FIVE YEARS EARLIER
I almost forgot just how much bruises can hurt. They decorate my skin in shades of blue and purple, running around my shoulders and my arms, and there’s a large cut along my ribs from falling into the corner of the desk in my bedroom two nights ago. It has started again. Dad is always mad now. I think he always has been but was just able to keep his temper in check for a month. It was amazing while it lasted, but I should have known it was too good to be true. He is back to his old ways now. I think it’s even worse, actually. Every single night for almost a week now, Dad has thrown me around. I have taught myself to zone out again, because every night it seems to get worse. It’s like Dad has a month’s worth of pent-up rage that is finally exploding.
I haven’t been focusing in classes this week. I’ve been acting out again, and Mr. Hayes has already called me back to his office for another talk later this afternoon. I feel sick with nerves at the thought of it. What do I tell him this time? That the only reason I straightened up over the past month is because I was happy for once? And I was hopeful? And I felt safe? And now I’m not happy, nor hopeful, nor safe?
It’s lunch on Thursday, and we are back at our usual table in the cafeteria, and I am back to being the quiet one sitting at the end of the bench. My friends are talking, they are laughing, but I am tuning them out. My gaze is locked on a random spot on the table, my shoulders are slumped low, my breathing is deep.
I’ve decided: I hate Dad.
I trusted him when I shouldn’t have. I believed him, but that was a mistake. If he really loved me, he wouldn’t have broken that promise. Hell, if he loved me, he wouldn’t have ever needed to make such a promise in the first place. He doesn’t love me enough not to hurt me.
So why am I protecting him?
Why am I covering up his mistakes on his behalf? Why do I tell people that I tripped, that I fell down the stairs, that I got hurt playing in the yard with Dean and Jake? Why am I accepting these bruises? These cuts? These scars? Why am I living with them, when I can get it all to stop by just telling someone? Anyone. But would they even believe me? Dad’s the respected business guy, the one in the shirt and the tie. The one with the Mercedes and the charming smile. Would anyone believe me over him? I’m just a kid, but I’ve been lying for so long that I wonder if maybe it’s too late to turn it all around.
My head is a mess. My thoughts are all over the place, but slowly, a new realization sinks in. It’s not Dad that I’m protecting. It’s Mom, and it’s my brothers. I don’t want to tear our family apart, to break us when they are all so happy. Would Mom ever forgive me for that? I don’t want her to get mad at me too.
Mr. Hayes told me that I could talk to him about anything. Would he believe me? Maybe I could tell him that I’m scared to go home after school. Maybe he could figure out why. Maybe that way, I’m not telling.
“Tyler,” someone says, elbowing me hard in the ribs, right into that cut. I immediately flinch away, tearing my eyes up from the table and glancing sideways at Dean. “Did you hear what Blake said? Are you coming or not?”
“What?” I blink fast, my cheeks heating with humiliation as I glance around the table at everyone’s gazes on me. Tiffani even rolls her eyes and exchanges a look with Rachael. I really need to stop zoning out around my friends before they decide that there’s something wrong with me. I look up at Blake Montgomery, hovering by our table with one hand on the strap of his backpack and his eyes boring into mine. “Coming where?” I ask him. When did he even approach us? Crap, I really have been staring off into nowhere.
“Some of us are getting together after school to play ball out on the field,” Blake explains. He’s a friendly giant, and even though he’s an eighth grader, he always says hey to us in the hallways. I think he’s friends with Jake. “So are you in?” he asks with a smile, but then it quickly falters. He pulls a face, glancing at Dean and Jake with uncertainty, and then back to me again. “Oh . . . wait,” he backtracks. “Your dad doesn’t let you play. Forget it. Sorry.”
Instead of disappointment at the reminder, a new emotion floods through my veins. It’s anger, and I can feel it bubbling inside of me, not at Blake, but at Dad. I grind my teeth together, but it isn’t enough to stop my fists from balling together, trembling from the intensity. It’s only a split second, a fleeting moment where everything inside of me snaps like an elastic band that can’t take the pressure any longer, but it’s enough. I rise up out of my seat and swing my fist straight into Blake’s face.
“Tyler!” the table gasps at once.
Blake falls back onto the ground, staring up at me through bewildered, stunned eyes as he reaches up to rub his jaw, but I am enraged now. I am seeing red. I am seeing Dad’s smile in my head, feeling his bruises, feeling his hands on my shoulders. It’s like a fire that lights me up all at once, and I just can’t take it anymore. I throw myself at Blake on the ground, slamming my fists into him over and over again, my eyes squeezed shut.
I hate Dad. I fucking hate him.
I can hear the commotion around me. I can feel my friends pulling at me, touching all of those bruises hidden beneath my clothes, yanking at my arms, screaming my name. Blake hits me back, his fist hurling straight into my mouth as he tries to shove me off him, but I don’t even feel it. I am numb to pain. I am used to pain.
“HEY!” a deep male voice yells out, and suddenly a new set of hands are around me, firm ones that remind me of Dad’s, and in one swift tug, I am pulled straight off Blake. I stumble back, falling into the man behind me, and when I open my eyes, I see Blake on the floor. I see the cafeteria surrounding us in a tight circle, people pushing through one another to get a better view. I see my friends, Dean mostly, staring at me with their mouths hung wide, their expressions pale with disbelief. And when I crane my neck to see who is behind me, to see who is holding me firmly and dragging me away, my heart pounds even faster than it already is when I discover that it’s our campus police officer.