The Runaways

Chapter 21

Caleb

I would’ve run ‘til it killed me if I’d seen him coming. He would’ve caught me if I’d tried.

The son-of-a-bitch had me bandaged up nice and pretty, like he hadn’t done this before. Like he was some kind of saint. I should’ve bled out in the fields—soaked the mud red ‘til his poison was out of my blood. Guess you can’t kill where you come from.

The old man hadn’t cleaned out his room since I’d left. The beating cage still stunk of whiskey and vinegar. Vinegar to cover my old piss stains in the floor and whiskey for his pain, like he understood it. He didn’t know a goddamn thing.

My body didn’t feel like I owned it anymore. Half the work was waiting out the hurt. I’d broken a bone or two in my life, but trying to tough out a hole near my hip stole the life outta me. I gripped the brass bars on his headboard and pulled myself upright. I thought I’d pass out sitting up.

If he saw me like this he’d laugh ‘til his ribs bruised. Maybe he’d finish the job the cops started—give me one of his army right hooks and settle it. Cut the shame outta the family tree.

I dug my knuckles into the side of my head so I’d quit thinking, but just being back at the house again did bad things to me. I hadn’t been up five minutes and I was halfway back to being half the man I was when I lived here.

I slid my legs across the sheets an inch at a time and bit into my lip to keep from screaming. A slow burn tore away at my tissue whenever I moved and licked the insides of my wounds like a dog with an acid tongue. 

Once I got my feet on the ground, I threw up an empty stomach. I’d lived through bad beatings, but this was worse. Every time I tried to stick out the hurt and keep going, some break, tear, or bullet hole stopped me dead. If I couldn’t get a hold on the pain I wouldn’t make it past the nightstand.

That was it—the magic place where my old man kept his old bottles of morphine. He used to lie to the V.A. to get them to send him meds. He didn’t need those pills any more than he needed his cane to walk ‘cause his bad leg did its job when it came to kicking me around.

After Ma died, he’d beat me ‘til he felt better. So I’d sneak a couple pills just to sleep. Those were the worst days—when little white pills were the only things that kept me numb.

I reached out a little too far, too fast and pulled the top-drawer clean outta the wood casing. I caught it before anything could spill. I had seventeen years of reasons why I knew better than to break his stuff. He didn’t have much inside, just a couple of old bills, tobacco, and the bottle I needed.

Four pills left—wouldn’t keep me longer than forty-eight hours but forty-eight hours was more than enough.  I threw two back and choked them down dry. God willing they’d work fast.

Shoes scuffled across the old wood floors out in the hallway. I hadn’t even figured out how I’d ended up back in this hellhole, and the devil himself was about to walk in on me. I held my breathing hoping it’d be Hailey instead. The idea of her wandering dad’s house by herself was enough to get me over to the door.

I crashed shoulder first into the frame and sucked hot, dead air through my nostrils like I’d been running for miles. Those ten steps across that postage stamp of a room ripped through every broken part of my body.

The pain-killer-kick was stuck between my belly and my bloodstream, and the lag time left me almost delirious. Standing there with my face smashed against the wall, I wasn’t sure if throwing the door open would take everything I had.

Whether it did or not, I wanted whoever was outside to believe I was better off than I was. Even if you’re not strong, the least you can do is pretend to be.