A Breath Too Late - Rocky Callen Page 0,55

driveway, but you stand there. Face clean of makeup, eyes full of tears. You don’t run to the bathroom for your concealer. You are unraveling and used up and aching and you don’t care if he sees.

I stand beside you as you walk down the stairs with the bags in your hands. You put them behind the couch. You keep my photo in your hands, clutching it as if you could pull me out of it and into the world. You can’t—you know that. I see it in the way your chest shakes even as your thumb gently passes over my brow.

The screech of the front door. The footsteps.

We both take a breath in.

And wait.

He’s silent, standing there, but as always, we feel him like he has sucked up all the air in the room. Slowly, you look up at him. He is bruised too. His lip is cut, the blood scabbing over. His left eye is starting to turn a shade of blue.

It suits him.

There is electricity in the room, I can feel it. Like a thunderstorm brewing and tinging the air with a warning. I feel the rumble, I feel the crackling. You stare at each other. Your eyes are wet, but your back is straight and you do not look away. Your eyes are roaming over his face, over all the cut and marred bits of him.

Your secret eyes are alive and sparking with their own fire.

Alert and focused, ready.

I take a shaky breath. Oh, Momma. Please, please, don’t.

Father isn’t used to seeing your eyes stare him down like this.

He cocks his head. “You don’t look quite right,” he says slowly.

Your bark of laughter is a thundercrack. “Oh, Abel. No, it is you.… You don’t look quite right. Or maybe…” you say, tilting your head to the side, “Maybe this is how you were supposed to look all along.”

He rubs his hand across his mouth and down his jaw as if he could wipe the bruises off, but he can’t. He just re-splits his lip and blood trickles down his chin. There is even a swipe of blood on his hand, dripping onto the hardwood floor.

Shoulders squared, one eye dark with bruises, you say, “I want you out of my house.”

His jaw clenches and unclenches; I see the tic of the muscle. I know the time bomb is tick, tick, ticking along with it. He finally yanks the door closed and steps closer, predatorily. “What-did-you-say?”

“I said, get out.” You are terrified, but you say the words anyway.

“This is my fucking house, Regina.” Slow, lazy, deceitfully unthreatening steps with words low and even, as if he were whispering a sonnet.

“Get out or I will leave.”

In a blink, he clears the distance between you, and his hand is wrapped around your throat. “Now, I know I heard you wrong, Regina.” He whispers, lips brushing against your ear. “You are mine.” One hand still around your throat, he brushes your hair out of your eyes with his other hand. “And you will never”—he levels his gaze on you, as if he is about to kiss you or punch you, it is hard to know which—“never leave.”

He shakes you by the throat, just once, nuzzles your ear, and lets go. “Now, get me my dinner.” He gives you a quick once-over. “And clean up your face. I don’t want to be staring at a street-whore lookalike while—”

“You know what I realized, Abel,” you say, cutting him off. “You need me.” Your breathing is fast and unsteady. You are bracing yourself. “But I don’t need you. I have never needed you.” Your voice is rising, it is taking up the room, it is sucking all the air back to where it belongs. “You chased me because I was the only one who was brave enough to leave. You chased me because you didn’t like feeling like a fool. You chased me because you needed someone to break and you knew I was too afraid of what you might do to Ellie, to me. I should have left you years ago. I should have bashed your fucking car to bits when I saw it in our driveway.”

Father’s eyes narrow, his chin leans down, and it feels like a hound has just caught your scent and is ready to attack. “Try it, bitch. I dare you.”

The phone, the one we never use, the one that rarely rings, sits between you. You eye it, take a breath, and lunge for it. Father lunges for you