TW: descriptive physical and verbal abuse, strong themes.

— Chapter 13 —

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The buzzing of my phone in my pocket was enough to wake me up the next morning. I hardly ever got notifications.

Groggily pulling my focus to my phone and taking it out of my pocket, I felt the soreness in my forehead from sleeping against the bathroom door all night. It was cold and hardly comfortable, but it was better than being bruised and battered.

I tapped my phone screen awake and found the messages that had been sent to me only seconds ago.

Today at 11:46 am

Noah:

Noah:

I bit the side of my cheek, feeling some kind of weight lifting off my shoulders. Noah Black is checking up on me? Why?

Elliot:

Elliot:

Elliot:

Shit, I thought to myself as a read receipt appeared below the message. I re-read the words a few times over as I waited for him to reply. I hoped my texts weren't too dry.

Noah:

Noah:

Elliot:

Elliot:

Noah:

I re-read his message and let out a soft exhale. I would never admit it openly, but there was a small pull at the edge of my lips.

Elliot:

Noah:

Noah:

Noah:

Turning my gaze to the door handle, which was still locked despite all my father's tugging on it last night, I scratched the back of my neck. It didn't sound like he was home.

Elliot:

Noah:

Elliot:

Noah:

Scrunching my face in embarrassment, I scolded myself, stupid question, Elliot. Stupid question.

Noah:

Elliot:

Noah:

Noah:

My eyes widened slightly as I traced over his text message. It didn't sound like a bad idea, actually. I hadn't gone out in a while, truth be told, and maybe a drink or two was just what I needed to get my mind off things.

Elliot:

Noah:

Crave. God... I hadn't been back there in a long time. Before its renovation in recent months, Crave was a bar a lot like Joe's. The place wasn't in the best state, though, and business was relatively slow despite its prime location.

I'd heard it had gone through a significant revamp not long ago, reopening as a club, but I'd never found the time to go back and visit. It was doing much better these days, from what I'd heard. The place was popular with young people—Crave's average Tuesday was Joe's on our busiest day. Expensive, too.

Elliot:

Noah:

Elliot:

Noah:

Elliot:

I let out a soft exhale, reading his last message a few times before putting my phone back in my pocket.

Truthfully, I was exhausted.

Despite the few rough hours I got of sleep last night, there was an ache at the back of my head and soreness in my legs. I felt sick... drained, mentally. Though, to be fair, mornings usually had me in a shitty mood anyway.

My gaze rested on the shower as disgust bubbled somewhere deep in my chest. Why was my old man so damn difficult?

Why was I never good enough for him?

Look at me, I scoffed to myself, I'm on a bathroom floor, freezing myself to death, and my ass has gone hard from sitting on this damn tile. This must be what rock bottom looks like. Literally.

My father tended to day-drink whenever something had gotten on his nerves... which was basically every day of the last ten years. And it was damn easy to get on his nerves.

Even as a child, I had to listen to the mumbling of his bitter profanities whenever he and my mom had gotten into one of their arguments. I had to listen as he directed them at me on the nights that my mom had chosen to sleep at her sister's place, leaving him to take care of me on his own while she sought some escape from her cursed marriage.

I had to watch as he downed a bottle of beer at the dinner table with every enveloped bill that had been sent after my mother's death, trying to figure out if we could make it through the week without sinking beneath them all. I had to lock myself in my room on the nights that my father had narrowly managed to help me avoid charges for the stupid shit I used to pull as an escape back in my teenage years.

I had to suffer as he took his frustrations out on me—physically and emotionally—while I still tried to earn whatever morsel of affection or acceptance I could get from him.

He wasn't a bad father... at least, not on purpose. He put food on the table on the nights when my mom was overwhelmed with her work. He always made sure that I was dressed for school in the mornings, and always picked me up on the days when my mom couldn't. He'd play catch with me out in the yard when I was a kid, too, to try and distract me from the fact that my mom had been hospitalized yet again—her frail, weak body slowly withering away from chronic stress and overwork.

But drinking was the habit my father had never really gotten out of.

And, looking at him now as he stumbled through the front door, I could immediately smell the strong stench of alcohol coming off him in waves. It was hardly four in the afternoon.

He let out a raspy cough as his piercing glare slowly came to focus on me. Tossing his noisy keys to the floor somewhere, he slammed the door behind him and straightened himself up.

I thought I would be able to get away with a few more hours of sleep after cleaning myself up in the morning. Just enough to give me a break from everything—work, my father, Noah and Marcus, as well as the pounding headache I'd been feeling.

It wasn't until the rumbling of my father's old pickup truck in the driveway stirred me awake, though, that I came to realize how drastically I'd messed up.

"For fucks sake," he spat at me, closing the gap between us with two large strides. Yanking on my hair, he pressed me against the wall, slapping me against the mouth after a pained cry left my lips. "I thought I told you last night to get the fuck out of my house. What part of that was so difficult for you?"

"S-stop," I forced out, though it came across as nothing more than a pleading whimper.

"Stop? Are you being serious?" He scoffed, stumbling a few syllables in his words as he hit my head to the wall. I fought the urge to gag as his pungent breath hit my face. "After all the shit you felt the need to say last night, all of a sudden it's 'stop'?"

"I was just upset, I didn't mean to—" I paused as he tugged my hair again. "I'm sorry, j-just let me go, I—."

He pulled my chin so that I was facing him, only to hit me across the face. I let out another cry of pain. "Sorry? You're sorry now, too? Don't lie to me. You just couldn't resist bringing up your damn mother last night, and what? You had to—to fucking insult Donna for it, too? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Despite his slurred words, he managed to get the point across, his tone of voice instilling an overwhelming sort of fear deep in my soul. Digging rough fingers into my arms with an iron-like grip, my father shoved me against the wall again as a cracked yell left my lips.

"Stop fucking screaming, Elliot!" He bellowed at me, though I didn't have the nerve to tell him off for his hypocrisy. "Do you want the whole neighborhood to know the kind of shit you force me to put up with? Do you? Do you want someone to call the cops over here, huh?"

My legs gave out beneath me as he yelled into my face. I tried not to sob so loudly as he landed another backhanded blow across my face, hard enough for his ring to split the left side of my lip open.

Kneeling over my collapsed body to cage me in, he coughed once more and took a firm hold of my chin. "Look at you, for God's sake!" He said. "You're what? Twenty-three now? Why are you still here, Elliot? Huh? Why?"

I sobbed, unable to dampen my pained howl as he slammed his fist down on my chest.

"Stop screaming, for god's sake!"

He didn't even give me the chance to, taking hold of my throat with two rough hands. Pressing harshly, my eyes widened as I struggled against him. "I'm sick and tired of you! All the shit I've gone through and not once have you ever showed me a shred of respect! Is that what I deserve, Elliot? Why the fuck do you think you can just continue to treat me like—"

I'd already zoned out at that point, violently trying to pry off the grip he had around my neck. I could still breathe, though only slightly—every breath I took in felt like it contained tiny shards of glass. But my father was persistent, and the manic look in his eyes did nothing but drive the terror coursing through my bones.

The ringing in my ears was overpowering. My vision began to go cloudy, and just as the last slivers of my father faded into darkness, I stopped struggling. Forced into unconsciousness, the last thing I could remember as my world went dark was the weight slowly coming off from around my neck.

I realized something, though, as the world around me was forcefully turned to darkness.

I realized that I had nothing worthwhile left to fight for.

And, perhaps for just a brief moment... that gave me some sort of peace.

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