Forevermore

Nightmares

"Roxie come here baby" my dad calls me from the sunroom. Mom isn't home, and my grandparents are in Paris for spring break. Vada and Evan continue swimming, and I go to see my dad. He smells like alcohol and the I miss the pool water soaking in my skin.

"Daddy's gonna go see his lady friend, okay? Now you know what will happen if you tell mommy about daddy's friend again right?" I nod, thinking about the bruises in between my thighs. The pain. The blood.
He kisses my forehead, before grabbing his shoes and walking out the door. I stand there, unknown if I should stand here longer or go back to join them in the pool.

When I wake up, I'm still in my swimsuit, and vada is sleeping soundly next to me. Mom and dad are arguing again. Slowly, I creep outside of my bed, into the hallway and look down from the stairs. I see mom's shadow, and my dad is yelling about my mom being insecure about his friend he told me not to tell about.  Mom is crying and she begins to go to the stairs, before dad throws something and I see shards of glass clash on the floor near the bottom of the stairs.

I begin going down, seeing what happened. My mom turns over and screams about the glass, before I step on a piece and it cuts my foot, deep. Mom gives me some bandaids while my dad goes around breaking pictures and throwing chairs around. Mom smiles at me, before she carries me to my bed and kisses me goodnight. After mom puts me back to bed, I lay there before dozing off again.

5:38 am.
I wake up crying this night. I feel hot, and stumble my way into the bathroom, thinking about my non virgin skin. I begin to shower in the hottest water I can get, scrubbing my skin until I feel clean again. But I know deep down it won't change what happened, nothing will. After I get out, I grab more pills and drink water out of the sink before going back into my room, hoping I'll get some what of a good couple hours of sleep before I wake up again.

This time, I wake up cold. I check my phone, and sure enough Ryan texted and called me. As I go through the daily notifications from Vada, Monica, Ryan, and then I see one from a random number.

Unknown: you're a very hard person to track down Roxanne.

Me: who is this?

Unknown: oh how I've missed you roxie. You've grown up too fast

Me: if this is my grandparents I want nothing to do with you.

Unknown: I'll see you soon.

Confused, I put my phone down. I really hoped it wasn't my grandparents, they'd done enough to my sister and mom. Even though at first I hoped it was Evan, I knew it wasn't. Who else could it be? Nobody else in the family talked to us because of some unknown reason. Probably my father.
After my shower, I hear vada and aunt Monica downstairs talking about rehab. Before I can fully wonder why, I run down to listen.

"Roxie good, you need to hear this too. Your father is getting out early from the group sessions, his therapist said he's doing very well on anger management and he's been sober. He'll be getting out early this year, instead of next year." She's smiling and happy, but I can only imagine how terrified I must look by the lack of smiling that is now on her face, and Vadas. Why in the hell would this ever be a good thing?

"So where is he gonna stay? I mean since he's been in there for years and hasn't had a job.. is he staying with your parents?" My sister sits on the couch, watching pretty little liars. My heart is in my throat and I feel like I've lost the ability to speak, so I sit on the stairs and listen, waiting for this to be a funny joke.
"Actually no. They don't want their lives to be affected since they're retired, so he's gonna take a plane and fly down here. From there, he's gonna stay with us for a couple months until his job is stable and he moves out, I'm hiring him at the airport." My heart stops. I can feel my stomach turning and twisting, and the last part of her sentence slows with every word she said. I grab my phone, going to see the time, please be april 1st. But it's not.

"I know since your mom passed things have been hard. But think about this as a new chapter, you'll have your dad back and live with him again!" She explains cheerfully.
"What?!" I almost choke on my words, my stomach twisting and turning more. They both look at me.
"Roxie, I know this seems weird but-"
"No! You don't get to speak on my fucking mom! You don't get to fucking drop this like a bomb on me that I get to see the fucked up version of a man that ruined my mother's life!" They both stare at me in shock.

"Roxie, don't yell. Your mom was a drug addict. She died and left you guys for heroin!" Vada gasps, before supporting me.
"Monica she's right... he abused her for years it's no wonder she turned to...heroin. You can't say shit about a woman you never cared for." Vada stands up, going to the stairs to hug me, but I can't anymore. I run up the stairs to my bathroom and take 10 sleeping pills. My heart is racing, my mind is everywhere and my mouth feels dry. I sit on the floor and overhear Vada yelling at aunt Monica for saying shit about our mom. After 10 minutes, everything feels like it's spinning. This is good.

Before I leave the bathroom, I use the blade I keep in my phone case. I needed to feel that this was real.. that this is really happening before I can prepare for it. The blood makes me feel alive. I am really experiencing this. It's gonna happen. How could she do this? I know that she didn't know everything. But how hard could it be to put my deceased mother with abuse calls, with a sad man with a drinking and cheating problem. I feel like I could scream, on how she's part of the reason he's getting out soon.

I spend the next couple of hours hurting myself again and again. I stopped eating because I keep remembering about him. The dreams are gonna get worse, and I'm thinking about buying new shit to keep me high for this fucked up mess.

The next few days go by in a blur, a repeat of waking up, going to the bathroom, showering and drinking milk to avoid getting sick. I can't stop taking the pills, otherwise I wouldn't get any sleep at all.
When I wake up again, I check my phone. April 19, 2:11 pm.

Unknown number: I'm not gonna let this happen to you, don't worry Roxanne.

Me: stop calling me that. You're not gonna let what happen?

Unknown: I'm here for you Roxanne. This will be over soon.

I turn over on my bed, which has been dirty for the past week. At least I bought more pills though. Things don't go well enough for my family, the last thing I need to think about on top of Ryan, on top of being sober, is my father. Why now? I can't help myself to stay in bed even longer. Thoughts race across my mind of what will even happen when he comes here. It aches my heart to think about looking at him again, let alone being in the same room, again.

Maybe I could kill myself, that would mean I'd never worry about him again.
You can't do that. You have a sister to look after.
Instead, I force myself back into sleep again.