Trust Me Again

35: Shut Up and Dance

An inhuman growl from downstairs caught my attention, then I flinched when I heard something hit the wall.

"Daddy?" I whispered when I got to the corner that led to the stairs. There he was, no intruder, just him in the company of toppled furniture.

It was from nowhere. I hadn't even seen the bottle. He drew his arm back, the neck of the glass gripped in between his thumb and index finger and the next second glass was shattering by my head.

I cowered back in fear and whimpering a little, grabbing the attention of my heavy breathing daddy. Our eyes connected and I saw that his were red and puffy.

He broke his gaze from mine by turning his head and walking out of the room.

That was the first time I saw my father drunk.

I was in the kitchen now with a brighter light shining through the curtained windows above the sink, making myself a sandwich. Dad was probably still snoring his life away wherever he dropped last night. It's been six months now since I first saw him drunk and it was all becoming normal, and that was the bad thing.

I heard a sleepy sigh and then he came in through the entrance. Glancing at me, his eyes trailed over to the sandwich I had just finished preparing the way I like it.

"Make me one yeah?" he requested.

Over the months, we have been drifting apart. He'd party, not come home till morning, yell drunkenly. I stay home, do my homework, and go to sleep. We still have our moment though, like two weeks ago he came home from the car garage where he worked with pizza and movies. And not too long ago he took me up to Big Bear to see the snow and even rented a cabin.

"Make yourself one," I muttered under my breath but still got out two slices of bread and began the process all over again.

"I heard that," he hissed in a not-so-pleasant way.

He walked back over to the living room where he turned on the TV and watched whatever looked interesting, which so happened to be Sponge Bob.

I finished up his sandwich five minutes later and walked to the living room to see he had already downed five bottles. No doubt already tipsy.

I set the plate in the armrest beside him. "Little early dontchya think?"

He raised his glass in a salute-slash-thankyou type of way. "Not at all."

"I think you've had enough." For Christ's sake, it was barely ten o'clock!

I reached for the bottle and tried to tug but at the same time he stood so he towered over me. "I'll be the boss of that!" He looked down at the identical yet discarded bottles by his feet and smiled down at me. "Naahhh." Then he took another sip, looking right into my eyes as if teasing me because of the fact he took another drink after I tried to take it away.

"I'm serious!"

Attempting again to reach up for the drink, he yanked his hand away the same time his right hand came flying. He slapped me hard across my cheek with such force it made me fall to the ground.

"So am I!" he roared.

That was the first time my father hit me. And the first time I decided he wasn't 'Dad' to me anymore.

Then it was the painful memory where I was rolling down the stairs after the shove my father gave me. Reaching the floor, I awaited the sleep that overtook me next. Because, that day, when I did close my eyes, it took me away from everything: the pain, the humiliation of giving my father the satisfactory, and from him.