Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
“So easy,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Anyway, I don’t think I can make it on Saturday. Or ever. Have an awesome fucking night, big brother.”
I’m about to step to the side but he speaks. “I know.”
It sounds low and guttural, his voice.
As if the words are ripped out of his chest and I instantly go alert. “What?”
“I found something.”
“You found what?”
“Dad’s journal.”
O-kay…
So?
Our dad had a journal; I knew that.
But only by accident.
I stumbled upon it a long time ago while I was trying to find something in his study that I could break. He was forcing me to go to the therapist’s office and I hated it there. Back then he had a theory that my lack of grades and concentration was the result of an illness, like ADHD or something, because it had been very hard for him to accept that his second son wasn’t like the first. That he was a rebel and not a boring puddle of mud to be molded into a shiny vase.
I was too little at the time to read the contents of the diary when I found it. But before I could even make an attempt at it, I was caught. Results were not pleasant, let’s just leave it at that. And while I still snuck into his study after that incident and stole things and broke them, I never went for his journal. I did start to keep my own though. When I was old enough and when one of my therapists wanted me to keep track of my angry thoughts.
I’ve had enough therapy to know that it was my unconscious effort of seeking Dad’s approval.
What a fucking stupid thing to do.
It doesn’t matter though.
Because I don’t keep a diary. Not anymore.
Not for two years, two months and twelve days.
From the looks of it though, my brother didn’t know about our dad’s journals. Which is surprising because I thought my dad and Homer were all buddy buddy and knew each other’s secrets.
Well, not all secrets but still most of them.
He takes in another sharp breath, his chest expanding as he repeats, “So I know.”
“You know what?”
“What he did to you.”
I stop breathing then.
I stop thinking. I freeze.
While his chest expands on a sharp, agonized breath.
But it’s not enough to calm him down. It’s not enough to settle him or settle that pained expression on his face. So he shifts on his feet a few more times, runs a hand through his hair, messing up those strands — something that I’m seeing for the first time, his hair messed up — to say what he wants to next.
“He had…” He swallows. “He had it written down. What he did to… to punish you. The beatings. The starving. How he locked you up in your room, in the basement or in your closet. To teach you… To teach you a lesson. Medicating you. I knew he was taking you to doctors but I…”
Didn’t know.
No, he didn’t.
No one did.
Because it was a secret; my dad’s long and well-kept secret.
So the first thing that comes to mind right now is how fucking stupid.
How fucking reckless of him.
To write down his own crimes.
Something that he went to such great lengths to hide. Something that he never ever wanted anyone to find out. Something that he told me people wouldn’t believe even if I told them.
Because of his image.
Because of how generous and kind he was.
In the eyes of others, he meant.
My brother runs his fingers through his hair again, as he goes on, “I didn’t know the rest of it. I didn’t know how bad it was. I never… I never knew. I never saw any of what he… He wasn’t…”
Like that with me.
Again, he doesn’t say it because he doesn’t have to.
It’s implied that even though we shared a father, we really didn’t.
Like the rest of the world, my brother knew a different father than I did. He got a dad who was strict but encouraging and proud and fucking loving instead of the one who was perpetually angry. Perpetually disappointed. Who perpetually tried to mold me into something that he wanted and when I refused, he’d become a bully.
Shouting, screaming, punching and yes, locking up and starving, medicating, whatever struck his fancy, whatever he was in the mood for that day, he’d do.
And of course in secret.
In private.
So no one would see his real face.
No one would know that the generous, upstanding Howard Davidson was a fucking monster who beat his own son.
But the stubborn motherfucker that I was, I took it all.
I didn’t fucking break. I didn’t fucking obey.
And that would just piss him off even more.
So again, what a stupid fucking idea to write it all down where someone could read it.
Great, Dad. Just fucking great. You’re a moron, aren’t you?
“Why didn’t you…” he asks, his features still writhing in agony. “Why didn’t you say something?”