Breaking the Bully

Thus the reason I let my focus slip a little in chemistry.

Senioritis. Everyone in my grade has it. The finish line is in sight for everyone and we’re just waiting to find out where we’ll be accepted for college. It’s a wonder I’ve been able to maintain my concentration this long in any class, considering Moore sits behind me in every period, brooding like heavy morning fog.

At the reminder of him, I want to close my eyes and curl up. Replay that night in the field when he touched me, spoke to me so sweetly and honestly. Before he became the second villain in my story. Someone I dread seeing every day, as much as I crave the brutally beautiful sight of him. At least that’s one thing us poor motherfuckers have going for us. We know how to fuck. If you went out with that punk for a while, you’d eventually give in and come slumming it one night, wouldn’t you? Knock on my trailer door, begging me to ride you right.

Should I be ashamed that my body reacted favorably to those words?

I grew uncomfortably damp in the hard plastic chair, my femininity clenching, seeming to beat like a heart. Poundpoundpound. His breath on my neck sensitized me, head to toe. Even the way he scared off the other boy did something to me. Aroused me. It got so bad that I broke the rules and asked him to stop.

I can hear him saying my name in that bumpy way afterward. That shocked, uneven scrape of sound. Allie. And whether I’m ashamed of myself for it or not, I know I’ll think of it when I touch myself tonight.

“College?” My father snorts, ripping the test in half. “You’re not going to college.”

This grabs my attention like a quilt being snatched from a bed. “I’m…what? What do you mean? I applied to ten different schools. I have a four point five GPA.”

For the first time, I notice his red face is about more than just anger. There’s…humiliation. I’ve never seen him display that emotion. “None of the schools that accepted you offered scholarships.”

“I’ve been accepted?” I breathe, sitting forward, heart blasting into a sprint. “Where? I didn’t see the letters—”

“All the mail in this house goes through me. I read them. And you failed to get academic scholarships. You failed.”

I don’t point out that his refusal to let me participate in any extra curricular activities is more than likely to blame for that. I’m too worried about what he’s saying. What this means. The blood is draining from my head, making the room spin around me. “Okay, I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry. But…we have money. We can pay tuition, can’t we?”

I have to get out of here.

I have to get out of here.

This was my way out. College was the escape hatch.

“Listen to you, so quick to spend my hard-earned money. Spoiled brat.” He goes very still for a moment, a touch of that humiliation seeping back in. “It’s all gone. Poured back into the business and lost. There is no money.”

Those final four words rob the breath out of my lungs.

I wrap my arms around my middle, wheezing, my brain searching for solutions. “Financial aid, then. Loans…”

“You want to leave, just like her, don’t you? Soak up all of the benefits of me busting my hump at work all goddamn day, then sneak off when the going gets tough. You’re all the same.”

I don’t even flinch when he yanks me to my feet, shoving me into the wall. In fact, for the first time, I look him square in the eye. And I can see the violence has nothing to do with me. It never had anything to do with my actions, my choices, how hard I worked in school. How clean I made the house or cooked a roast. It’s about him and his self-loathing. It’s his sickness. Not mine.

I can also see that he was never going to send me to college. Because he wouldn’t be able to control me from a distance. Or stop me from sharing what I’ve been subjected to since my mother left. Not like he does now. Not with his fists and his rage. I’ll graduate at the top of my class for nothing. He knew I would all along.

“Go to hell,” I whisper.

He rears back, giving me the fleeting satisfaction of his shock. “What did you say?”

I gulp a sob and scream it this time. “Go to hell!”

From the moment I sat down to have this conversation, I knew tonight was going to be worse than usual, but I’ve just guaranteed that tenfold. Normally I can retreat to the untouchable place inside of me as he unleashes his ire, but not tonight. I’m present for every punch and kick. Every hurled insult. And when it usually would have stopped, it doesn’t…and that’s when I start to get scared.