𝐆𝐎-𝐆𝐎 | 𝐬.𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬

𝟎𝟎𝟒. 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝟏𝟗𝟔𝟑

Chapter 4

1963

"Where the hell are you going?" The youngest Rhode called as he threw a matchbox back into the cupboard, stubbing out the flame he lit in seconds. His body was tensed accusingly at her, bruises of browns, yellows, and greens littered his healing skin all over. From his face to his arms, neck and legs. From the week that followed his brawl to the Curtis boy. Cadence's body was stiff and seemed to click with every move he made. He limped heavily on his right foot and constantly had a pack of frozen peas (from god knows where) attached to his eye.

The funniest thing was that their mother never said a word. Her nose was always stuck in a glass of wine and her eyes glued to the newest teenage fashion magazine. That night, when the three of them sat on their cushioned dining chairs with Cadence wrapped up like a mummy in drug-store gauze, band-aids, and bandages that Soda had so kindly given her, she never bothered to give him a single glance.

Now it seemed his sister was doing the same.

Mitsy didn't respond, and that told him all he needed to know as she shrugged on a black trench coat and grabbed her car keys from out of the glass dish on the counter.

"Oh, right, you're sneaking out to race that Tim Shepard guy again, huh? You know they're all trouble, those East-Side boys." He scrunched his bruised nose in disgust, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms firmly over.

"You don't give a damn about the East Side, you're just too bitchy to take a beating." Mitsy snaps back, flipping her hair over her shoulder and making her way toward the front door.

"So what if I am!" He snarled, "Dad'll kill you if he finds out. He'll throw you out to the streets like a skank." Cadence pointed an accusing finger at her retreating figure, "hell, then what? what am I gonna do with 'em?!"

"What you always do...nothing!" She fumed bitterly, before promptly slamming the entrance door shut with a thundering bang.

Cadence made no effort to follow her and continue their argument as he watched her shut the door to her car and speed off on the gravel road.

In that moment, Cadence Sebastion Rhode was brought back to that cold winter night of 1963.

____________

He sat on the brown leather seats of the couch. Watching the figures move on the black and white television like mimes as the screams persisted from up the marble staircase.

"So why are you even here if you think I'm so terrible then, huh?!" His mother's echoing voice screeched against the thin white walls of the home.

"That's a good fuckin' question, Margaret!" Cadence heard a door slam and the thundering steps of his sister as she sprinted down the stairs. Who was shortly followed by the raging thumps of his mother.

Margaret roughly grabbed her daughter's arm, digging her red nails into her skin.

"I'm not gonna end up like you!" She ripped her arm out of her mothers grip, tearing her soft skin and drawing warm blood from the wound, "A miserable excuse of a mother who whores around because her husband doesn't love her anymore!" Mitsy began to back more towards the door, "I won't fuckin' do it." Her voice softened to a whisper, her hand snuck towards the car keys in the glass dish and ran for the front door as her mothers hand curled around the dish and threw it with all her might.

Smash!

It exploded in sharp pieces like an atomic bomb where Mitsy once stood. Shards flew in all directions, the floor, the wall, the ceiling. It repeated in the boy's head over and over again in his head, piercing his eardrums like a needle.