The Children in the Rainbow

The Boy Who Sees Red

He's drunk again. I shove my headphone in and hit play in my iPod. I try to focus on my book but it's too difficult. I curl up to my mother as she lies next to me. She wraps her arms around me and holds me close enough that I can hear her heart beat. We're on my tiny single bed in my room waiting for him to go to bed. He doesn't.
"Hey bitch" He yells at my mother as he enters my room. "I'm sick of you acting like such a slut" My mother sits up and looks at him. He bends down to meet his eyes with hers. I can smell the alcohol on him from here.
"Paul, I don't know what you're talking about." She starts to say but she's cut short.
"You dirty little slut. You've been sleeping around because you're a disgusting hoe" He yells at her. I sit up and lean against my bedboard and a silence falls over the room. He takes a couple wobbly steps backwards before turning to look at me. "And what do you want? Huh, you're just a pathetic excuse for my son." I look down and avoid his gaze the best I can.
It's better to stay quiet when he's like this. I don't care if he hits me but if he hurts her one more time I don't know what I'll do.
"Paul, please calm down" Mum begins to say but she's cut short again.
"What are those?" My father points to the corner of the room were 2 suitcases and 2 travel bag sit. He points to our bags, to our escape. I glance over at mum to see her reaction and it's the last thing I should have done. I should have stayed quiet because he sees it. He watched me glance at her.
"You trying to leave?" He's really angry now "After everything I've done for you? I've looked after you and this brat for years and you want to leave?" He laughs at the idea.
His laugh starts out normal, almost pleasant. It's almost as though he's just heard a funny joke. Only it turns more hysterical, more psychotic. He's like a mad man. His eyes are wide and he's grinning like he's a Cheshire cat.
The next thing I know his fist meets my mum's cheek and drops of her blood fly from her mouth. Everything seems to slow down as the droplets float through the air and land on my face and glasses. He hit her. Then he hit her again. And again. Her cheek, her eye, her chin, her stomach. He didn't show signs of stopping.
I snapped. The anger and fear and hate that had been bottled up inside me for the past 6 years broke free, like somebody shook up a soda bottle and unscrewed the lid. I was a bottle of Coke and his fist hitting my mum was the Menro to start the reaction.
I have to protect my mum. He's angrier than I have ever seen him and I doubt throwing my body in his way would change the direction of his hits to me instead. All the fear inside my body suddenly disappeared and I stopped thinking rationally.
I grab the empty beer bottle that he had carried into my room with him off the chest of drawers. With all my strength and anger and hate that had built up over the past 6 years I smashed in down on his head. The bottle broke and he flopped to the floor. A small red mark appeared on the back of his head and a little blood trickled out.
My mum pulled me to her and held me close. She grabbed the phone and called for both an ambulance and the police. I dropped the now broken bottle onto the floor and curled up in my mother's arms.
I cried, I cried until my eyes were red and the police arrived. I cried until I felt I could cry no more but continued anyway. I cried until I was coughing and gasping for air in the police station whilst my mother way being questioned. My mother came back and tried to wipe her blood off my glasses but only smudged it, tinting part of my world red. It washed away only that red tint on my life never would come clean.