A Monster Just Striving For Love

Chapter Three

Noah
    “Expulsion…,” my father growls in a low whisper, the paper trembling in his big hands.

    “No,” I shake my head. “Suspension, for two days.” The slam of the back of the couch on the wall behind carries a hollow, echoey sound throughout the house.

    “Same thing!” He howls, tearing the letter in half as he stands up and pulls a lighter from his pocket, a tiny flame sprouting up from the fluid as he sparks it with his thumb, holding it beneath the paper. The tiny, curling orange snake slithers up and devours the paper, the edges darkening to a nasty blackish-brown, and ashes fluttering down onto the carpet like a raven’s feathers. I watch him stomp on the embers and shove the lighter back in his jeans, smoldering as a small bead of sweat trails from his brow.

    “Go to your room,” he orders, not looking at me. My feet stay planted on the floor in response. My father intakes a sharp breath and speaks again with simmering spleen, the dropped volume of his voice quaking with danger.

    “I said go to your room, Stavros.”

    “That is not my name.” My father’s head has never turned faster.

    “Excuse me?”

    “I said, that is not my name.” He regards me quietly for what calls itself years, but really is only a few minutes.

    “Then what is it?” He finally asks, so strangely calm that I am unsettled by it. Used to the screaming tempers and new scars lining my back, this placid, phlegmatic man in front of me doesn’t seem like my father.

    “Noah.”

    I see him shake, whole body trembling as he reaches for an item in his jeans. His jaw clenches and a muscle twitches in his cheek. I take a hesitant step back, biting my lip as the curtain falls, revealing the true man behind it.

    “Any name but that,” he says. Subconsciously and against my will a mocking smirk twists on my mouth, and I laugh out loud, the raucous sound bursting into the air. Heat creeps up my neck and onto my face, hands clutching my stomach as I drown my father in hysterical ridicule. A normal person might feel fear or guilt, but I felt none of that. His anger gave me confidence, and a sliver of pure stupidity.

    At first, the knife only felt like the tick of a bee sting. A sharp, short pain recoiling instantly. But it grew, tearing across my eyelid, ripping up my skin. Lashes fluttered to the grown and the vision in my right eye darkened, tears as well as crimson blood dripping down my face. The laughing turned into nightmarish wailing and I clapped my hands over my eye desperately, falling down onto my knees. A hand whipped up and tugged on my shirt collar, more pain searing along my collar bone and slicing my lip before being thrown halfway across the room. I slammed against the stairs, visage covered in a salty, sticky substance. Blood. I choked it up, clogging in my throat.        

    For a long time, I expect someone to come and tamper with me more. Rip me up, play with me like a little kid with a doll. Recklessly and uncharitable. Part of my vision gone, face numbing with the everlasting pain. White-knuckled and shivering. I try my best to act brave, but it always fails. I am not meant for that, and deep inside I know it. But I still have the audacity to laugh in my father’s face, put myself where he stands when I belong far below him. To be spit on, treated like trash. I am nothing and that’s all I’ll ever be. Empty of being loved, of ever having friends. The ache deepens and so does the melancholy. I’m a fool for trying to be strong. Trying to be a wolf when I know I’m a sheep, and the real wolves are already hunting me.

    A hand rests on my shoulder and someone sits by me on the stairs. The consolation is small, nothing to make up for what has happened to me. The mess my father made of me. Now I’ll be more shunned, more shoved behind walls and neglected. They’ll look upon me and see an abhorrent creature, worthy of his current reputation. That boy that I saw today, the one with eyes that looked like the moon was weeping tears into a silver lake, will even look upon me with contempt. There is no denying it, and the void in my heart widens with each thought.