"If you truly wish to be with me, know this..." He whispers into the darkness while holding me, "I will control you, command you and tell you what to do." I remember how my eyes burst wide open and I tried to pull free. I completely freaked out. Who...
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The first kiss. You hear stories about it, you see them in the movies and tv series. You read of them. You see your parents kiss and think it is gross, but then it is your turn. Someone wants to kiss you and it is far from gross, stupid or ugly. It is the most beautiful thing.
We couldn't stop it once we started. My lips chapped and it became harder and harder to hide from my mum. I spent the minimum time home that I could, not that there was anyone to keep an eye on me anyway. The weeks went by fast and as the last week of ours started we agreed that we would not exchange numbers, we would not write. There was no point. He lived across the country and it was not certain that he and his family would come back there next year. He had his life and I had mine to return to.
The goodbye was bitter sweet and short, but that last kiss... I wasn't sure if he would let go of me. He held me so tight and I saw the anguish in his eyes. It hurt me too, but it looked like it hurt him more. I watched them leave on the last day of July and I returned to school a week later. However, a week is a long time in my family. Was at the time anyway. Mum asked me to babysit on Friday night, dad had returned home. Again. This was not the first time they went to the bar together, or the karaoke restaurant. And it always ended the same way; fighting.
I had memorized our grandparents landline number. I had hidden a step under the drawer that the phone was top of so I could reach it easier, I was a rather short child. And everytime they left I prepared by putting jackets and shoes under my sisters beds. I also had found my dad's porn stash. It was not a clever one, VHS cassettes in a plastic bag in the corner of our living room, between the couch and bookcase. They were those you could record on from a telly. They had about 5 to 10 minutes of a random movie on them before the porn started. Quite shocking at first when I thought I was watching some Nicholas Cage movie. But then it turned into curiosity and I watched them all through and through, muted of course because the last thing I wanted was to wake up my sisters or get surprised by my parents.
Now that I look back at it, it was all that soft and caring kind of porn, with a story of some sort in it. Not any of the crazy hardcore stuff that you hear people getting their kicks from nowadays. Anyhow, the night was turning into morning and my parents showed up eventually. I couldn't sleep until they got home, if they showed up with a taxi I knew I better step out of sight before they got inside. And during those early morning hours, the taxi was the one who pulled up to the front yard.
I snuck up into my room, pull the blanket over me and then I listen. Sometimes there is not a single sound all night, but tonight the sounds started as soon as they got home. Banging. Swearing. Shouting. Mumbling. I sit up on my bed, listen a little longer and as I hear shouting again I pull the blanket off the bed and I walk half way down the stairs. Then I walk up, checking in my sisters. Fast asleep. Somehow they always could sleep through the night, nothing could wake them up. So I walk back to my blanket on the stairs and peek down. The stairs turn to the right at the last couple of steps and there's a small landing with a sliding door on it. Mum had closed it, that's why the shouting was so muffled.
I pull the blanket around me and I listen. Some point I fell asleep and I remember when I woke up that I panicked. I listened for a while, in silence. I walk down the stairs, peek in the bedroom and I see dad sleeping in the bed. I close the door quietly and walk through the living room to the kitchen where I find my mum. Staring outside while sitting beside the kitchen table. I remember her sad smile as she offered to take me into her lap and how she winced slightly as I sat on her knee. She held me tightly, without words, just in silence until the morning sun started to get through the woods and shone into our eyes. It was then also that my sisters woke up and walked downstairs.
Mum asked us to be very quiet, and said dad is not well. I remember we turned on the tv, had it on near muted while watching the kids programs. I sat on the right side on the couch and sisters on the floor staring at whatever came on the telly. When suddenly I hear a faint voice, "Put it away." I look up, and I hear mum saying louder "Don't!" I stand up and I slowly walk towards the kitchen listening when I hear "Put the knife away!" Mum shouts and I see how she backpedals into the living room. Dad came in following her. His hands are tied together with tights and he is holding a kitchen knife. He is not saying anything, just looking absolutely furious. I pull mum behind me and I step in between them two. I stare at my dad. I stare at the knife. "Put the fucking knife away." I say and I remember how dad looked down at me. Just for a moment and then he turned away, dropping the knife.
We left home quickly for the rest of the day at that point. It was my last weekend before school started again after the summer break.
I believe that he would've taken a swing if I had not stepped in. Could I have stopped a nearly 2 meter tall man from killing our mum if he actually wanted to? No. Of course not.
But something stopped him. What it was, I have no idea even to this day. No one has spoken of that day with me.
