It was one month later. I knew from the moment my dad walked through the door that things wouldn't end well tonight. I didn't do anything, I knew I didn't. I wasn't late, school was okay, my room was clean, I kept the house clean, nothing was wrong. But he had that look in his eyes, that type of quietness that was going to explode.
I was talking out of nervousness at dinner, and out of the misguided notion that I could avoid what was coming. All I got was short responses so I gave up. Maybe nothing would happen, did I have to be so paranoid all the time? So he had a bad day, that happened. Couldn't he have a bad day once in a while? I tried to convince myself that I was overreacting. Nothing would happen. Why would anything happen? But my body knew differently. I felt my heart pounding, I couldn't speak without stuttering, I felt like I couldn't breath.
After dinner I went down into the dark room, all fixed up after everything got wrecked. I wanted to be anywhere he wasn't. I wanted to lose myself in something. I fooled around with the pictures, overdeveloping some of them to bring out the light, to darken the shadows.
"Craig!" his voice cut through the world I had created with the pictures, it cut through the silence of the basement darkroom, this twilight world where I tried to escape him. I felt cold. I stood still, waiting, I didn't want to respond.
"Craig!"
Damn it. This was it. Whatever he had found to be mad about, this was it. If I didn't go up he'd come down here, and I could see what happened last time. I felt his hands squeezing both wrists as he lifted me up and shoved me against the shelves and everything crashed to the floor.
He was standing in the kitchen when I came up from the basement, the still quiet look had darkened into something worse. My heart beat so hard in my chest. I stared at him across the short distance, every detail of things sharp. This was due to adrenaline, I knew. My heart was pounding because of the adrenaline.
"Y-yeah?" I said, cringing at the stutter. I saw how the tiles on the floor fit together, the grout between them perfect and smooth. I saw the grain in the wood of the table, each darker line snaking across the polished surface.
"Were you going to spend all night down there!" I jumped at the force of his words. He had this way of speaking like that, this deep sharp tone that always surprised me.
"N-no, no, I w-was, was ju-just just coming-"
He glared at me for a second and then he turned away. My mouth was dry. I licked my chapped lips.
"Listen, uh, d-dad, I've got a lot of h-homework to do," He didn't answer and I walked stiffly out of the room. Once I was in the living room I sprinted for the stairs. Maybe he'd just, just, leave me alone. There were no locks on my door anymore. He'd taken them all off and I was too scared to put them back.
I grabbed my book bag and dumped out some of the books, but it was just for show. I wouldn't be able to do any of this tonight. It wasn't fair. I'd thought, I'd almost thought that things might be okay since it had been a month since anything had happened, since that night I ran away. I was beginning to think that that apology that night was for real.
I heard his footsteps on the stairs, the fast, hard pounding of them. This was it, there was no where to run, no more nervous conversation to hide behind or dark rooms to hide in. The bullshit line about homework hadn't worked. My window was now nailed shut from the outside. I'd tried to pretend that that didn't bother me. I glanced at the window now. Then my door banged open.
"So, you just take off when I'm trying to talk to you?" he said, and the deadly quietness was back in his voice. I couldn't see his eyes behind the glare of his glasses, but I didn't need to.
"N-no, no," I said, trying to placate him, trying to please him, but it didn't work. It never worked.
"Damnit it, Craig, I work so goddamn hard for you, I try so goddamn hard and all I get…" This again. There was no arguing against this, and it was like he couldn't even hear me if I tried. I saw his hands go for his belt, undoing it, and it slid out from the belt loops in one smooth motion, arcing up into the air, and there was nowhere to go, not here, not in this room or this house. I squeezed my eyes shut before it crashed down on me.
I'd checked out, because the next thing I knew I was lying on the floor of my bedroom, the rug plush and rough against my wet cheek, and my father was gone. How many times had he hit me with it? I didn't know, I didn't remember what had just happened. I stood up, my back and shoulders and legs aching. Everything hurt. The belt, there wasn't much worse than that. It hurt more than getting kicked or punched or thrown against walls.
I kicked my books out of my way and peeled off my clothes, seeing blood on them here and there. I pulled on comfortable flannel pants and a soft T-shirt but the fabric still hurt against the places where the belt had lashed. I looked at the locked window again, seeing the blackness against it. I wanted to kick it open and escape through the shards of glass, but I couldn't. I couldn't leave, I couldn't run away, I had to stay here and get beaten and strapped. In bed I cried until I fell asleep.