My Name is Bitch

Chapter 8

Daydream bliss would sum up just how much Jane felt as she walked into her house, setting aside her keys on the table near the door.

Nightmarish hell would sum up just what was expecting her as she entered the kitchen.

“Bitch!!” Her father yelled as he bent over the kitchen sink vomiting up last night’s bar pretzels and peanuts.

Her hours with James quickly forgotten, Jane runs to get something to clean up her father’s puke with.

“Bitch!” The word doesn’t seem to affect her anymore, she used to it as if it was a loving pet name.

She scoots closer to Howard, a broom and rag in hand for the clean up. “What do you need?”

With frighteningly fast speed, Howard has Jane pinned up against the cupboards, her feet dangling in the air. “I want you to come home after school like you’re supposed to, Bitch.” She falls hard on the floor as Howie wrenches one more time into the sink. Jane clings onto the rag and broom, thinking that gripping harder would make everything less horrifying.

Howie wipes his hand across his mouth in finality and glares at Jane, sending daggers into her heart. “Get down.” He points to the floor.

Her tears escape, making clean marks on the tiled ground she knows all too well. She kneels on the ground hoping, but never wishing, that nothing bad happens.

“On your hands and knees, Bitch, like the dog you are.” Words slice almost as painfully as the ones etched in her stomach.

Time freezes as Howard pulls his leg back, watching in slow motion as he lets it fly into her side, no doubt cracking ribs.

Pulling back, again and again and again, until Jane collapses in pain on her friend, the tiled floor.

Then the punches start to fly, staggered with words in between, “Bitch,” and “dog,” and “slut.”

The words start to dig deeper than the punches.

Then when she finally gives up with each punch in the face, Jane finally lets her self wish. Wish for all the horrible memories and painful injuries to be forgotten.

She lets herself wish that she could die.