Page 2 of Alamort

Bile crawls up my throat. When was the last time I ate?

I’m going to be sick.

My hands rip at the strands in my hair, the sting of it being pulled at the roots, some false semblance of punishment as he delves into the details of the gruesome scene around me.

“You should have seen the way she cried when you pulled down her …” his voice trails off as my knees buckle under my weight and I retch violently. The horrors of what happened to the young girl are muffled through the blood roaring in my ears. It sounds like a drum being banged over and over.

Panic grips my chest as my breaths come out in short, choppy gasps in my attempt to get oxygen into my lungs that no longer want air.

I’m tired. Pressure pulses in the back of my skull.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

I am sotiredthat sleep couldn’t take away this feeling. The world fades into the comforting darkness I know well.

Tired - das

Unbearable pain. My head’s going to explode from the pressure. I could hear him yelling at me, but the ringing muffles it in my ears. It reminds me of the cartoons. When the character gets hit, stars pop up around their head, and their body sways because they’re dizzy. I think the stars represented the flash of light in the darkness when someone was hit and the loss of balance that accompanies it.

“Daddy! Stop! Please! She didn’t know!”

I’m unable to pinpoint the sound of the muted yell from around me. My hands fly to my face to soothe the stinging from the backhand I received from our father. Tears gather in my eyes, knowing I disappointed him again.

It’ll only anger him more if he sees my tears, so I keep my eyes fixed to a point on the marble floor, tracing the vein as it expands and branches off, reminding me of the creek beside our house. My sister’s perfect blonde head of tamed curly hair pops in front of me as she crouches down to check on me. I avoid eye contact. That’s all it’ll take from me to crumble.

Dad has never struck her.

I wish I could be as perfect as she is…

Blinking, I pull myself out of a memory of my best friend, forever my savior.

Growing up with a sibling who was a year and a half older than me meant we were inseparable. It was always her and I against the world. I tell her everything. We do everything together. I personified the harmful carbon dioxide, while she embodied the life-giving oxygen. Feeding off each other to survive. When our parents first started using food as a punishment, she would be the one to sneak me some of her dinner so I wouldn’t go hungry. Our mother didn’t have a “favorite” child. She just hated me more than my sister. I could use that to distract her from giving Addison a verbal lashing by doing something worse to earn her wrath.

Addi would help me avoid our father by letting me know where he was and what level of anger he seemed to be at for the day. On the off chance I found myself in his presence, she would be there to diffuse the situation, giving me a chance to escape fairly unscathed.

Around the time I turned 12, I fully grasped the significance she held in my life. My parents were incapable of loving anyone other than themselves. So how my sister was able to love and give her undying loyalty to me without ever receiving it is beyond me.

I throw my head backagainstthe headrestandgrab the book of matches out of my pocket to rub each of the edges clockwise, then counterclockwise. The sides of the white cardboardarealready beginning to fray. I don’t think I’ve had it for more than a week.

I pick up my phone to no missedcalls.Not even a text.I would have thought one of my parents would care about the well-being of their remaining child.

I’m grasping for crumbs at this point. Unable to face that they couldn’t care less about what happens to me. I’m naïve to sit here and miss the parents I never had. Yearning for some sort of connection to fill the one I’ve lost. What type of trauma is that? The excuse, “they’re still my parents” rings a bell. And when will it no longer be good enough?

Flipping open thebook of matches, I count them individually, touching each white tip, finding comfort in the routine. There’s tension building up inside me. Inflating like a balloon that would need an outlet soon before it popped and I, characteristically, self-destructed. Another flaw, add it to my ever-growing list of why I’m a fuckup.

That and the fact my parents blamed me for my sister’s death.

Silently drowning in anger and heartache from the hole in my heart, add in a dash of the abandonment from my parents shipping me off to a new school during my last year of high school like I’m a burden they could give away when life got too hard.

Theyhadturned their noses up and threw money at me, treating me like a dirty secret that needed to be hidden. I did nothing. This time, anyway. Pulling me out to make an appearance as the “perfect” family for their own benefit. Only to be tossed to the side when I’ve done my part. But now? My parents think I had something to do with the deaths at the school.Not just anyonedied, though. My entire world and a boy she was with.That I would be as careless and selfish to put not one but two people in danger. My mother’s Botox-injected faceheldpure revulsion. She refused to look at me. If she hadn’t liked me before, the look on her face made it a concrete fact now—but that could be the Botox.

Trying to distract myself from needing a release so soon, I slip my matches back into my front pocket and attempt to makeconversation with my designated driver, or prison guard for the day. He looks like a poster child for the mafia. Tan, a bald head that has black tribal tattoos starting at the base of his beefy neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his suit, but his head… it’s so shiny it looks like it was spit-shined. He has massive arms the size of my thighs and his legs have to be tree trunks. I wonder if he’s ever squeezed the life out of anyone.

“Hey, Baldilocks, have you ever killed a person? You’re abnormally huge, like how I’d imagine Goliath would be.” I say, staring at the back of his bald ass head with a smirk. Goliath died from David, hitting him with a stone on his forehead before decapitating him. Deflect your pain with a bit of humor, right?

His lips press into a firm line, “Today could be the day.” The leather steering wheel creaks under his scarred hands.

My eyes widen and I sink back into the black leather interior while trying to make myself as small as possible. That wasn’t quite the answer I was looking for. I’ve never met this guy, and he’s already had enough of me?

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