Page 32 of Claiming What's Mine

Tapping his thumb against the wheel, my father watched me with this look on his face. I wasn't sure what it was; disgust, hatred, a little bit of both. Sucking on the end of his cigarette, he lifted his fingers to his lips and plucked it free.

Turning forward, I didn't answer him. He didn't deserve an answer. I was old enough now to ignore him, to brush off his authority. He couldn't threaten me with a damn thing, because I wasn't going to be there much longer.

“I'm speaking to you, Boy, didn't you hear me?” Flicking the cigarette at me, it bounced off my side and fell to the ground.

Stopping in my tracks, I stepped on the lit end to smother it. “I heard you just fine.”

“Then answer.”

“What do you want?” I asked, highly annoyed.

“You better watch that tone with me.” Holding out his finger, he pointed. “Don't think I won't kick your ass right here if I need to.”

Focusing on the rock again, I squeezed the stems of the bouquet and kicked it even harder, sending it flying down the sidewalk. “And I asked you what you want?”

My father's eye twitched as the vein in his forehead began to pulse. “Did you forget who you're talking to? Is that what this is?”

Stopping, I twisted to face him, my fingers coiling like an angry snake around the flowers. “Since when do you care what I'm doing?”

The brakes squealed as the car jerked to a stop. Standing still, I raised my head higher, refusing to cower to the man who supplied me life. Because that's all he was, he was the sperm that gave me a heartbeat, and nothing more.

There once was a time where I feared him, when I was too small to protect myself, too little to do anything to make him stop. But not now, even if he beat me black and blue, I wasn't afraid. He lost that power a long time ago.

Throwing the door open, he jumped out of the car, and stormed over to me on the sidewalk. Pressing the tips of his toes against mine, he lowered his face, baring his teeth. “You've always liked fucking with me.” Grinding his teeth, he splashed my face with spit as he growled. “Do you think you're a big man now?”

I could smell his signature alcohol on his breath, his eyes filled with liquid haze as he glared at me like I was nothing more than a stray dog, an animal he had taken in that didn't deserve to be loved or cared for.

“What do you want?” I asked again, my voice low, but firm.

Nudging me with his chest, I felt his eyes as they moved down my arm. “What's this?” he asked, grabbing the flowers quickly from my hand. “Who are these for? That pretty little rich whore of yours?”

“Don't call her that, or—”

“Or what? What are you going to do?” Taking a step back, my father smiled as he smelled the flowers. “Do you think she'll fuck you if you give her these?”

“Screw you,” I said under my breath as I watched him pluck a flower free and drop it to the ground.

“I get it, you want the bitch to let you deflower her, don't you?” Lifting his heavy boot, he crunched the flower under his toe, grinding it into the pavement.

Thwack!

Letting my fist go, I punched him in the mouth. That was the first and only time I had ever hit my father. Not that I didn't want to do it a million different times before, but he had always been so much bigger than me. Today I realized that I was looking him in the eye, that we stood head to head.

“I fucking hate you!” Yelling at the top of my lungs, I clenched my fists, digging the dull edges of my nails into my palms.

Wiping his mouth, my father licked the blood from his lip with a smirk on his face. “You had your one,” he said with a sick grin on his face, “but you'll never do that again.” With a loaded back hand, he cracked me across the cheek.

As if his hands were attached to a mechanical re-loader, my father struck over and over again. Hit after hit, punch after punch, and all I did was watch in shock as the flowers I had bought were thrown to the ground and crushed by his feet. He didn't try to avoid them, he didn't care that they were there, he just kept striking.

A lot that happened directly after was a little bit of a blur. I remember the feeling of his knuckles on my eye, and his fingers in my hair as he tugged my head back to get a clear shot. I can vaguely remember a car pulling over and people getting out, rushing over to try and break us up.

I could see my father's face as the rage poured from his pores like black fire. I had finally done the unthinkable, I had stood up for myself in a way he never expected.

His face was contorted, twisting up and flaring down as he tried to break free from the men holding him back. I remembered looking back at the ground and trying to bend over to pick up what flowers were left that weren't too damaged.

After that all I had were spurts of memories. The red and blue of lights from police cars, the siren of the ambulance, a woman hovering over me as she put an IV in my arm and listened to my chest.

The cold, sterile air of a hospital as it filled my lungs came after, and the multicolored uniforms of nurses and doctors as they poked and prodded at my body. There were voices and buzzing from x-rays, and the constant beep of the monitor at my side.

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