Trigger Warning: mental and physical abuse.
Sam
"If you're still hungry, order something cheap to go," I said. "I don't have much money left."
Mario nodded. He started reading through the menu.
We had gone to the Havenland Diner, which was open twenty-four hours and seven days a week except for Easter and Christmas. Usually, I would sit here alone picking at chicken strips or whatever else was cheap enough to eat. I would try my best to avoid stares and just relax on my lonesome.
Today was different.
Mario ate a french fry. "So," he said once he swallowed it, "do you want to talk here or-"
"Not here. Not in front of these people."
"So where?"
I chomped down on my own fries. "I'll let you figure that out."
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
"Is it too late to climb back up the ladder?" Mario asked.
"You're the one who suggested we look in the sewers for a pipe," I said.
"I never thought this place would be so stinky," he said, plugging his nose. "Isn't someone supposed to clean it?"
"Nobody here uses the sewers to run about town, Mar. Not unless you're a miscreant…" I frowned at a small pile of bones at my feet. "Or a rat."
We walked together down a path of solid gray. The water beside us gurgled, carrying waste to who knows where.
Mario coughed into his arm. He moved away from the disgusting river, sputtering, "Even if nobody uses it, th-this… This is disgusting! We hav'ta leave."
"What if there's a pipe down here? Hell, what if it were the only one in the world?"
"The one-way warp from your toilet says otherwise," he said. "We'll be able to find one elsewhere. I'm sure of it."
We stopped at a small clearing. On the wall to our right from us stood another metal ladder.
"Let's stop here for now. If the smell gets too much for either of us, we'll leave."
I sat down by the ladder and pointed my flashlight up at the high ceiling. I never expected the town's sewers to be this spacious. It honestly made me wonder if the place once had another purpose.
Mario joined me. He coughed again.
The smell of… Something amongst the trash got into my nose. I coughed too.
"See what I mean?" he shouted at me. "I'm dead, and I don't think it's possible for me to die again, but what about you? If we don't do something, you could suffocate from the fumes."
Without another word, he bounded up the ladder and pushed the manhole open. Then he dropped back down to the floor.
"That's a nice enough compromise, right?" he asked. "Fresh air."
I nodded and huddled by our new source of light.
Mario, once again wearing Father's old coat, laid against the ladder. He met my eyes.
"Is this is the part where I talk?" I asked.
He didn't reply.
I sighed. My gaze wandered from him to the uncovered hole above us.
"Then let me tell you about the last time I ever saw him," I said. "And, coincidentally, one of the worst memories I have of him."
"Dear!" her father, Stephen, yelled. "Hurry up! The wax is melting!"
Violetta, her mother, fiddled with a flip phone and muttered under her breath. She angled the phone so that its frame could capture both their daughter and the chocolate cake.
Sam smiled awkwardly between her parents and her cake. She silently wished she didn't have to do this; she absolutely despised how much attention she got on her birthday. And, seriously, did they have to get the giant bear plush sitting to her right? She would've been perfectly fine just taking the rest of her presents and fleeing back to her room. She already knew that Grandpa Frank and Grandma Katherine got her Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness, and she rather would have been playing that than sitting here right now.
"Say cheese!" Stephen said, grinning.
Sam didn't. She just smiled so that her teeth showed.
Violetta clicked a button and pulled the phone down. "That should good enough," she said.
"But she didn't say "cheese"," Stephen said with a groan.
"She didn't have to. This is fine, right?"
He leaned over her shoulder to stare at the phone.
"It's too blurry," he said. "Try again."
Violetta sighed. She lifted the phone up.
"Say cheese this time, Sammy," Stephen said. "Please?"
Sam frowned at him.
"Alright. Chee-"
"Where's my money?!"
The parents froze. They looked over their shoulders.
"Violet, I want to pay the cable bill now," hissed the new voice. "I'd like my forty dollars."
Violetta closed her eyes.
"Didn't… Didn't we pay that a week ago?" Stephen whispered to her.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Damn it, Violet," he sighed. "I told you to keep track of our payments."
They both looked up then to see Grandma Katherine standing at the entrance to the kitchen. She glanced over at where the living room was.
"Mom?" Stephen asked. "Do you know?"
"You paid him," Katherine said. "The idiot either forgot, or he's extorting you."
"Figures," he said.
"Where's my fucking money?!"
Sam flinched.
Stephen scowled. The idiot was cursing in front of his child again. The man had absolutely no filter.
"VIOLETTA!" the man yelled.
"I… I should go tend to him," Violetta said. "I'll be right back, dear-"
"No," Stephen said, interrupting her. "Stay with Sam. I'll handle him."
"But-"
"If your dad wants to ruin our daughter's birthday, he'll have to go through me first." With that said, Stephen marched off into the living room.
"Wait!" Violetta shouted after him. "No!"
"Steph-" Katherine was cut off by her son.
"Mom, I have to put him in his place-"
Violetta screamed.
Sam's eyes widened. She ducked beneath the table.
What followed was a ton of shouting from both Stephen and her grandfather.
Violetta cried. Her sobs intensified when Sam heard a WHUMP.
The little girl cringed. She pressed her knees to her chest.
"Anyone else wanna fight?!" her grandfather yelled.
"Hurt anybody else and I'll gut you like a fish, Robert!" cried a new voice.
"Yeah, right," came Robert's response. "Like you would do it, Frank. Where's the bastard child?"
Sam curled up tighter.
"Why should I tell you?" Grandpa Frank said. "Keep away from my granddaughter!"
The child in question peeked out from her hiding place.
Her dad caught her eye.
Sam forced herself back behind the table. Her heart pounded and she trembled all over. I guess we're not having cake…?
Stephen glared at Robert and bent down next to the table. "Sam," he said, "come out."
She whimpered but crawled out to his side. She sniffled.
Stephen wrapped his arms around her and stood up with a grunt. "I've had enough of this," he growled. "We're leaving."
"Good riddance!" Robert shouted gleefully. "Have fun living in the streets, boy!"
Stephen looked over at the woman he loved. "Are you coming," he asked, "Violet?"
She hung her head.
"Violetta," he said.
She turned away from him.
"Please," he whispered. "Leave with us."
"I can't," she whispered back. "He's my father. I can't abandon him."
"You can!" he said, raising his voice. "Don't pretend you can't!"
"Looks like she knows better than to go with the real piece of shit in this family," Robert snickered.
Stephen exhaled. He tightly hugged his shaking daughter. "Fine," he said. "I'll be leaving and taking Sammy with me. Goodbye, Violet.
"...See you later, mom and dad."
He turned and headed for the front door.
"Hope you drop dead, Stephen!" Robert called out from behind him. "And your daughter too!"
"My grandparents on Father's side of the family moved out shortly after the incident. Now they live a few hours away from us.
"My mom, though? I haven't heard from her in a long time. I can only imagine the abuse Robert could be inflicting on her right now, assuming he's still alive."
Mario just sat there.
"I had to live with him for nine years, Mar. Robert got angry when I wouldn't listen to him. If he wanted you to sit at the dinner table, he would scream that dinner was about the "family" until you did. Whenever I tried avoiding him for extended periods of time or not sit at the dining room table, he would break into my room with a butter knife, threaten to tear down my door, and curse me out.
"That's not even getting into his other insanity. He sometimes stole our neighbor's packages, claim them as his own, and somehow never got arrested. He hoarded toilet paper and refused to give us more when we ran out. The ass even ate all of our food sometimes!
"And what did people say about our situation? Deal with it. Deal. With. It. 'Oh, so sorry you're stuck with him. You can't go anywhere, though. You're not that rich'.
"It wasn't until Father got fed up enough of our life in Brooklyn that…" I stopped. My face grew red-hot. The world before me blurred. "That he and I left. We ended up staying at a colleague of his' house until he scraped enough money from part-time jobs to get a house out here in the country. And maybe I don't have the courage to tell him; maybe I don't ever express it, but I'm grateful he got us out of there. I…"
I broke. I literally broke.
"You have no idea how much I want Robert dead!" I shouted at Mario. "He ruined my childhood, and even if he isn't in my life anymore, the memories of him are. He always wanted to pick a fight with someone, and almost always sat in front of his stupid television. Consequences for him never were long-term, while I'd receive week-long punishments for not doing the dishes.
"Worse still, whenever Dennis and his crew pick on me, they bring a lot of those bad memories back. Do you know how long I've had to resist killing them? I can't stand being talked down. It makes me angry and… A-and…"
Tears fell down my cheeks. Snot, dear god the snot that came from my nose. I shoved my face in my arms, letting sobs overtake my body.
Something warm landed on my back. I tensed and felt it withdraw as quickly as it came.
"S-sorry," Mario whimpered.
I lifted my head.
We met eyes.
"Sam," he softly said, "I had no idea."
I sniffled.
"He had no right to treat you and your family that way! I hope you know that you didn't deserve an ounce of the abuse, Sam."
"Mario," I muttered. "Thank… Thank you." I wiped my tears on my sleeves and laughed bitterly. "I shouldn't be crying like this. It's pathetic."
"No, it's not! It's fine! Yo-you're fine!"
Mario and I blinked at one another.
"That... That wasn't you," I said, "was it?"
He shook his head.
I wiped my face on the sleeve of my coat again before standing up. "Alright," I yelled into the darkness. "Who's there?! Show-"
"I surrender!"
The dim glow of my flashlight landed on the individual. The wide-eyed look on his freckled face just about screamed "deer in the headlights".
I took a step back. The flashlight in my hand trembled wildly. It took a moment for the reality of the situation to set in, which upon I yelled-
"Dennis?!"