The Existence I Crave

4

"Thank you for the ride," I told Max as I opened the passenger door to his Jeep.

After we had bought the supplies for our project, Brent had made some lame-ass excuse as to why he and Mia had to leave, dumping Marcie and myself off on Max. After he dropped Marcie off at her house, he made me get upfront with him, and that's when the ranting started. It wasn't pretty, some of the things coming out of his mouth I could tell was years of pent-up shit coming out, I just stayed quiet and let him have his moment.

"It's no problem," Max said with a soft, but kind smile.

"Bye," I said as I got out, well more like had to jump out of his Jeep, don't judge me, I'm short ok.

I was about to close the door when Max stopped me.

"By the way, thanks."

"For what?" I asked.

"For letting me vent earlier, can we, you know just keep this between us?"

"Yeah sure, it's no problem."

Not like I have anyone to tell, even if I wanted to.

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

I closed the door, waving goodbye as he backed out of the driveway, turning towards the house. I noticed Kevin's truck was sitting in front of the house. Walking up the steps, I grabbed the doorknob, turning it to see the front door was unlocked.

Was Kevin home, or did he just forget to lock the door when he left earlier?

"Hello?" I yelled out as I entered the house, only to be met with silence.

"Kevin, are you home?"

Still, no answer, guess he did forget to lock the door. Sighing I shut the door behind me, locking it before I went to my room. I placed my bags on my bed before leaving my room, I walked across the hall to Kevin's room, knocking on his door, all I got back in return was silence.

Guess he wasn't home, after all, I thought to myself before heading to the kitchen to get a bottle of water out of the fridge. My hand had just made contact with the handle of the fridge when the front door slammed open followed by a loud thud and a lot of cuss words. Peaking around the doorway of the kitchen I see Kevin laying on the floor, while one of his buddies staggered over to him laughing like a maniac.

Great just what I needed, two drunks in the house.

"You ok Kev?" his friend slurred out between his fits of laughter.

"Hey who's the kid?" his friend asked, staring at me.

Uh oh.

"What kid?" Kevin asked, looking around the room.

"I think he means me," I quietly said, Kevin, looked over at me before he let out a small laugh.

"Hey, it's Tommy."

Kevin somehow managed to get back into a standing position before stumbling over to me, throwing his arm around my shoulders, causing me to tense up.

"This is my son," Kevin slurred out, with pride in his voice.

Please stop, please stop giving me false hopes I thought as I could feel my cheeks heat up from all the attention I was getting. Before Kevin's friend could say anything, a car horn being blared could be heard.

"I gotta go," he said before he stumbled onto the porch slamming the door shut behind him, leaving me and Kevin alone.

Fear spread throughout my body, settling itself deep into my bones. Kevin's hand tightened on my shoulder, causing my breath to hitch, please no, the bruises from last time just healed.

"I'll just go to my room," I said, praying this would be one of those times he would let me go.

"I don't think so."

Kevin spun me around right as his fist came flying at my face, leaving me no time to dodge his attack. His fist made contact with my nose, causing a sickening crunch sound, as blood began to trickle down my face. Grabbing a fist full of my hair, his free hand made contact with my face, over and over again, until he wrapped his hand around my throat, causing panic to overload my body.

Air was being cut off from my lungs as his hand tightened, I tried pushing him away with all the strength I had left in my body, but Kevin was like a boulder, he wouldn't budge. So I did the only thing that my mind could think of, I balled my fist up, and punched him as hard as I possibly could.

Kevin roared out in pain, well probably more like shock, this was the first time in all of the years he's been hitting me that I've ever hit him back, or even tried to fight back for that matter. He pushed himself away from me, grabbing at his face, as I took in deep breaths, trying to get air back into my lungs. Looking over at Kevin I see his lip bleeding, he looked over at me with an expression on his face that I've never seen before.

"Oh you're in for it now you little shit," Kevin screamed at me before he lunged at me.

"Shit," I cried out as I managed to get out of the way before he could get me.

I started to run for my room, I was almost there when I was tackled to the floor. Kevin's body weight was suffocating as he held my trembling form down so I couldn't get away from him.

"Please don't, I'm sorry I swear I won't do it again," I sobbed out.

"You're damn right you're not going to do that again."

Kevin reared back his fist as I clenched my eyes shut, waiting for his fist to make contact with my aching body.

"Hey kid are you going to buy something or just stand there?" the cashier of the convenience store asked me.

"Huh? Oh, uh yeah," I mumbled out.

At some point, I had blacked out when I woke up. Kevin was passed out in his room, so I snuck out of the house and walked to the closest convenience store to our house. I quickly grabbed the medical supplies I needed, and some concealer before walking over to the counter.

The guy checking out looked over my items, before giving me a weird look. I felt like he was trying to get a good look at my face but the way I had my hood pulled over my face, he wouldn't be able to see the dried blood on my face, nor the bruises that were starting to form.

"Have a good night," he said, handing me a bag with my stuff in it after I paid for everything.

"Thanks," I mumbled back as I left the store, making the journey back home.

I just hoped that Kevin was still asleep, my body couldn't handle another beating. I was dreading having to see how many bruises littered my body, my ribs and stomach were on fire right now, it hurt to even breathe right now. Even my back was hurting, what did he do to me?

I walked down our driveway, walking around to the back of the house where my bedroom was, I let out a sigh of relief when I saw my bedroom window was still open. Walking up to the window, I carefully eased my way into my room, trying to make as little noise as humanly possible. Once I was fully inside my room, I eased the window shut, locking it before I walked into my bathroom, turning the light on before shutting and locking the door.

I placed the back down onto the countertop, reaching down I grabbed a hold of the hem of my hoodie and shirt, wincing as I began to pull it over my head. Throwing them onto the floor, I looked at my reflection in the mirror, my ribs were covered in a huge bruise, the same with my lower stomach. There were handprints on my arms and my throat, I had two black eyes, probably from when he punched my nose.

"It's fine," I said to myself, my reflection was becoming blurry as tears filled my eyes, burning them.

"Everythings fine."

My voice was quivering, as tears slid down my face, I slowly fell to my knees, grabbing the towel off of the wall on my way down. Burying my face in the towel, I let out a loud scream, all I could do was hope the towel was muffling my screaming and sobbing well enough so that Kevin wouldn't wake up.

I couldn't stop, I felt as if the dam had finally broken, there was no fixing it, or closing it, it had been damaged beyond repair, just like I had been.