Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Trapped.
I was trapped.
In a house with my father, on this day.
Christmas Eve.
Normally, today I’d be working my ass off at the Brinkley’s, trying to sell as much as I could and stay as late as I could manage without it looking like I was procrastinating going home.
Christmas Eve and Christmas were the two days that my father didn’t work every year.
Christmas because he was too drunk from the day before to get up and go to work.
Christmas Eve because that was the day that my mother died having me.
I’d been born on Christmas Eve, and every day after my birth, my father had never let me forget that I was the person that’d taken the love of his life away.
I couldn’t remember a time from my childhood that my father hadn’t been abusive to me.
My earliest memory is being three years old and having the absolute snot beaten out of me because I’d had the audacity to walk into my father’s room and ask for a glass of water because my throat hurt.
Honestly, I was surprised that I’d even survived my childhood.
In the early years, my grandmother had been alive to take care of me—because my father sure the hell wouldn’t.
After she’d died, my dad had done the bare minimum. He’d fed me, clothed me, and ignored me.
Only if I was sick enough to need medical attention did he take me to the doctor.
I hadn’t had one single well checkup since my grandmother had passed away.
Even now that I was well over the age of eighteen, I still didn’t go to the doctor much.
So when Anleigh woke up with the sniffles this morning and had a slight fever, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would be getting sick soon.
Then my father would berate me for being sick, when I had no control over getting that way.
Even worse, I was stuck at home on Christmas Eve when my father’s mood had always been the darkest.
I heard the clink of a beer bottle being set down on the coffee table.
I closed my eyes and tried not to freak out.
It was only eight-thirty in the morning.
And likely, he was already on his third or fourth one.
I looked at Anleigh, who really needed the ibuprofen that was in the kitchen.
Normally, I kept everything in my cabinet, but when I’d gotten up to get her some a few minutes ago, it’d been gone.
My dad often took stuff out of my room without asking, and obviously he’d had some reason to be in need of baby-strength medication.
The asshole.
I just hoped he hadn’t wasted it all like last time.
I turned to the corner where I saw the pile of clothes in the basket in my room.
I really needed to do some laundry.
Today I was in my oldest pair of jeans—ones that hadn’t really fit since I’d had Anleigh.
Taking one last glance at Anleigh, who was lying on my bed miserably watching cartoons, I steeled my spine and opened my bedroom door.
I was unsurprised to see my father sitting in his recliner—yet another relic that hadn’t changed since I’d been born.
I kept my head down and headed straight for the kitchen, my goal the middle cabinet to see if he’d put the medication in there with the rest of it.
I found the medication all right, completely drained except for a small amount that collected at the bottom of the bottle.
My heart sank.
I reached for the adult ibuprofen, and shook it in horror when I found it empty, too.
What. The. Fuck.
“It’s out.”
I jumped and startled, turning to face my dad, who’d always moved like a cat. “What?”
He smiled at me disarmingly.
I wouldn’t fall for the bait, though.
When he was being genial was when he was at his scariest.
He wanted to put you at ease so that you’d let your guard down. Then, when you were thinking it would be okay, he’d rear back and ruin your life.
“I used it last week.” He shrugged.
Asshole.
“Oh,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to run to the store.”
He moved closer to me and said, “Happy birthday, Merriam.”
I swallowed down the bile that rose up my throat like acid waiting to spew.
“T-thanks,” I said carefully, hoping that I wouldn’t set him off.
“You know, you look just like her,” he continued.
I started to slip sideways, desperate to flee.
But before I could take a single step, he caught me by the throat and bodily lifted me off of my feet and pressed me to the kitchen cabinets behind me.
I couldn’t breathe.
His grip on my neck was too tight.
And my feet weren’t touching the floor except for just the tips of my toes.
Fear lashed through me as I realized my mistake.
I should’ve never allowed myself to be boxed into the kitchen.
I should’ve stayed where I was and…
His fingers squeezed harder, and black dots filled my vision.