When Bluebirds Fly | ✔

Part One : Chapter Nineteen

I was drowsily taking the garbage bags out when the inevitable occurred. I saw Abel marching crossly in the corridor and I was about to surreptitiously turn back and shut my door when I noticed his livid face closely. There was blood running thinly down his nose and a deep cut like a cat's scratch across his forehead. I inspected him further out of curiosity and an odd satisfaction and found him limping grumpily.

His blazing eyes vehemently darted to me and he shouted, "You had it coming! You had it coming, you whoré!"

"What did I do?" I asked helplessly, startled and his nostrils flared.

"Not my fucking fault!" he continued yelling as if he was deaf to the world. "Blame it on him, blame it on your lovebird for your hell! Fucking crippled me with a baseball bat, that Chinese fool!"

I was least stunned at his derogatory words and I agreed with Abel, that fucking fool. I wasn't piqued for what Sam did since I knew that he would recklessly take matters in his own hands, but I secretly hoped that he wouldn't. I would have to face the grave repercussions and I was heart-broken as Sam betrayed my trust. Simply put, I didn't possess the energy to be mad at anyone, not even Abel.

"Hey, hey, hey." I desperately glided in front of him. "I don't know what Sam did, I didn't tell him anything. I swear---"

"I don't give a fuck," he growled venomously, shoving me away and storming to his room. The bruises that Sam generously gave were etched on his pride and I knew how pride made people tenacious and unrelenting. Which is why I dreaded and could only anticipate the inexorable outcome.

I tiredly walked back home without bothering to discard the garbage and switched on the television. I stared blankly at the sports channel, the highlights of a previous football match playing. The white light from the television flickered in the darkness. I didn't know how long I stiffly sat there with my back upright, noisily breathing in through my nose and blowing out air from my mouth. The loose strands of my brown hair hung limply in front of me and when I neatly brushed them back, they stuck stubbornly to my forehead. I didn't know my tense forehead was sweating, yet my body was absurdly cold and dry.

I heard my father clumsily enter our apartment, but fortunately, he didn't switch on the lights. He quietly went to the small kitchen and I could hear the old microwave being turned on. I should have gathered some essential courage, prudently picked up my phone and simply dialled 911. That could have saved my father and me from the ghastly events that followed, but truthfully, I was more ashamed than afraid. It was not the disconcerting fear that kept my stupid self to do the most pragmatic thing, it was a shame that chained me to irrational, hopeless actions. I didn't accept whatever happened that portentous night, but I had weirdly accepted the consequences of that night. It wasn't my imbecility, it was how I was, without any glimmer of hope.

I was awaiting the punishment that my father would impose on me and it bizarrely reminded of the time when I had hit Isaac with a bat and hid under my bed, holding my breath and tacitly anticipating the admonishment of my mother.

I listened intently to my father strenuously breaking the hard pie that he bought from the grocery store and the scraping of the burnt crumbs from the plate. In spite of the sounds resonating from the television and the kitchen, I could hear the fervent screams of my father and I. The screams of our inner turmoil that refused to form into perceptible words.

There was clattering of utensils which was my cue to dash inside and witness my father discover the mischief that his daughter was up to.

His wide eyes stared unflinchingly at his phone, my naked pictures being graciously supplied by Abel. At that infinitesimal moment, I didn't care whether my pictures were exhibited to the whole world. I solely cared about my father's reaction as he stood there rigid, dumbfounded. His tanned knuckles looked weak as if he was rapidly losing strength along with his cherished honour.

Then he vacantly put his phone away, gingerly collected the plates and vessels that he had dropped from the shock of seeing the immodesty of his only daughter and began arranging them methodically as if he was an apathetic robot.

"Papá," I called softly, my voice quavering. "Speak something please."

That your body was gorgeous? That your papá didn't know a tiny mole existed on your right boob?

I didn't know what I wanted him to say, but something that indicated that his soul hadn't departed to the depths of burning hell already.

"Papá . . . "

"Who did this to you?" His voice was controlled, but his trembling fingers betrayed his emotions. He slowly turned to me, his eyes red and glistening with tears. "Mariana . . . Mi preciosa hija . . . "

My father's shaking hand flew to his pounding heart as he paled, his eyes full of fear and pain. Right then, the audience in the football match cheered loudly, comical applause and whistles reverberating from the television in the living room. The mocking cheering died down soon while I dumbly stood there, watching my father gradually collapse in front of me.

I gazed absently at his prostrate form before guiltily jumping over him and reaching for his phone to call. My own bare self flashed on the screen as I struggled to delete those goddamn pictures. First ambulance, then trivialities. I wondered what all sites I was already famous on by now, but that mental task was more depressing than amusing.

After calling, I sat beside my father, stroking his wispy hair and caressing his newly formed bald patches. My eyes never left the faint rise and fall of his body, ensuring that he was alive, only unconscious. Yet I knew that the more time it would take for him to get medical care, the more his condition would deteriorate. And it could be fatal.

Still, the awful part of me, all of me,  didn't want him to open his eyes ever because he seemed much happier this way. 

Being in that utterly despairing situation, I had an epiphany. The black hole wasn't within me, it was me. I was the black hole for my father and all the people around me, suffocating them with my heavy darkness. Eating everyone up till they were as lost as me.