Binding 13: Boys of Tommen #1

I spent the following week at home from school, taking care of my brothers and my mother, who, as I suspected, wasn’t speaking to me.

She wasn’t speaking to any of us.

Except him.

He was back.

Just like I knew he would be.

The miscarriage had been the perfect opportunity for my father to weasel his way back into my mother’s fragile emotions.

When he came back that night, Joey left.

He drove away and didn’t come home for three days.

Those three days, I had lived in terror, fearing he would never come home.

He finally did.

But I knew it wouldn’t be forever.

One of these days, Joey was going to walk out that front door just like Darren had and never come back.

Mam returned to work on the following Saturday.

Like a robot, she dressed in her cleaning scrubs, walked downstairs, made herself a cup of coffee, smoked seven cigarettes, and then left for work.

I knew Mam shouldn’t be working in her condition, she clearly wasn’t in the right frame of mind, but when I tried to tell her, all she did was give me a watery smile, kiss my cheek, and walk right out the door.

I spent the entire day worrying myself sick about my mother and listening to my father tell me how it was all my fault she lost the baby.

I was the whore.

I made him lose his temper.

I was to blame for him putting his hands on me.

And I was the reason he shoved Mam when she tried to drag him off me that night.

I was the reason he slapped her around.

It was all on me.

Because I was such a slut.

That’s right, I was a sixteen-year-old girl who had never even kissed a boy, but to my father, I was a tramp.

When he broke his promise of sobriety to my mother last night, I wasn’t even surprised.

When he used my neck as a squeeze toy, I didn’t even flinch.

I was just so tired.

A part of me prayed he would just get it over with.

Even though Joey had come thundering down the staircase and dragged Dad off me, the damage had been done.

He added fresh bruises to old bruises and I had spent a good portion of the night contemplating the worst possible thoughts.

There was no reprieve from this.

I had no way out.

Not in that house.

Not in a care home.

I was trapped.

When I stepped off the bus and walked through the doors of Tommen this morning, the relief that had flooded my body was so potent that I could taste it.

Returning after a week in hell felt like the greatest reward for surviving.

Seeing Claire and Lizzie again, and knowing they loved me, being told they loved me, helped piece something back together inside of my body.

When they presented me with a belated birthday cupcake and gifts at lunch, I almost cried.

When I gave them the PG version of what happened to Mam, they knew me well enough to drop it.

I didn’t want talk about it, think about it, or be reminded of it.

Ever again.

Claire and Lizzie knew that and respected my wishes.

Going through the motions, I went to all my classes and erased my family from my mind for the next seven hours.

It was wonderful.