Tea For Two

I paced. Bladder pressing, head pounding. My bedroom door tightly closed and just as locked as it had been last time I rattled it. It glared right back at me.

I rattled it quietly you understand. I didn't want him to hear. I didn't want him to think me rattled.

Periodically, I'd think, surely he has to let me out. Surely. Maybe he quietly unlocked it. Leaving me in here, believing I was still trapped. Another way to mess with me.

So - I rattled it again. Teeth clenched, like everything else. Every muscle. Every sphincter. I was going to snap. This wasn't funny anymore. This was long past funny.

The doorbell rang, and I froze, mid-rattle. I heard him talking to whoever-it-was, and something in his voice... Something solicitous put ice in my belly.

Then I heard her voice. That Bitch. The woman who birthed me, and has never let me forget it. Light, tinkly laughter, and his voice, warmer and pleasanter than I'd ever heard it. Pouring, one over the other, layer upon cloying layer.

Was he charming her? My mother? Here. In what passes for my home. Metres away from me. Me: helpless to do a damned thing about it.

I gripped the edge of the desk until the wood creaked and my fingers hurt. He’d planned this, I was sure of it. That's the worst part. He's a clever little fucker in his own way. He’d known I wouldn’t come out. I’d rather chew through plaster than let him see my reaction.

A clatter broke through these musings. The sound of something breaking, and then a dull, wet thump.

Then nothing.

Silence.

And then the dragging started. Was that my mother's cheap clothes against the linoleum? Pictures spun in my brain. The thought of her limp or even bloody didn't faze me. I've considered bashing That Bitch's stupid head in myself. Several times. But it was mine to do.

Ear pressed to the wall and straining for more sounds more clues... I imagined splitting his skull open like a pomegranate.