Aces [#NANOWRIMO2017]

Ace Makes A Very Important Discovery

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter deals with domestic abuse. This is a subject that I have not had experience with, but I've done my best to portray it in an appropriate manner. If this chapter offends anyone, please let me know how I can fix it ASAP.

A/N: This chapter, plus the next four, were written sometime around halfway through the month. The plot has changed quite a bit ever since, so if anything doesn't make sense, please let me know! Thanks :)

Wᴇᴅɴᴇsᴅᴀʏ, Fᴇʙʀᴜᴀʀʏ 14

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I love you, she'd told me. The words were still ringing in my ears.

I should have been overjoyed. I should have been ecstatic. A pretty girl, the first one who had ever made me feel anything besides contempt, had just told me she loved me.

But — no, this was all wrong! I'd decided to follow through on the bet — for Seraphine's sake, not my own — but I'd let myself forget that during lunch. I'd allowed myself to enjoy her company; I'd allowed myself to keep pulling her in. I was supposed to win her heart and then dump her, so she would learn the dangers of love and of trust.

But this girl was not making it easy for me to let her go. I had to escape, pronto.

I didn't even bother to try and hide the fact that I was running away from school. I went straight down the hill, through the gates, and headed for my house.

The first thing I noticed when I got home was the shouting. That should have raised a red flag right away; I couldn't remember the last time that my mother had ever raised her voice.

I wasn't quite able to make out what my parents were screaming about behind their closed bedroom door, but I couldn't help myself; I sneaked upstairs and crouched down, putting my ear against the door to shamelessly try to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Yeah, that might work in movies, but either the movies lie or my house has extra-thick doors, because I still couldn't tell what it was that they were saying.

I was just about to give up and retreat into my room when I heard a loud, clear smack, followed by a cry of pain.

I stopped moving.

It happened again.

That can't be... it's not... there's no way that it's...

It was.

Have you ever hated someone so much, it's hard to imagine that they could possibly get any worse? With every step down, you think, okay, now they have to have hit rock bottom. But then they turn right around and just get more and more irredeemable until you want to scream. You think that you've seen the worst? Wrong. It can always — always — get worse.

I shouldn't have opened the door. I should have just pretended I hadn't heard it, and then we could go on with regular life.

Regular life. I could go on thinking that I had a terrible life; that it was okay to destroy others' lives; that my mother was nothing but a weakling. My father could go on drinking himself to death and coming home drunk every day, neglecting and endangering his wife and son.

My mother could go on bearing the brunt of his drunken rage. My mother could go on hiding her bruises. My mother could go on wiping her tears.

My mother could go on until she couldn't go on any longer.

And then what would she do?

No, it was for the best that I'd walked into the room that day. But I still know that I'll never be able to forget what I'd seen; it was an image that would be seared into my mind forever.

My mother pressed against the wall, my father's handprint branded in crimson on her cheek. Crying. Accepting it as it came.

My father standing over her. Face twisted with fury, with an insanity clouding his eyes that scared me beyond words.

Is this what love looks like?

Our screams met in midair, a beautiful dissonance of pain and fear and heartache and shame. But in his drunken state, he didn't seem to hear us. All he seemed able to register was the fact that his wife was cowering submissively in front of him, and she hadn't tried to fight back, and so he was powerful. He was in control.

I stood frozen in place for just a second, and his arm wound back again.

I moved faster than I'd thought possible, barreling into my father and knocking him over. I moved without thinking. I hit him with such force that his back slammed into the wall, knocking the wind out of him.

Slowly, laboriously, as if his mental facilities had been so thoroughly drenched in alcohol that he'd forgotten even how to move, his head turned to stare at me. He seemed to be almost foaming at the mouth, and suddenly I was terrified.

I didn't give him time to retaliate. Riding the adrenaline, I grabbed my mother by the hand and ran out of the room, slamming the door on the way out.

If you listened closely enough, you could hear him snoring as I sat my mother on the living room couch as gently as I could.

"Mom? It's going to be okay, I promise. You're going to be just fine."

Thank goodness that I'm a good liar.

It took a moment for the truth of what I'd just been a witness to to set in.

Then I began to cry.

"Mom..." I whispered. I hated that I felt and sounded so weak. "Mom, why...? When? How?"

She didn't answer.

I left to go find my mother a blanket. When I came back, she'd fallen asleep. I brought a chair from the kitchen along with me. I sat next to the couch and watched my mother, afraid to leave her side.

I was filled with unimaginable guilt. How long has this been going on? I wondered. How long has my mother been dealing with this? And I never even noticed. What kind of son am I?

How many times had I told my mother that I hated her? How many times had I called her weak?

Now that I knew what I knew, my mother was the absolute strongest person I could imagine.

I sat in the kitchen chair so long, my left leg fell asleep. Then my right leg followed suit.

I didn't move. I stayed with my mother. I knew logically that my father wasn't going to wake up in the middle of the night, grab a belt, and then sneak downstairs just to keep hitting her, but I didn't want to leave her alone. Sitting by her side, I felt like I was protecting her from the horror that was my father.

I studied my mother as she slept. Stress had aged her faster than normal. Her hair was greying, wrinkles and worry lines framed her face, and even as she slept, her body curled into itself fearfully.

She was beautiful.

I sat in that chair all night, until the first rays of dawn started to peek through the curtain of cloud that had covered the sky while my mother slept. I was tired, but there was no way that I could've fallen asleep.

My mother woke with the sun.