Scars (Edited)

Scars

Stephany had never thought that Victor was a bad man. She always told herself that he wasn't a bad man, that he was simply confused or ill. She never thought that he would raise his hand to her or that he wouldn't want the baby they'd tried so hard to bring into the world. But Victor was a bad man and his hand prints often littered the fair skin of Stephany's arms, shoulders, back, and anywhere else they couldn't easily be seen. The baby had been kept but was now unwanted by his father and pitied by his mother. Stephany resented herself for months upon end for bringing the child into the world after realizing Victor allowed him to be born only because the child would allow for more control. Stephany had tried to leave, she really had, but each attempt left her worse off than the time before. Victor decided to go a step farther this time to assure she couldn't leave and the beating she endured was worse than ever before.

Blood gushes from the gash on Stephany's forehead as her rounded, olive toned husband slams her against the wall for a fourth time. "I'll kill the brat, Steph. Try to leave again and I'll kill the bastard like I should have done in the first place." Victor is seething as he grips her hair and rips her up off the ground she'd fallen to. The pounding in Stephany's ears grows louder with each yank and shove until, finally, it stops all together and Stephany hears nothing.

The quiet is almost blissful, almost completely mind numbing, and, though the man she once loved continues to bash and bloody pieces of her body, Stephany feels no pain, not any more. Yes, it was sad that it had come to this and, now, Stephany wishes deeply that she would have listened to her parents or even her sister when they said he "didn't feel right". Her parents had died in a car wreck though and her thirty-seven-year-old sister, Margret, has a husband and three children to care for and probably hasn't spared her baby sister a thought in about eight years.

Stephany, whom had been only twenty years old when she married Victor (who was then forty-two years old and nearly the age of her father), bites her tongue to keep quiet and doesn't bother to correct her husband by explaining that she was merely going to the super market for roast beef and salad dressing to go with tonight's supper. What was the point in making his anger worse when she knew soon he would get bored and lock her in the basement? He'd let her out in about two or three days and, in about an hour, the baby will begin to cry and would end up in the basement as well, of this Stephany is certain for it had become part of their biweekly routine; to be locked in the basement with a bed and a basanite. In fact, this time, she had been prepared for it and even went as far as stocking the bottom shelf of the covered basanite full of canned food (a can opener is kept hidden under the baby wipes and silverware are stuffed in with the diapers).

She wasn't wrong either because as soon as Victor finished leaving the next set of bruises, he pushed her down the basement stairs and slams the door behind him. The audible click of the door makes Stephany flinch away and attempt to stand but her legs are jello underneath her and she remains unable to move. Her hearing has returned though and, above her, all is silent. I guess dinner will be about three days late then, Stephany thinks to herself as she tries again to clamber to her feet. On the third try, she manages to get about half way up before she falls back to the cold cement floor. Giving up on standing, she drags herself over to the bed and hoists herself up using the little bit of strength she had left to curl into a fetal position before she slides off into a coma like sleep.

Stephany was once very pretty. A few years ago, her blonde hair would have shone like gold in the light and her green eyes always seemed to be laughing but, now, at the age of twenty-eight, she looks as lifeless as the rag doll she used to play with as a child and the newly formed bruises and cuts made it hard for her to sleep without pain. When she was upstairs, her husband would insist that she please him as a woman would a husband she loved. Her body ached all over no matter the reasoning and she was growing tired of it. An hour into her sleep, Stephany hears the sound she'd subconsciously been waiting for, footsteps, and is jolted awake mere seconds before the basement door opens and Victor appears with a crying bundle in his arms.

With new found strength, Stephany climbs quickly out of the bed and rushes to grab her child out of his father's arms. "Damn thing won't stop crying," Victor snarls all but throwing the three month old at his mother. "Make it stop, whore." Resisting the urge to glare at him, Stephany places her son at her breast and cuddles him close as Victor stomps back upstairs. Her heart tells her to follow him but every aching part of her warns her against it. Ryker, her baby, sucks away utterly defenseless in her arms knowing nothing about the world he was born into and completely innocent to anything but the sound of his mother's heart.

Ryker has his mother's blonde hair and, for now, his eyes are blue but, by his third birthday, they'd have turned a forest green color. Stephany prays daily for her little boy. She prays that he grows up kind, she prays that he turns out nothing like his father, and, most of all, she prays that the little boy won't grow up in this house. For the first time since she found out she was pregnant, Stephany sank to the floor and cried. Her tears ran hot as they raced down her cheeks and splashed lightly on the basement floor. Stooped over her little boy, her miracle baby, Stephany cried like there wouldn't be a tomorrow and, in Stephany's case that was always a possibility.

In three days' time, Stephany would be released from her poorly furnished prison but, hopefully, she and Ryker will be long gone by then. Stephany has a plan of escape but she's got to be careful on execution or she could wind up dead or worse; she could wind up stuck here.