Sneaking a Peek

As promised, here is a piece of the not (yet) novelty I'm writing. Enjoy! and GIVE ME YOUR FEEDBACK!!!
**Heads up: This post is PG-13 due to some language and violence.**


I stand there, still, shivering in the cutting wind, listening to the angry shouts and spewing emotions reining on the other side of the door. I hear my brother's shout, and then his cry. In that moment it all comes back. Everything I've been running from for so long. Everything I left them to. Everything I couldn't fix.
I flash back to a night when I was my little brother's age, back when those scream-blades would fly at me.
I was watching my favorite show, The Diary of Beverly Benedict, home alone one night. It was a rare and treasured time to me to be home alone. I liked the quiet. I liked the peace. The solitary of the empty house left me feeling empowered, it left me feeling like I could do something that mattered. Tonight that thing that mattered was my show, one of the only things that was able to distract my mind from the clutter of reality.
For now my mind thought only of Beverly, a wholehearted, well meaning, clumsy, girl, and all of her wildly unlikely mishaps. I remember the episode. It was the one where she lied to her father to sneak out to a party and hang out with this really, really, really, cute guy, Max, that she liked, but had never even talked to. Her friend told her it would be the party of the year and of course Max was going to be there, and she should totally, definitely, absolutely go. So she did. She put the typical body shaped pillow arrangement beneath the covers of her bed and slowly, carefully, crept down the hall, down to where her father had fallen asleep watching the TV.
It was at this seeming-suspenseful-at-the-time part of the show that I heard someone come home. At first I simply turned down the volume and hoped that they wouldn't come down stairs and find me. Maybe they didn't know I was here. Maybe they wouldn't notice. I could still have my time.
My ears heard heavy steps on the stairs. My muscles tightened. My eyes squeezed partly closed not wanting to see who it was coming towards me. My father, a much more frightening sight that Beverly's had been. He stood tall in the doorway at the bottom of the staircase, carrying a cup of coffee in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.
“Oh hi, Honey, I didn't know you were home.” He grinned at me from the bottom of the stairs. “Where's your mom?”
“Uh, they went to church. It's Wednesday.”
He began to cross the room towards me. “Oh yeah yeah. Why didn't you go tonight?” He asked as if he were interested.
“Don't feel good.” Truth be told I had lied to my mom. I felt fine but was exhausted of being around people one hundred percent of the time. So, just like Beverly had, I did what I had to in order to get what I wanted, a couple hours alone, that was my kind of party.
“That's too bad.” He sat down beside me.“What is this?”
I opened my mouth to answer that it was my favorite show and that this episode was so hilarious, and I just really love watching it, in fact I wish that it could be on every night instead of just Wednesday nights when most of the time I have to go to church. But he didn't give me a chance to say any of that, instead he reached across me thoughtlessly, snatched up the TV remote, and changed the channel.
“No, no, your mom doesn't like you watching that show.” He said so matter of factually as if he knew or cared anything about what my mom did and did not like.
“Hey, I was already watching something!” I grabbed the remote back, but he grasped my wrist trying to wrestle it from my clenched fingers.
The transformation was taking place. This is going to sound stupid, but if you've ever seen the hulk you know what I'm talking about. One second my father is a lighthearted guy cracking corny jokes and asking about how your day went, and the next something sets him off and he loses control. He becomes a monster.
“You know what, I've had such a long day at work today. Working, working, working all fucking day long for you guys and I can't even watch anything I like when I get home. No I have to clean the house, make dinner, and watch the stupid shit that you idiots watch. No, I come home, home to my house that I pay for and let you stay in.”
He's shouting now and we're both standing up. I have possession of the remote.
I want to bring up the two times in the past that mom's actually payed the mortgage with my personal savings, but I know this will do no good. He'd either go off about how wastefully we all spend his money or start attacking my mom for borrowing from her own child. How despicable, he would think, in smaller words of course. The vocabulary of my father does not stretch past three syllables. I can't believe that bitch. One of his favorite pet names for my mom, right along side honey, jackass, and wife. My least favorite of these being wife. The way he says it is so condescending, as if to remind her the position she holds as his property, one in his collection of toys. There's his baby the Camaro, the fancy new laptop computer, and the wife.
“I do stuff all day long too!” I shout back. “I have to do school, and help the others with school, and help mom with everything, and clean, because we do clean! We do things all day long, but that isn't even the point. The point is that I was watching something before you came down here and it's not fair to just change the channel without even asking or giving a care.”
“Oh shut up.” His number one come back. “What your mom really needs to work on is teaching you some respect.” He puts both hands on my shoulders and shoves me backwards.
“Don't touch me!” I scream.
“I am your father!” He pushed me. “You don't get to tell me what to do.” He nudged me with one fist. “You don't get to yell at me.” He opened his mouth planning on informing me of some more of my rights as his child I'm sure, but before he gets the chance I punch him right in the stomach. Right there. BOOM.
He paused, I don't think he quite knew how to respond to this new resistance I , his ten year old daughter, displayed.
“I am a person!” I shout at the top of my lungs. “I get to live too!” I throw another punch and another. “I get to speak my opinion. I get to finish my show. I get to-”
He kicks me to the ground. I'm on my back, lying in the corner. He steps right on my stomach knocking the air right out of me. I kicked a squirmed but I couldn't breath or get away from his foot pinning me down. My long curly hair caught in the bookshelf near my head, my feet kicked against the wall, then against him, but nothing worked.
Then he began pounding me, kicking me again and again so that I couldn't say another word. He was shouting something that I could no longer hear above the ringing in my ears. My muscles were tight, trying to brace myself for the next blow and the next until they couldn't anymore. They went limp, the remote falling from my fragile fingers.
He bent down, I winced expecting a slap to the face, but he just picked it up and walked away. I lay there for a few more minutes to recover, to breath again. Many minutes passed like that. Just laying, being still, breathing.
When I did arise he was there, sitting on the couch watching his show like nothing ever happened. I walked past his unblinking expression, up one set of stairs, crawled up another, and finally fell into my bed.
My brain raged with all the things I wanted to say to him, to my dad. I wanted to yell at him again. I wanted to hurt him like he did me, like I saw him do to my mom, and my brothers and sister. I wanted him to know that this is wrong, that this is not how life is supposed to be. Life had to be different I knew. I knew it from the TV shows. Life is supposed to be full of family, loving family who watch out for each other.
I wanted to tell him that the reason he was so unhappy, the reason he couldn't find the love that he looked for and forced us to emptily give him was because of the hurt he gave us.
But I couldn't say any of these things all I could do was cry until sleep overtook my wrestling thoughts.
It is this memory along with the fear of what might be happening to my baby brother on the other side of that door that propels me forward.