Operation Sal | Sally Face x Travis Phelps

27

   He could remember it as if it were yesterday, the way his mother's fingers traced gentle lines through his hair, the way her touch lingered even as she pulled away.

    She'd press gentle kisses into his hairline, into the healthy, smooth hair that he'd later be forced to ruin with bleach far too strong for his scalp.

   When Travis was very young, he was well-loved, by his mother at least. She loved him more than she loved the moon and the stars and the earth itself. That's what she'd tell him, what she'd whisper softly into his ear late at night.

   She was always the one who tucked him into bed, the one that wished him goodnight, and sang him songs about the night sky, staying at his side long, long after he'd fallen asleep.

Sometimes she'd end up dozing off there too, humming faintly, her hands still nestled into his dark hair, around his little body, brushed against his cheek, and even as the tiny boy he was, Travis knew that half of the reason she stayed so long was that she didn't want to be alone with Kenneth.

   Since the day he was born, Travis was everything to her. She figured that what they said about the bond between a mother and child was true because from the moment she'd first seen his tiny and gentle scrunched-up baby face, wailing and squeezing his eyes shut to block out the light of the hospital room, she'd fallen in love.

    She was fiercely protective of him as he grew up. Travis was helpless, a wobbly-legged toddler, hiding at his mother's side, clutching the hem of her shirt for comfort every time there was a loud noise or a fast movement.

   It was learned behavior, of course. Kenneth Phelps, among other things, was a dangerous man, even with a young boy in the house. He was cold and he was violent, even when there was no whiff of alcohol on his breath, and his wife quickly became a punching bag.

   And she could handle him taking his anger out on her, but she'd never ever let him lay a hand on her son, not that she ever thought he would try.

    Even so, at only a handful of years old, Travis had seen things that no toddler should ever have to see, so many terrible things that he'd begun to forget them because the memories were too painful.

     The night when she finally left had been exceptionally bad. Travis was eight, at the time, and long past his bedtime, he stayed up in bed, curling into himself and whimpering as softly as he could, listening to the screaming and crying and crashing of broken objects downstairs.

   He'd always promised his mom that he'd stay in bed during these times, during the times when he heard bad things happening in the house, but that night, he was scared.

    His mother came into his room a few hours later. He pretended to be asleep as she kissed the tear stains on his cheeks and cried softly into his hair. Later in life, he'd wish that he'd said something to her before she was gone.

   She closed his bedroom door very quietly as she left, and after that, it was quiet for a long, long time, quieter than it ever had been.

__

"Hey," Sal's muffled voice called out. He stood a few feet down the main hallway, in front of a large, cork bulletin board, covered with various business cards, missing person posters, and job advertisements.

"Everything alright?" Sal's head tilted slightly at the sight of the two of them standing there, Travis looking somewhat defeated and flustered, and Larry picking at his fingernails lazily at his side.

The brunette glanced up at the sound of his brother's voice and he paused a moment before shrugging, "Yeah, it's all good," he mumbled, "just some asshole kid in the hallway."