Tears Behind Our Eyes: A Prequel

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I realize, that I should give my step dad a name. I know it doesn't have to be true but I just think I'd do you all a favor and rescue you from the nightmares I've had just from knowing. If you don't give the monster a name, you can pretend he (or she) isn't there. But he is important in my story. Unfortunately.

Over the summer between seventh and eighth grade, I'd grown a habit to avoid my house at all costs. I'd either slept at Hunter's or I'd said I slept at Hunter's. But one night, while I was at the park, sleeping on a bench, my step dad called my cell phone. He screamed at me to get home. That my mother missed me. He'd told me he didn't understand why but I had to go home, anyway. Just to be clear, that house with those people was not home.

"If it were up me, I would make sure you stayed gone!"

Me too.

But I went home anyway. He was drunk, of course. My mom already had new cuts on her face. You know how in the movies, there are two armies on each side and there's a montage of each side attacking, the middle people always getting killed brutally? That's what the living room was like.

And I was in the middle.

"Hey, kid! Where the fuck have you been the last two weeks?" His scratchy slurred voice asked as I walked in cautiously.

"Hunter's."

I can't remember all the details clearly but it was basically just like every other time: punched me, my mom protested, he slapped her to the floor, I protested, I'm pretty sure I was knocked out at some point in there. Then I woke up in the dumpster, which didn't happen all the time, only when he thought he'd finally killed me. I jumped out, landed in a puddle of rain and was already soaked. Thunder roared and lightning was the only light that showed over the cloudy sky.

My phone rang. I looked at it to see Mia Kaye calling. I smiled and answered, pain striking my head. "Jackson?" She was crying, but still said my name beautifully. The thunder shook the ground as I started walking to the park bench I'd been at before. "My dad just left for an emergency surgery and it's storming, which--" she screamed and cried harder as the earth shook. I could hear my heart beating in my head as it throbbed.

"You're scared of thunder?"

"And lightning, don't forget the lightning. What are you doing tonight? Feel like a night in with a terrorized girl until she falls asleep?"

I chuckled a little, then an idea popped into my selfish head, "Sure... could I actually... sleepover?" I mumbled, feeling guilty for taking advantage of her fear and asking me to protect her from something with the least amount of threat possible, statistically speaking.

She paused, making me turn red, then she replied. "Sure, are you okay?"

I whispered a hopefully convincing mm-hmm and said I would be on my way. A few minutes later, after arguing with the front desk that I was allowed in the building, I took the key from the turtle's butt outside her apartment. I was in her room, looking at a mess of a Mia Kaye under her bed with pillows covering her ears. Her eyes were closed tight so to prevent scaring her more, I waited until she opened her eyes back open. It looked like she was staring right at me so I got down on all fours to help her out. She screamed as she noticed me and a tear fell into her mouth.

She unplugged her ears and looked at me, squeezing her eyes shut again. "Hi."

I offered a hand to pull her out and smiled, thinking how grateful I was to have her. "Are you okay?" I pulled her into a hug, making me feel better at the same time I was comforting her and she nodded into my shoulder. I could feel myself wince, she could, too. She pulled away and looked at me in the otherwise dark room if not for the rain. "What happened? Are you okay? You winced."