Page 24 of All Your Firsts

He has treated me like someone would a bothersome gnat since I arrived.

One thing I do know, it was a warning. One that I should heed, but since being here, I’ve felt the first stages of freedom, though small, and I’ll be damned if I lose that feeling.

Six

Vic

Six Years Old

As I sit in the dark, cold room, a shiver runs over my body. I grab my blankie and hold it to me as tightly as I can, my small fingers going through the holes in the corners of the fabric.

My tummy hurts. It keeps growling for food.

Mom said she would bring me some, but she never did, and it feels like I’ve been waiting forever.

Mom and Dad were yelling, and he told me to go to my room. I begged him for food, but he didn’t care.

He never does. I don’t like Dad. He’s mean to me and sometimes to Mom. He falls asleep a lot, and Mom does, too, but every once in a while, she’ll spend time with me. She rubs my hair and hums.

Those are the best times.

I wish she’d come back right now.

“Fuck,” I growl and slam my palm on my nightstand, trying to reach for my phone that’s blaring in my ears. It feels like someone’s hitting me in the head with a baseball bat, though I’m thankful for it waking me from the dream that plays on repeat most nights.

“Hey, boss, your nine o’clock just arrived. Just wanted to let you know.” My eyes go wide.

“Fuck, I’ll be right there. Can you set up my station?”

“Done,” Samuel says before hanging up.

I stayed up way later than my ass should have, drinking as my feet dangled in the pool while I looked up at the room shrouded in darkness where Rosie sleeps.

I rub my eyelids with the heels of my sweaty palms and emit a yawn.

Grabbing one of the many protein bars from my top drawer, I polish it off in three dry bites, not even tasting it. Knowing that the bottomless feeling in my stomach has nothing to do with hunger and more to do with the nightmare plaguing my mind.

You’d think after all these years I’d be able to get out of that cold-ass bedroom with a small holey mattress on the floor, but I still get stuck there.

Helpless and hungry.

The shittiest part wasn’t discovering my parents died on the way back from a run to score more speed. No, it was being stuckin that house with no food for almost a week. My school finally called the cops for them to do a welfare check after a week of absences. I was malnourished, only surviving off water in the nasty-ass bathroom sink.

I count to ten. Allowing myself to only spend ten seconds in memory land before banishing it to the pits of hell. As I get to one, I close my eyes and inhale deeply before exhaling.

I jump up and stretch, looking back at my very empty bed. It’s not often that I wake up alone, since most women try to stay the night. Sometimes I cave and let them. Rachel tried last night after I called her in my drunken stupor, only to literally not get it up for the second time that day.

No one comes close to piquing my interest or making me hard... besides Rosie, which is aggravating. Her comment in the pool was not too far off.

She’s both the poison and the antidote to my situation, and I don’t know what to do.

I throw on my clothes in a rush. She has her first shift with Jess. I have my client. We need to hurry.

I yell up to her room that we need to leave, like now, then wait in the living room on the overstuffed couch that never gets used. Weirdly, it’s called the living room when I do far more living in the guesthouse than I’ve ever done in here.

Just like every other time, there’s an eerie silence in here. One might even call it lonely.

Not long after I got out, I saw this house on the market and found myself in a bidding war with a couple expecting a child. While this house was better suited for a family, I felt an inexplicable longing when I stepped inside. It was the home I should havehad as a child, and because of that, I paid well over the asking price to get it.

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