Fixing Broken Hearts

15

Warnings:
-Physical + emotional (child) abuse
-Trauma response (freezing)

Elliot's POV

After a decently boring day, I was walking home to start preparing for soccer practice later today. Usually, I took the bus home, but because I stayed with Tristan for a while, I missed the bus and would have to wait for an hour for the next one to come.

However, as soon as I opened the door, I was greeted with a deafening voice. My father was screaming so loudly that it seemed like my eardrums were going to burst as he slammed his hand down on the table.

!! physical (child) abuse !!

I stormed inside and saw my father hold my brother's neck, tears rolling down Clay's cheek. I wasn't sure what to do and stepped back from hopelessness. Clay turned his eyes to me and stuck his hand out to me while he cried.

It seemed like I froze, the same way as I did yesterday when I suddenly couldn't talk anymore. He looked so helpless and heartbroken, I wanted to run towards him and hug him tightly to protect him.

But my nails seemed to be pierced in the floor and I was unable to take a single step in his direction. I couldn't look away, I couldn't walk away or towards him, I couldn't do anything but stare at a scene I didn't want to see.

'I just wanted to grab a biscuit,' Clay whimpered, looking at me with big and hopeless eyes. 'Elliot...'

I felt my hands shaking and a ringing sound in my ears. My breath hitched and suddenly, even breathing was a lot harder than it used to be. My chest felt paralysed and I couldn't even blink anymore.

Before I could do something, Clay was punched in the face. He stumbled backwards and hit his back against the wooden table in the living room. The fragile table began to fall down, just like Clay did.

He fell down on the floor, some glass cups shattering next to his face. I saw a shard cut his cheek, our father freaking out more and more. He lifted his leg, my eyes followed it in slow motion. Soon after, Clay was kicked against his ribs, and again, and again.

I felt tears fill the brim of my eyes, but I couldn't tell if I was crying or hadn't blinked in too long. At the same time, I didn't feel my chest going up and down anymore, but I wasn't realising I stopped breathing.

Clay began to scream the longer our dad kicked him, no place left unharmed. He was holding his underarms in front of his face to protect some of his body and laid down curled up like a ball in order to protect his body.

'Thomas, I think he has learnt his lesson,' our mother spoke out of nowhere after she had apparently been watching them for minutes.

I snapped back to the reality and gasped for air after holding it for too long. I understood how to move again and realised the danger Clay was in when our dad continued, even after his wife tried to "stop" him.

I sprinted towards them and jumped in between them without hesitation. My father was taken aback and froze for a second because he didn't want to hurt me, which gave Clay the opportunity to crawl away.

However, our father was too fast and pushed me aside. He grabbed Clay's shoulders and pushed him against the wall. Without thinking about his actions, he clenched his fist and punched Clay in his face.

His eye was hit and he groaned, but a second later he punched him against his nose. Before I had time to process, the hits kept coming even worse than they just did. I tried to pull our dad away with all the strength I had, but he kept punching Clay.

!! over !! (there's still mentions blood)

I saw Clay's eyes roll away and blood covered most of his face at this point. Hopelessly, I decided to make one more attempt to stop him and took a few steps back. I placed my hands on my ears and filled my lungs with air before I let a high-pitched and terribly loud screech come out.

My father's grasp became weaker and soon, he let go of Clay and turned around to me. Anger in his eyes showed that I needed to stop screaming or else he would start too, but too bad for him, I knew he never hurt me.

I continued to scream and saw Clay run off right away. Usually, he left to his room, but we both knew this situation was way too unsafe right now. Our father was insanely angry and as soon as he got me quiet, he would follow Clay up and literally attempt to kill my brother.

My voice started cracking and slowly, I started lowering it until I was sure Clay left. But as soon as I stopped screaming and looked outside, I saw Clay crawling on the floor because he collapsed and couldn't get up anymore.

Luckily, our father walked to the living room and seemed to stop caring about Clay who left. He sat down on the couch and my mom walked up to me.

'Elliot, Clay is always tempting dad, don't stick up for him. I don't want you to change into the person he has become,' she tried to defend her own actions.

'What did he do wrong then, huh?' I asked with anger boiling in my chest.

'He came downstairs to grab a biscuit and dad told him not to, but he still did. He needs to start listening better before we can accept the child we've gotten,' she replied.

'And if I would grab a biscuit right now? Why would you not say no to me? And even if you did and I still grabbed it, why wouldn't you have beaten me up?'

'Because you don't need many rules to be the perfect child,' my father yelled from the back of the room. 'You're the star soccer player, you go to church every Sunday, you're an amazing Christian, kindhearted and sweet... Clay is none of those, he's a piece of shit, but even more worthless.'

'And this amazing Christian also knows that in the Bible it says it's not allowed to torture your children and that you're supposed to love everyone like you love yourself. You must hate yourself then...'

'There's exceptions because no one loves Clay, God wouldn't even try to either. He is straight from the devil,' my dad said calmly.

'God loves everyone because He has created every single person on this earth. He would even forgive the worst sinners and Clay hasn't done anything wrong.'

'He's not even a Christian so that's the start of the list,' my father argued.

'Because he went through religious trauma due to YOU! You sent him to this Bible camp where they taught everyone they were going to hell if they do one thing wrong and next to that, the only Christians in his life are you and me. And two out of the three people hate his guts and beat him up.'

'He has a choice to return to religion and be a good person,' my mother stumbled.

'And he won't as long as you're behaving this way. I know God will always pull him back and Jesus came to wash everyone clean from their sins, but the more you force him, the further he'll drift away.'

I stormed off and ran to the door to look for Clay, who crawled further away which I could see by the blood trail on the floor...

1276 words