Teenage Baby

Chapter 17

Chapter 17:

"Aaron!"

The voice was filled with vicious anger, hints of lunacy braided along. Heavy knuckles slammed against the wooden door countless times, each hit echoing in the room and bouncing across the walls until it jarred Aaron out of his sleep. He blinked tiredly multiple times, gradually returning to reality from the depth of slumber, suddenly aware of the noises around him. The strong thumps intensified in his ears. His heart pounded. When he pulled himself off his rickety bed, he trudged to the door with slightly nervous yet sleepy steps.

He held the brass handle and sighed, turning to look at the clock before proceeding: two in the morning. He'd barely slept an hour. Another knock shook the wooden door as a whole, and Aaron hastened to unlock and open it, although dreading it internally. His sight firstly fell upon his father; he stood at the threshold, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched.

"Where are my cigarettes?" Aaron's father said, his voice thick with disapproval as it seeped through the grit of his teeth. Spit flew out in clusters. The stench of beer punched Aaron's nostrils, and he had to squint and look away, trying hard to contain his bile. Too drunk, he thought. And he knew that his drunk phases were the worst.

"I don't know," Aaron answered with blunt meaning, sighing when he realized that the conversation was far from ending there. Couldn't he just go back to sleep? He heard the tense shifting of position, and it made him aware of how his father was gaining tension, consuming and charging fury until he'd explode in a mass of violence and aggression, all which would fall over Aaron's head.

"What do you mean you don't know? You have to know."

"I don't."

"Stop lying. You stole them, didn't you?"

"What?" Aaron gaped at his father. He couldn't actually think... He closed his eyes and looked away, now fully aware of how things were about to change. "I don't even smoke. Why would I steal them? I have no idea where they are."

His father gestured him forwards, gruff voice oddly calm as he whispered, "Come here."

Aaron balked for a moment, because he knew that the sudden serenity wouldn't last long, that it would burst into a fit of uncontrolled anger at any moment: obscenities, punches, anything horrible. And that was exactly what happened. Soon his father's hand reached out steadily towards Aaron's head, grasping a fistful of his messy hair between his fingers, tightening his grip and tugging at the very roots—right where he knew it pained Aaron a lot.

He dragged Aaron out of the room and into the corridor with only a grip on his hair. Then he adjusted his hand, clenching more strands in his fist. "When I say something, you do it. Understand?"

A terrible, pounding ache formed in Aaron's scalp, the pain suffusing until he could even feel it knock at his skull. He screwed his eyes shut, a desperate attempt to relieve himself from the overwhelming pain, but it wasn't helping—utterly futile in front of the death-trap his hair was caught in. The roots screamed with the excruciating pressure pulling at them relentlessly.

"Leave my hair," Aaron said, whimpering under his breath. "I said, leave my hair!"

The words left his mouth with a loud echo, and it surprised Aaron himself, but it brought no result save for a wet snort from his father. Aaron tried to tug his hand off, but he came to no avail, and in the heat of the moment, he swung his fist up blindly, catching him in the jaw. His father fumbled back. He released Aaron's hair as he fought for balance.

Aaron sighed with relief, although the pain was still resonating all over his scalp. With heavy breaths, he rubbed the top of his head. Suddenly, he wanted to charge at his father. Punch him, maybe. Pull his hair just as hard as he'd done. Make him taste the pain. But all he did instead was take a deep, composing breath and hold his hand to him in a conciliatory gesture.