Delicate

upper hand

୭ ˚○◦˚. Theo ୭ ˚○◦˚.

"It's just anatomy, you're only half of me"

May 20, 2002

"Help! Theo, help!" Banging on my bedroom door had me shooting out of my bed.

I was completely frantic and still half asleep, but I fumbled to the door in the darkness. I pulled open the door and was met with a wide eyed Ivory.

"What's going on?" I asked, my eyes searching her for signs of injury.

"It's dad," She whispered.

"He's home?" I questioned, feeling extremely confused.

My father hadn't been home in two weeks. We'd not heard from him since the day of our mother's funeral.

"Yes," Ivory sniffled, "And he's hurting Mia."

He's hurting Mia.

The words were ringing in my head—not making a single ounce of sense. What the hell did she mean he was hurting Mia?

I sprinted down the stairs and into the kitchen where my father was screaming at my sister with his hand around her throat.

I didn't know what the hell to do. I'd never seen my dad so angry before—let alone lay a hand on any of us. He'd always had a temper but not to this extent.

I felt frozen. I was only thirteen, I wasn't strong like my dad. He had complete power over the three of us.

"Do something!" Ivory was begging me.

I was sick to my stomach with both fear and uncertainty. I loved my dad, I'd looked up to him my whole life but in this moment everything had cracked.

This changed everything.

Deciding I wasn't strong enough to take him on myself, I sprinted to the garage, grabbed my dad's old hurley and then ran back towards him.

I swung it at his head, and his grasp on my sister released before he fell to the ground in a heap.

Mia coughed, grasping at her throat, her eyes full of fear as she ran to me.

"It's okay," I lied, as she wrapped her arms around me.

It wasn't okay.
Nothing was okay.

It was never going to be okay again.

"Is daddy dead?" Ivory whispered, her eyes wide at the sight of my father on the floor with a steady stream of blood flowing from his scalp.

I wanted to scream 'Stop asking me!' but these girls were my responsibility now. I was all they had.

"I don't think so," I muttered, my heart beating erratically.

"I'm scared," Mia said in a horse voice.

I scanned her face to see her eye swelling shut and a cut on her lip. And that's when my heart completely split in two. My father hit my sister.

We don't hit girls.
That statement had been drilled into my head all my life and here it was being flipped on me. The same man who said that was the one hitting his own daughter.

"Get upstairs," I demanded, "And lock your door."

"No, Theo," Ivory cried, "I'm scared."

"Just go!" I snapped, "I won't let him touch you, just get out of here."

I watched as my two younger sisters bolted up the stairs, before I stood over my father and watched his chest rise and fall.

Not dead.

I then picked up the hurley and wailed him hard in the chest. His body flinched but he didn't wake up.

And I didn't care.

In a matter of minutes he went from my idol to the last person I'd ever want to be.

He was my blood but that's as far as it went.

And from now on I intended to have the upper hand.