Chapter Two (Jesse’s POV)
I sit in my empty room with only my suitcase and laptop case by my door. The day has finally come, now I am just waiting for my dad to come pick me up. I want to spend some time with him before I leave for good. I have no plans of ever coming back here; once I leave I am not looking back. I check my phone again, my dad is running late. Good thing, I lied to him about the time my flight is leaving. I walk over to my window and look out, hoping he will come soon. I hear my door open with a bang, I close my eyes and sigh. I had been able to avoid her during the last two days. I was hoping I would have been able to leave without having to see her.
“I would have thought you be gone by now, but I guess your father forgot about you.” She snorts. “It wouldn’t be the first time now would it? But then again the men in this family aren’t very keen on remembering to pick up people now.”
I turn around to face her and open my eyes; she had a bottle of vodka in her hand. “Shit!” I look at the floor, I have a feeling I am not going to leave here unharm.
“What cat got your tongue, no witty remark? No sorry ass excuse about how you just lost track of time?”
I continue to look at the floor, maybe if I don’t say anything she will drop it and leave me alone.
I hear her move closer and she grabs my chin and forces me to look at her. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you!” She takes another drink from the bottle.
From the way she is chugging the bottle it will be done with two more chugs. I try to keep my facial expression blank; I am not going to show how scare I am right now, how I wish my dad will just show up right now, and save me. She finishes off her bottle and tosses it to the floor, then eyes me closely and laughs in my face. Her breath is heavily laced with alcohol, which means that it isn’t her first bottle either.
“Stupid boy trying to be all macho, when we both know that inside you are just a scare little boy wishing his daddy will show up to save him.” She tightens her grip on my chin; I clench my jaw to keep from crying out in pain. “Well guess what, your daddy called to say he is running late. However, I told him the real time of your flight and to come when he could, so you and I can have some quality mother and son time, one last time.” She pushes me against the wall and places her arm on my throat. She leans in closer as she puts more pressure on my throat. I start to fight back, but she catches my arms and hold one in her hand and the other one she pins against the wall. “You think you could fight, you must be dumber than I thought.”
I feel like my head is going to explode from the lack of air. My vision starts to grow dark as the last of my oxygen leaves my body. Just when I think I am going to black out, she lets go and I can breathe again. I am taking deep breaths when she pulls me away from the wall and throws me onto the bed. I land face first, she grabs my arms and pins them behind me as she places her knee on the back of my legs. I do my best to break from her hold, but I can’t even move. I feel her hand pull up my sleeves, something cold and sharp runs over my skin. I turn my head to see what it is, my eyes widen when I see the razor blade in her hand. I try to wiggle out of her hold, but stop when she puts more of her weight on my legs.
“Aaahh let me go!” I cry out in pain as she lets out an evil laugh.
“Why are you fighting it? Just a few months ago you were cutting yourself even to the point you almost killed yourself, hadn’t your daddy found you in time.” She presses the blade to my wrist; I feel the sting of pain as she drags it across my skin.
Crying out in pain as she cuts deeper into my old scars. I feel the blood gush out onto my hands. I start to cry, there wasn’t much I could do just wait and hope she will grow tired of this.
“You know I could cut deeper and you would bleed to death before your daddy gets here. It will look like you did it to yourself, poor little Jesse has gone back to cutting again. Don’t worry I’m not going to cut too deep now, because then who am I going to blame for all my problems if you die?”
She got off of me and let go of my arms, only to have me turn over to face her. I lay on the bed holding my wrist close to me; they aren’t deep so the bleeding should stop in a few minutes. My mom watches me and waits for me to make a run for it, but I don’t try. I know I won’t make it very far; with the blood I have lost I feel weak.
“Sit up.”
I try my best to sit up without moving my wrist too much. As long as I do as I am told it isn’t going to be too bad. I found out that when I put up a fight I end up being hurt worst.
“You know I have been wondering about you. I mean you had a girlfriend, but what I didn’t understand was why you broke up with her. Then it came to me, it’s because you didn’t really like her.”
For a minute there I thought she knew why we broke up. No one, but I and she know the real reason I broke up with her. She was the reason I wasn’t there to pick up Holly that day.
“You didn’t like her because you are a little faggot aren’t you?”
I feel like a bucket of ice cold water was just dumped on me. I am pretty sure I have a terrified look on my face. Nobody knows about that, not even Alyson. I was able to hide it from everyone, even Holly. One of the main reasons I asked Alyson out was because I thought she was a good girl and wouldn’t pressure me into having sex with her. However, I was dead wrong about that and I learned that the hard way too.
“Why would you think that?” I ask, but it comes out shaky.
She starts to laugh.
“Who do you think you are fooling?” She leans in closer. “Next time you don’t want people to find out your dirty little secret, don’t leave your gay porn where someone can find it.”
My eyes widen; I was sure I kept all that hidden. How the hell did she ever find it?
She grabs me by my chin again.
“You disgust me, you know that? It should have been you that went missing, not my baby, Holly. I don’t need a disgusting faggot in my house, tainting it with its filthy, sinful behavior.” She says, I can see the disgust all over her face, but I am not going to let her get to me.
Ignoring the pain in my wrist, I push her hand away from me and stand up. “Forget you, bitter old bitch, so what if I am a faggot. Remember I’m not going to be living in this house anymore, so it doesn’t matter what you think about me anymore.”
She raises her hand to hit me, but I block it. The biggest mistake of my life. She grabs my wrist and squeezes it, she reopens the cuts and blood starts to come out.
“Aahh let go of me, you crazy bitch!” I cry out again as I feel her nails dig into the cut.
Too busy worrying about the pain, I never see her swing her other fist towards me. She makes contact with the side of my head. She knocks me to the ground, and then she grabs me by my hair and throws me back onto the bed. She gets on me and starts to punch me in the chest and rib area. Every hit felt worse than the one before. I try my best to block the hits, but I can’t. My wrists are hurting too much and the bleeding is getting worse. Just when she is about to hit me again, I hear the voice of an angel.
“Cindy what the hell are you doing? Get off of him right now!” My dad says as I weakly turn my head to see him rush over to me.
“This doesn’t concern you Craig; this is between me and Jesse.” My mom says.
My dad pulls my mom off of me.
“You’re crazy Cindy and you will be lucky if I don’t call the cops on you.” My dad looks at me and from his expression I can tell I don’t look too good. “Oh my god Jesse you’re bleeding, can you stand up?”
I try to sit up, but I can’t. The pain is too much for me. My dad places one of my arms around his shoulder as he wraps his around my waist. He is trying his best not to cause me more pain than what I am already in. My mom tries to stop us, but my dad just pushes her away.
“I’m only going to tell you this once Cindy, get out of my way or you are going to regret it!”
“Go ahead and take your little faggot son out of here. I never want to see him ever again.”
“Go to hell Cindy, because we all know that is where you’re going to end up anyway.”
My dad grabs my bags and we make our way out to his car. We drive in silence to his place; I have only been there once and it wasn't a very pleasant time either.
Once we get there he helps me inside and leads me to the bathroom. He seats me down on the edge of the tub.
"Jesse I need you to take off your shirt."
I nod my head and with his help I remove my shirt. I hear my dad gasp and I look down, I see the bruises that cover most of my body. My dad starts to tend to my cuts on my wrist.
“Shit!” My dad says as he tries to clean off the blood. “Jesse, I think I need to take you to the hospital. I can’t stop the bleeding. I might also think you might have broken or bruised rib.” My dad touches my ribs and I hiss out in pain.
“No, I don’t want to go to the hospital just wrap them up tight and the bleeding will stop.” Going to hospital means they are going to ask questions, which means the cops will get involve that means I will have to stay here. The only place I can stay is here with my dad. Willow is just as worse as my mom, she never hit me, but she knows how to verbally hurt me and she loved doing it too.
“Jesse I have too. I have no idea just how much blood you have lost.”
My dad watches me with pleading eyes, he is hurting because I am hurting. If he cares, so much for me why didn’t he help before all this started?
“Dad no, you take me to the hospital they will ask questions. I tell them mom did this then I have to stay here longer. As much as I want to see her behind bars, I don’t want to be here anymore. I have no home here anymore.”
“Jesse don’t say that, you could always stay here with me and Willow.” I snort; my dad really is that blind when it comes to Willow.
“Dad, you know why I can’t stay here or have you forgotten that Willow doesn’t like me. Because if I could really stay here with you, why didn’t you offer it when everything started happening? Where were you all the times I was getting the crap beat out of me by mom? Where were you when I didn’t have anyone to turn to for help, so I started cutting to help with the pain and loneliness?”
My dad looks away from me, he knows what I said is true. I know he is also thinking about the day he found me bleeding to death, because I went too deep.
“Jesse I know I haven’t been here for you like I should have, but I’m trying now and I just want to do what is best for you.”
He looks sadly at me again.
“What’s best for me is to leave. Staying here isn’t going to help me. You know that, too much has happened to me over the past year. I just want to move on and get past all this.”
Tears starts to fall from my dad’s eyes; it is then, I know he really loves me.
“Okay if that’s what you want, but just stay here for today. We can change your flight for tomorrow. I just think it is best if you stay and calm down. After what you went through, you need the rest.”
I nod my head as my dad goes back to wrapping up my wrist.
“Do you want to clean up and then I can show you to the guest room?”
“Yeah.”
He hands me my bag and I go through it and pull out a clean shirt to put on. He leads me to a bedroom next to the bathroom and opens the door for me.
“Well here you go, go ahead and take a nap. I’ll wake you when it’s time for lunch. I’ll just call your aunt, Emily, to tell her not to expect you until tomorrow. Then, I will see what time I can change your flight to.” My dad hugs me, “I’m really sorry Jesse for not being there.”
“Its okay, dad.” I go to the bed and sit down, as my dad walks to the door, but he turns back to face me.
“Jesse just so you know nothing you do will ever change how much I love you. If you ever want to tell me something or just talk I’m here for you.”
I know what he is talking about; I should have known he would hear my mom calling me a faggot. I really wasn’t ready to say it out loud, but I might as well tell him. It might be the only chance I have to tell him.
“Dad I’m gay and I have known for quite a while. I just never knew how to tell you. I was worried you would hate me just as much as mom does.”
I feel the tears fall. It feels good to finally tell someone and not have to hide it anymore. My dad walks over to me and hugs me again.
“Its alright Jesse. This doesn’t make you any different, you are still my son and I love you. Now, I’m really sorry I didn’t help you sooner. God, I’m like the worst father ever.”
“You’re not dad; you were just busy, taking care of your other child.” I laugh and then my dad laughs.
“Ugh, you really know how to make your old man feel old don’t you?”
“I try,” I smile weakly at him.
“Well even though you’re leaving I hope that we can somehow work on our relationship. I want us to go back to how we were.”
“Me too dad. I would really like that.”
“Good, well get some rest and we will go out and have lunch together.” My dad kisses me on the forehead and walks out of the room.
I lie down on the bed and fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.