips, busting them open easily and allowing the cherry red blood to trickle down my chin. I watched as he smiled and pulled me up by my hair. I squirmed and wrangled, he was restricting me. It felt as if the top of my head was about to bleed. Those foul lips of his plastered onto mine, as his right hand smashed my face onto his. At first I screamed and cried for him to stop. What the hell was going on? Then I realized that he was licking the blood off of my mouth. Without second-guessing I wriggled a fist free and sent it flying into my father's face.
He yowled out in pain and madness. I gave him quite the purple bruise and felt rather proud of myself. But the happiness that I had felt only lasted for a few brief seconds before I watched him somewhat regain his balance. I sent a quick prayer to my mother, wherever she was, and readied myself for whatever he would do to me.
"You little fucker. I'll cut you apart and drink you bone dry. I hate you. You killed her. You made her die. YOU KILLED HER!"
His face was the deepest shade of crimson I had ever seen. His eyes were black with pain and insanity. He was trembling from every limb and his hair stood up in a mess, intensifying his look of fear itself staring me in the eyes.
Without a heartbeat from his black and empty chest, he reached out for a mahogany-coloured bottle and smashed it against the coffee table. Half of it broke away, leaving jagged teeth attached to the base of the bottle. My heart was racing and I regretted not telling Gerard how I felt. I knew it would be over for real this time. I had failed him.
My father marched up to me. He looked gruesome with his face covered in my blood and his clothes tattered and torn. With one strike, he slashed the skin on my face, allowing it to puddle around me in a sea of red. After the hit, my dad dropped his bottles and his eyes grew wide. He sank to his knees and screamed. Never before had I heard such a deranged, terrifying noise.
Soon afterwards he regained himself and threw me onto the hard, cold floor. The impact of the fall made my head woozy and I didn't feel alright. Perhaps I had been given a concussion. However, I wasn't given much time to think about such things, as my father was straddling me, holding a fatal-looking kitchen knife.
I closed my eyes, not wishing to see my insides. All I felt was pain, hurt, agony, blood, cold, miser-
I woke up feeling lightheaded. I found standing up a challenge, but I could not place why. Why was I in the living room? Quietly, I strode to my bedroom and on the way, discovered that my father was not home. This all seemed very peculiar to me. I had just gotten home from Gerard's house, right? But the clock shows that it has been… a day and a half?
I began to panic. What the fuck was going on around here? I walked into the bathroom and looked into the mirror to freshen up, but all I saw was… me. I was… bloody. My hair was sticky and torn out in places. My eyes were bloodshot. And my arms- they were… cut. I lifted my shirt over my head and all I saw was blood and slashes. My legs were covered with them too. Even my face. I collapsed on the floor. What did I do to deserve this? How could I possible cover this up? How was I still alive after this?
I could feel the lack of blood in my system. My thoughts were cloudy and I was extremely unbalanced. One thought was able to dominate my mind, however. That question was: What would Gerard say?
I had to try my best to cover this up. If Gerard found out, he would send me to the hospital and send my dad to jail. My father would find Gerard and kill him! I was certain of it, and I felt it was my duty to protect him as best I could.
The first step I took towards cleaning up this bloody mess was to take a shower. This was not an easy task to do, as all the soap burned my cuts. It churned my stomach to watch the brown blood fall from my body and circle down the drain.
I was fixed the best that I could at the moment. I was wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, and placed the fringe from my hair over my face so that it was hard to see. Sighing, I walked to the mirror once again and gave myself a half-smile for effort.
The living room was nothing more than a crimson hell. The floors, walls, and couches all had pools of red soaked into them. There was broken glass all over the place. However, I figured it best to clean the house up, just in case my father came home and was reminded the events that took place last night.
Finally finished restoring things to a semi-normal state, I retreated to my room, thinking it best not to go out and about at the time. Instead, I sat on my bed and began to work on a song. My fingers aimlessly plucked the strings on my guitar. I found the song easy to write. The notes seemed to flow out of my mind rather swiftly and it all made sense to me. After a few hours, I found it almost complete, only needing words to match the music. I put down my instrument, as I was in a sort of writer's block, and tried to continue to sooth myself by reading comic books for the remainder of the day.
Night came quickly, and my father was still not home. I began to wonder about his whereabouts, but shook the concerned feeling. After all, he had turned me into a living zombie last night. I looked as if I had just come back from the dead.
The lack of blood in my body began to make me rather tired. Slowly, I eased under the covers, not having enough strength left to change into pajamas. My thoughts swirled with images of my mother, my father, blood, my newly-scarred face, and of course, Gerard. But one thing took up the majority of my thoughts; how was I going to get through school tomorrow?
