It Takes Two to Mend a Broken Heart

Chapter 1

Liam's POV

*Flashback*

I trembled uncontrollably as the door creaked open. I saw those long, thick fingers curl around the red-brown wooden door, almost as if he was trying to intimidate me at eleven years of age. I swallowed back the bile from my empty stomach, beads of salt sweat covering ever inch of my shaking body.

At the bottom of the creaky door was a vast foot, covered by a thick black leather boot which he had used to kick me with this morning. The words from this morning still rang repetitively in my mind: When I get back I will kick the shit out of you. That is a promise, faggot.

The words slurred out of his mouth at a slow, steady pace. My Dad. My abuser.

My Dad would stomp down the street to the pub down the road every day and come back at night, ready and roaring to beat the fuck out of me. It was an every day process. I felt ridiculous to be trembling like this. It had been going off since I was six.

When he had finished the daily dose of beating his own son, he would yell at me to stay in his room because he couldn't stand the sight of me anymore. Then he would stride to our small, cheap fridge and grab a beer before lolling on the couch, muttering about how he regretted ever conceiving me and marrying my mother.

My mother. The trembling stopped abruptly as I remembered her skinny, pale face and blue lips. Her thin, greasy blonde hair sticking to her sweaty face while she mumbled things about how she couldn't get out of bed today. I'm too ill, she would groan. You do so good at taking care of yourself, Liam. You don't need me. Just stay out of your Daddy's way.

She never stopped saying that since I was six. I never blamed her really, though. She had depression, especially since my Dad started drinking repetitively and how he had another house on the other side of Mullingar with another woman. He only came back because he got bored, and decided to beat me or laugh at my mother about how 'pathetic' she was.

I was an only child. I used to hate it, since I was the only attention my Dad gave. But I was sure if I had a brother or sister, they would get beaten, too. I probably wouldn't cope with that. So I was sort of lucky. Not.

I gazed back at the wooden door which had paint peeling off and patches missing. My Dad's head appeared, his eyes a threatening muddy brown. He stared at me with a smug grin that said Are you ready, son? I'm ready. Come here, faggot.

I started to shake again, my hands just a blur as they vibrated at top speed, quickening when my Dad took his first step. His biceps rolled and flexed, giving a clear representation that he was going to hurt me. The grin was still plastered to his spotty, yellow face.

His skin had gotten yellow over the years. I was just eleven, but I knew what it meant. I did plenty of research, and it had just given me the exact signs of what my Dad had been doing. It all came down to one thing: alcohol.

"Dave, are you home?"

Both mine and my Dad's heads snapped up as we heard my mother's soft, croaky voice from upstairs. She would have heard the front door smash shut in my father's return.

He snickered. "Let me just sort some things out, Karen!"

"Is Liam down there with you?!"

"Oh, would you mind your business, you pathetic little bitch?"

Everything went silent after that. I could almost hear my mothers' light sniffly cries. It was painful for an eleven year old to hear that. I could imagine her scrunched-up-in-pain face while tears rolled down her delicate, colourless cheeks, tucked up in her filthy-grey duvet and aching to take pills, though I had done his best to hide them.