All About You [On Hold]

Day Six - Scared

(Dedicated to alakeabby because she's an amazing reader. Thank you.)

Day Six – February 12

Scared

 

Even after being beaten up for about three years, my reflexes weren’t strong. So when my drunken father threw a punch at me on February twelfth, I couldn’t defend myself. I shouldn’t have to. He was my father after all; he wouldn’t ever do a thing which wasn’t in my favor.  I believed it in the starting and after a short while I grew immune to all the pain he caused me. I guess, not seeing me in pain was what triggered my father’s really aggressive side: the side which, honestly, scared me.

     But I still never said anything. No, I was not being a hero (I can never even imagine being one), I was just being an even lower version of my pathetic self. There were times when I believed that if he kept on beating me, he’d spare my mother. That way they’d never fight and maybe we could be a family once again.

      That’s the exact reason why I did not so much as try to keep him away from punching me that day. In the back of my mind, I had this feeling that this way he’d never sign the divorce papers. I know I have a thing for being irrational at times (or all the time). I admit I was scared at the thought of my parent’s splitting up because despite of them being so away from me at emotional level, they were still my family. The only family I was left with.

      I should have known that I would be proven wrong at some point or another. Dad did sign the papers, I saw him doing it, just below mom’s signature. I couldn’t believe it was happening. It was happening to me, again.

      And to say I was afraid would be one hell of an understatement.

     I was still thinking about his messy sign when another fist landed square on my face. I was so winded that I could not even locate where it hit me. It just hurt somewhere and after a while it hurt everywhere. I groaned, the sound of which earned me one more punch. And then one for extra luck. Dad passed out on the rug in the living room, the alcohol taking the best of him. Something changed that day. It did not frighten me to see him like that as much at it made me want to hate him.

     I wanted to run away somewhere far and never come back. And that’s what I did. I ran like the coward I am and kept on running.

     Suddenly your voice flashed through my mind. “What do you do when you’re scared, Clayton?” you had asked that day in school.

     Typing in my phone I had told you that I liked staying alone when I was scared.

     A frown had covered your face, “why would you want to be alone?”

     Because I don’t want people to think of me as more of a loser than I already am, was what I had written.

     I remember how you bit your lip and how your thin eyebrows scrunched in a thought. “I think it’s okay to be scared once in a while, you know. Who cares what people think? They’re always going judge but that does not mean you have to shut yourself to the world. I believe people are stronger when they’re scared because it makes them seem more . . .,” you paused to think of a specific word, “. . . more real. It makes them human.”

     You always had a way with words, though you don’t know it. It was your belief that made me calm myself down. When I stopped running I found myself in Regina’s street. Maybe it was God’s way of showing some sympathy on my part?

      I jogged over to your house and six knocks and three minutes later, you finally opened the door.

     “Clayton, shit,” that was the first time I hear you cuss. “What the hell happened?”