Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
I’d shown up at his door bleeding from my nose with a black eye steadily forming, begging him to let me crash for a couple of weeks, just until I had enough of a savings to start over again.
Because Kyle had found my secret stash of money in the bottom of a bulk tampon box under the bathroom sink. The money I’d been saving to get away. For real this time. For good.
I’d barely been in the door before he had me by the hair, pulling me through the apartment to the bathroom where he had the cash on the sink counter.
There’d been a lot of screaming and pain. And the whole time, all I could think about was never letting this happen again.
Then, as soon as I could, I ran.
And things seemed okay then for a bit.
I got a new job under the table so Kyle couldn’t find me. I slept on the couch in Jake and Bobby’s living room. I made plans. I got stronger, more confident; I stopped taking shit from men, never wanting anyone to think they could take advantage of me again, to hurt me again.
It was the first time in my adult life where I had hope, where I felt in control of things.
Until, one night, I was taking trash out to the dumpster at my job.
Then there he was.
“Your brother said I could find you here,” he said, standing between me and the door to my job. Not that there was any real safety inside. I was working alone. The store was empty.
Jake?
Jake had sent him?
Betrayed me?
Even after he’d seen what Kyle had done to me?
The betrayal cut, perhaps more than it should have, given that Jake had never protected me a day in his life. Not when the neighborhood guys would catcall or grope me when we were growing up. Not when our parents would blame me for something he’d done.
Never.
Still, it hurt.
And, in that moment, I decided I didn’t have a brother anymore.
“You’re coming home with me,” Kyle had said, advancing toward me, making the already minuscule alley feel all the more claustrophobic.
“No, I’m not,” I’d said, taking a step back until the damn dumpster prevented further retreat.
“Yes, you are. You belong at home with me. Where I can take care of you.”
“Take care of me?” I’d scoffed, a strange, hysterical kind of laugh escaping me. “All you have done is hurt me.”
The argument escalated from there as he continued to approach me, to close me in, to make it impossible to escape when he finally started to strike.
It was when he pinned me against the dumpster, the metal crushing against my shoulders and hips, that I remembered the pocketknife I had in my back pocket.
I don’t know if I was consciously thinking of that random guy at my old job and his pen-to-artery instructions when my hand slipped into my pocket to close around the metal that was warmed from being against my skin.
All that seemed to cross my mind was that I needed this to stop. That I never wanted him to put his hands on me again.
I flicked the knife open as his hand closed around my throat, starting to cut off my air, making my face and brain feel fuzzy.
“You belong to me,” he’d snarled in my face.
Not anymore.
Never again.
And I just… raised my arm and started stabbing.
Once, twice, three times.
More? I don’t know. It was all an adrenaline-filled rush, making everything sharper—the stink of the trash behind me, the sweat from the heat soaking my shirt, the bright, red color of his blood as it started to flow out of his body—but also strangely far away. Like it was something I was watching, not something I was doing.
Kyle’s hands pressed to his neck, the blood flowing between his fingers, as he fell back, then slid down the brick wall.
I didn’t really think then, I just… walked away.
I walked back inside.
Like nothing had happened.
I went into the bathroom, washing my hands and arms.
Then I… went back to work, sure that any moment, the cops would come rushing in with guns drawn, ready to take me in for murder.
But the cops never came.
Numbly, I finished my shift. Then, when my relief came in the morning, I gathered my things and I just… left.
I went to Jake and Bobby’s, grabbing as much as I could as quietly as I could, so I didn’t wake anyone up.
Then I walked away.
Out of the apartment.
Out of the Bronx.
I stopped at a seedy hotel where I showered then just sat on the bed, waiting for the police to find me.
They didn’t that day.
Or the day after.
Or the day after that.
Despite having used my credit card for the room.
So I started to think that maybe, just maybe, I’d somehow… gotten away with it. That the cops hadn’t found any evidence pointing at me.