Caught

Punished

Xavier

I open the front door, the phone burning a hole in my back pocket. 

I need to hide it now before my father see's it and asks me a thousand questions I won't be able to answer. 

As I run to my room I scan the rooms and they're all empty, I guess he isn't home. 

Lucky me. 

I stop outside my brother's room and knock once before walking inside, "You good?" 

Jack turns around, eyes narrowed, "No. I'm dying" 

Jesus Christ, I've had to put up with Elena's attitude all morning I do not appreciate an eight-year-old also giving me an attitude. 

"Don't be a smart mouth," I warn, walking out of his room and closing his door.

Since dear old dad's out probably converting people I slide the phone under a loose floorboard under my bed, I make sure to put it on silent so neither I nor my dad are awoken to an aggressive buzzing from whoever this D is. 

I lie on my bed and close my eyes, I don't mean to fall asleep but I guess I do because when I open my eyes again it's dark outside. 

I sigh loudly rubbing my eyes trying to figure out what exactly woke me up, that's when the crying fills my ears. 

I know that cry. 

One minute. 

I give myself one minute to rid myself of any human emotion. 

No anger, no hurt, no sadness. 

Nothing. 

I have to be nothing to endure what comes next. 

I get up and run outside into the dining room, and sure enough, my brother is sobbing as my father whips him on the hand with a belt. 

"What are you doing?" I ask, fighting with everything inside me to keep my voice calm. 

"I'm parenting. This idiot broke a glass and tried to hide it from me, and now he's crying." My father sneers. 

I hold my breath, refusing to look at my brother. "No, he didn't...I did. It was me he's only covering for me." I lie. 

My father turns his cruel gaze back to Jack, "This true?" 

Jack looks at me and I give him my hardest gaze, he knows it well. It means you better fucking say yes. 

"Y..es" My sobs. 

My father shoves him and Jack quickly stands up and scrambles upstairs. 

I steel myself against what is to come next. 

I have gotten used to my father's beatings, sometimes I welcome them. The sting of a belt, the burn of a smack, the mind-numbing pain of having a hot cross burned onto your chest. 

Mark Delcara was a smart man, he never left marks on my face, neck or hands. People would see those, people would ask, people would know and he couldn't have that. 

Instead, my stomach, back and chest were covered in scars, burns or fresh marks that were a constant reminder of his abuse. 

The scars usually fade pretty fast so most girls don't notice, and those who do I tell them I'm clumsy. 

They don't care enough to push at my excuses, and no one else sees me shirtless. 

I don't feel when the beating's over, I just know because Dad tells me to get up. 

I always shower after. Always. 

And then I walk into Jack's room to make sure he didn't hear. 

This time I say something different, "Why did you let him beat you? You always say it was me. Always. We've been over this." 

Jack sniffs looking at the floor, "I saw you this morning with that girl. You were at church, you're never at church and you were speaking to her not like you do with the other girls. I didn't want the scars to scare her, but now she'll be sad." 

I want to rip my brain out, rip my heart out and set fire to both of them. 

My eight-year-old brother just took a beating so I could speak to a fucking girl. 

I swear to God I will put a bullet through our father's head the moment I turn eighteen. 

I could tell him that Elena Reyes actually drives me insane and is the most maddening girl I've ever met. But then I'd be telling him the scar on his hand was for nothing. 

"She- she won't be...scared. She's a...nice girl." I squeak. 

Only half of that sentence is true. 

Or is it? 

Would she be scared? 

I get lost in my thoughts wondering what Elena would say if I showed her what my father did to me. 

"Yeah she wouldn't be scared, but she would be sad," I tell Jack, and I believe that to be true. 

I don't sleep that night, for a million reasons. All of which are confusing and sad. 

******************************************************************************

I'm in the library, with a girl and we're not flirting. 

What a joke. 

Elena demanded we research how to break into a phone and after the night I had I couldn't find the strength to argue with her. 

"Do you have to click so loudly?" she whispers, her head in her hands. 

"How could I control the volume of my clicking?" I ask her with an incredulous expression that quickly melts under her gaze.

"You're smart I am sure you can figure it out." 

"Did you just compliment me?" I ask, turning my whole body to face her. 

"Of course, I didn't." 

"You did, you said-"

I stop myself when she glares at me, once again but fail to hold in my laugh when she stands up to leave. 

"I would never boost your inflated ego." Elena hisses at me, storming off. 

I lean back in my chair and as I watch her walk down the street not bothering to look both ways before crossing the road, stupid. 

As I do a realisation creeps up on me: my whole life I thought Elena's eyes were hazel but they are in fact a delicious shade of green. 

I don't like how easy it is to forget all my problems when I'm looking into them, not at all.