Crimson blood dribbled from my left nostril down to my upper lip. “I love her, Dad.” I choked on the tangy copper that swam in my throat and gagged.

Dad’s thick fingers crushed my windpipe harder. “You’re seventeen, boy. You have no fucking clue what love is.”

I tried to suck in air, but sounded like a beached whale instead. There was so much pressure in my skull I wished it would just explode.

“What will your girlfriend say when I tell her?” Dad spat. “Cassie Sullivan, right? Or is it some other slut this week?” He loosened his grip and I sank to the ground, knees crunching. I wished a sinkhole could just open up beneath me and swallow everything: me, Dad, our house, and all the nightmares that came with it. “We—we’re not just s-screwing around, I s-s-swear. It’s not some f-f-fling.” I was dizzy from oxygen deprivation, and the stuttering resurfaced like an old friend. “Cas-s-s-sie and I b-broke up two weeks ago,” I added, as if that would make me a better man somehow.

“And when exactly did you start fucking Veronica?” Dad’s features were twisted like a mangled slinky. Every pockmark, scar, and wrinkle on his face lit up like a battlefield. He wanted war.

We didn’t fuck, we made love, I wanted to say. Instead, I murmured, “We were planning to tell you next week.”

“Tell me what, exactly?” Dad scoffed. “That my whore of a wife is cheating on me with my son?” He yanked on a fistful of my black hair, twisting it so hard tears stung my eyes. After the last time he beat me, I’d promised myself I’d never cry in front of him again. I refused to shed tears for this monster. I was worth so much more than the sunken, lost, motherless child he ridiculed and destroyed piece by piece, day by day. I was so much stronger now. Because of her.

“We’re moving out. I’ll be eighteen next month.” I knew exactly what he would say next: that we were making a huge mistake. That I was an ungrateful teenage asshole. A ‘retarded son of a bitch.’ That the two of us would burn in hell for eternity.

We would never have his blessing; I knew that from the start.

“Like fucking hell you are!” he roared, his spit flecking my face like paint.

“We already put down a deposit.”

“No,” Dad growled. “What the fuck—How the fuck did you think this would pan out? That you two filthy cheaters would elope and I’d just crumple like a house of cards?”

“We don’t need your bless-s-sing, Dad.”

“Actually, son, you do. And I will never sign those divorce papers. Nica is fucking mine. You understand?”

I tried to twist away from Dad’s grip, but he ended up pulling out a few tufts of my hair by the roots. My front teeth sank into my bottom lip to stop the terrified screams that threatened to unhinge my jaw. I wanted to shoulder my way out of the backyard, but Dad was 6’5”, built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and almost twice my weight. Dad had been a linebacker in college. I was just a twig he enjoyed snapping over and over. I dug my heels into the muddy ground and tried to dodge his swipes, but I wasn’t fast enough. The ground was too slippery. I fumbled, and he kicked me in the shins. I sank to my knees. Then, he dealt a mean hook to my jaw. As beads of crimson dribbled down my chin and neck, Dad dragged me by the collar to the toolshed. He let go of me for a few seconds so he could unlock the padlock that kept the gardening supplies safe. While he struggled with the key, I tried to push myself up, only to be met with a boot to the chest. He ground the heel of his work boots into my sternum, making it almost impossible to breathe. I felt as if there was a hole in my lungs; no matter how much air I dragged in, it was never enough.

This time, I was going to die.

This time, I would learn the meaning of agony.

After the rusty chains fell to the ground, he pulled out the shovels, rakes, pruners, and other tools that cluttered the small space. Then, he shoved me inside the musty wooden box and locked it back up again. I choked on dust and let out a hacking cough.

For a few seconds, only the sound of rattling chains and my amplified heartbeats filled the air. Muffled, then clear, then muffled again, as if I was bobbing in and out of a swimming pool. Each alternating heartbeat was a bass drop now, and adrenaline worked my cardiac chambers so hard I was certain they’d rupture from the stress.

This wasn’t the first time Dad had locked me up in ‘The Box,’ and it wouldn’t be the last. Previously, my longest stint in there was thirty-six hours. No food, no water, hardly any fresh air. I’d been thirteen at the time. My crime? Not saying ‘thank you’ when he bought me a new bike for my birthday. It hadn’t been my birthday, but he pretended it was anyway, just so he didn’t embarrass himself in front of the neighbors. He’d thrown me a party but hadn’t invited any of my friends. He force-fed me chocolate cake until I threw up. But I was most upset that he’d gotten the dates mixed up, because August nineteenth was also the anniversary of Mom’s death.

This time around, I was certain he’d let me die in ‘The Box’. After all, death would be the only suitable punishment for a sin of this magnitude. I didn’t care what he did to me; it was Nica I was worried about. It wasn’t her fault. She never came on to me, never did anything to entrap me, or seduce me. She was innocent. It had been all me. Me and my hormones. My obsession. My lust. I thought we could keep it a secret until we were ready to tell the world together. But Dad exposed us, and now he was probably going to kill us.

“Make so much as a whimper and I will shoot Nica between the eyes, you hear me?” Dad threatened from the other side of the doors. I could imagine the grey spittle flying out between his gnashed teeth. Like a bulldog on steroids. He’d look almost comical if he wasn’t so fucking scary.

“I won’t make a s-s-s-sound,” I promised, my small voice a spluttering engine. “P-Please. Nica is innocent. D-don’t hurt her.”

“How can a filthy, thirty-year-old slut be innocent, Ryder? Her mouth’s probably seen more cum than the inside of a glory hole.”

“Don’t…don’t say that about her.” I loathed my father in that moment. Every cacophonous syllable that came out of his mouth was an infernal itch I couldn’t scratch. I found myself repeatedly trying but failing to swallow the lump in my throat.

“Where is the bitch anyway?”

I didn’t answer. I’d rather have my tongue shaved with a cheese grater than tell him. His eyes had betrayed his insanity. Earlier, his clenched posture, wild gestures, slurred speech, everything pointed to the fact that in his rage, Dad wouldn’t hesitate to strangle the life out of Veronica’s fragile body. Squeeze her ribs until they fractured, one by fucking one. He wouldn’t hesitate to pick up a pruner and stab it straight into Nica’s pregnant belly.

The baby.

Was it mine or Dad’s?

Shit. I prayed to God Dad wouldn’t ask the same question. He’d always been a jealous and possessive man. If he found out that he might not be the baby’s father…

My chest tightened, and I clawed at the rash spreading across my abdomen. The itch, the panic, refused to subside, and my vision tunneled. I didn’t know I was capable of breathing so fast. Panic attacks were nothing new in my world, but still, each time one reared its ugly head, I was certain that I’d fail to conquer my demons. That this time would be the last time.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t call for help, so I curled into a fetal position and rocked back and forth like an upended pill bug.

One M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I,

two M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I,

three M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I…

Eventually, I heard Dad’s footsteps fade away. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. As long as Nica stayed away from the house though, everything would be all right. It was late afternoon. She was probably just wrapping up her prenatal class downtown. If only I had some way of contacting her, warning her. Veronica was innocent. The baby was innocent.

Once my panic receded, I pushed myself up and groped around in the darkness, trying to find something, anything in the shed that I could use as either a tool or a weapon. All I managed to get were a few splinters. Dad had cleaned everything out. I was trapped in a sweltering 7’x7’ box with no food or water. The reinforced walls were made of durable oak (Dad had not skimped out), and the door was shackled and locked up. The Box would become my coffin. Maybe that had been Dad’s plan all along when he built the damn thing. I could probably survive for two days, three tops, before dehydration killed me. Worst still, no one (other than Nica) would even notice that I was gone. In the past year, I’d cut so many classes and alienated so many friends that if no one saw me for three days or even a week, it wouldn’t matter. No one would alert the cops. If the school called home, Dad would brush them off. And worst of all, I had no choice but to stay imprisoned, because the thought of Dad even touching a hair on Nica’s body was too horrific to imagine.

I just prayed my sacrifice would be worth it.