The door slams, and it shakes the whole trailer. Eleven at night on a Tuesday, and Eli and I look at each other across the bedroom because it’s never a good fucking sign when he’s home early. Means he got kicked out of somewhere and he’s likely to be in a worse mood than usual.

I look back down, turn up the volume on my battered Discman. It’s old as fuck and every CD skips like crazy, but lately it feels like the only thing that’s been getting me through.

Sidewinder screams in my ear, so loud that Eli glances up at me again. I’ve got a battered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird open on my lap, and he’s at the beat-up desk we share with a math textbook open, but we both know we’re not finishing any homework tonight.

The shouting starts. I half-wonder what it is this time, but I also know it doesn’t fucking matter, and I lean my head back against the headboard of my twin bed, trying to ignore it, listening to the rough, choppy melodies, thrashing guitars.

There’s a clatter. Sounds like something got knocked off the stove, but my mom doesn’t even scream. Deep down, I know I should be more scared. That I should have some kind of reaction beyond oh, this again, that I should go get involved.

But I’ve fucking called the cops. More times than I can even remember. Enough to figure out that it doesn’t fucking matter if I call the cops, because even if they take him away, he’s back in a couple of days and then he’s pissed at me.

I’ve learned my lesson. Stay out of his way, keep working part-time at the grocery store, graduate Low Valley High in June and get the fuck out of this house.

Something shatters, and this time my mom yelps. My eyes fly open, because that’s unusual, usually she’s quiet as a mouse and goes down fast, because she’s learned that if she stays on the floor, he’s less likely to bend down and hit her and probably doesn’t have the balance to kick.

And then she screams. I grind my teeth together, my fists in balls, and I try to turn the music up again but it’s already all the way up so I have to fight the impulse.

You won’t do anything, I tell myself again and again. This is just what happens. There’s no changing it.

Heavy footsteps, sounds like from the kitchen to the living room. Coming closer, the whole trailer shaking, the metal walls rattling. My eyes still shut, and he roars something fucking incomprehensible, even over the music.

“Stan!” she screams, and she’s closer too. Like he’s got her.

I’m fucking seventeen years old but I want to hide under my bed right now. Build a blanket fort or some shit, go somewhere small and safe where I don’t have to hear any more. Except that place doesn’t exist, so I just sit there, on my bed. Trying to breathe.

“Stan, don’t,” my mom sobs, and I swear my heart catches in my chest. I hold my breath.

Eli slams his textbook closed, and my eyes fly open.

He scrapes back the folding chair we use to do homework in. Throws his pencil on the desk, onto the nearly-blank piece of paper he was using.

“Fuck this,” he mutters, stomps out of the room.

I’m up in half a second, throwing my headphones on the bed, To Kill a Mockingbird in a pile on the floor.

“Don’t,” I call after him, but I can tell it’s too late.

The trailer’s fucking tiny and before I’m even out our bedroom door, he’s running into the living room, shouting at the top of his lungs. Past him, our father’s got Mom by the hair, and she’s on the floor, conscious but practically a rag doll.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Eli shouts, stopping a couple of feet away. “Do you get tired of hitting people who can fucking hit you back? You get your ass kicked at Downtowners tonight so you had to come home and take it out on her?”

He’s fifteen, skinny, though he’s on the football team this year. Gets into dumb kid fights, but he’s never fought a full-grown man like our father, someone who gets into drunken brawls at least once a week.

“Eli,” I say again, forcing my voice calm. “Leave it.”

I’ve fucking tried this before, tried talk him down, get him to stop, but my father’s got a trump card: he’ll hurt his own child. I think he fucking likes it. Neither of us stand a chance.

“Fuck off, Trent,” Eli spits over his shoulder. “I can’t take this anymore, why don’t you—”

He takes a right hook to the jaw and stumbles sideways, caught by complete surprise. He holds one hand to his mouth and comes away with blood, his face astonished, but before he can even process it my father’s dropped my mother’s hair and he’s on Eli. Another punch to the gut, my kid brother doubled over.

I have to do something. Fuck, I have to do something and I don’t know what, he’s already broken my nose once—

My father shouts again and now Eli’s off his feet, in the air. Held up by two big hands around his neck, against a wall, clawing at them. My mother is on the floor, not even watching, and in one sickening moment I know I’m not getting out of this, that I can’t avoid it any fucking longer.

Our bathroom’s to my right, the mirror dirty and cracked and a ring around the shower that no scrubbing will ever get rid of.

On the toilet there’s a pipe wrench, because something’s always fucking broken and leaking, and without thinking for even a second I lean in and grab it.

He’s still roaring. Eli’s gasping, kicking, and I feel the weight of the heavy wrench in my hand and I close my fist around it, step into the living room, and I swing it like a baseball bat, right at his fucking temple.

There’s a thud. It’s surprisingly soft, and they both go tumbling to the floor. Eli’s gasping, choking, heaving for breath as he gets onto his hands and knees. My father’s unconscious or maybe dead, one leg bent under him oddly.

My mother just looks at me, and I know she saw the whole thing.

I drop the wrench. My hands are shaking, but I talk myself through it, slowly and calmly. I cross the room. I call 911. I haul Eli up off the floor, and we go sit together on the tailgate of my father’s pickup in our shitty dirt driveway, and we wait.