Watch Your Step

T̸w̸i̸t̸c̸h̸ [ep. 8]

That was the last time Rod saw his mouth twitch and all the visions and hallucinations vanished on a whim. Oh, the enormous relief he felt when he didn't have to organize everything, the outright giddiness when he didn't have to be constantly reminded of disarrangements. For the following days, he became not too mindful of his errands and spent more time outside. He also thinks of going back to school. Although the gap between him and his mother was thicker than the trees outside, it was thinning like its spaces in between. 

But this all seems too good to be true. One morning, he catches a silhouette inside the window of the old house directly to his own window. It was vaguely familiar and he wondered why. Surely it is the shape of a woman and she appears to be talking to someone, a man, that is also familiar. He opens his window and stretches his neck closer. Even though they seemed to be conversing in whispers, Rod heard the words "we can't let him know..." and he already knew whose voice it was.

How could he have missed the signs, the times his mother was always going out, the way she always turned her phone upside down when they ate and that day she went inside their neighbor's house? 

From then on, he wakes up at dawn to observe his mother. He waited for her to come out of the house to make sure. Then one daybreak, it was still just silhouetted, but he saw them moving their heads closer together. Until that morning, he could not hold himself to confront his mother. When he opens the door to his room, there she is sitting with her elbows on the dining table like a schoolgirl, neither using her phone nor smoking a cigarette.

"You said you'll change," he says to her.

"What?" Celia is caught unaware; she stands up and approaches Rod.

"What are you doing in the house next to us?" he asks as he unwittingly drops a ball of impertinence.

"No, I wasn't"

Lies. His blood starts to boil, his eyebrows touching. Now it's a ball of disdain.

"I know why we moved here," he replies, inching away "because you have an affair with our neighbor."

"Rod honey what are you talking about?"

"I see you going in and out there talking to someone." The ball kept rolling and rolling, as the momentum increased by loathing.

"I was here inside the house all morning," Celia replies as she moves closer to her son.

"Liar," he shields himself with a snarl. LIAR. "You're lying!" Until the ball crashed, "I was right!"

Celia was left unable to speak.

"I was right," he repeated, "Dad was right."

"Honey, I swear, I didn't..."

And the ball breaks the things he could never take back.

"You're the one who should have died!"

Celia puts her hands to her mouth as tears spring in her eyes. While Rod, red in the face, stormed off and locked himself back in his room. As the wind screeches along the eaves of the houses, he thinks of doing it again, thinking of ending everything. If only he finds a blade or a rope, or...a gun.

But he only found tears in his eyes and pain in his chest. As he recalls the days before everything went upside down.

I saw Mom with another man.

When he arrived at the door after school, it started to rain, and what he witnessed was his father pointing a gun at his mother.

What does he look like?

"Dad?" Rod said. His father turned to face him and Rod saw fire in his eyes, "DAD!" He shouted.

He has a beard, thick ginger hair, and a ruddy face.

At the back of his father was a vase floating atop his head. It was his mother aiming to smash it to his father's head. His father thudded to the floor and dropped the gun while his mother swiftly picked it up and pointed it to his father, "Rod, stay back" she said.

What happened next was like a haze of smoke to Rod now. He could remember three shots that were fired that night. When his father shook his head and recovered, a considerable amount of blood on his temple, he lunged at his mother and they fought over for the gun. It was loaded but it was not locked. The first shot went to the wall. He heard his mother's scream... and after that, he couldn't hear anything except the piiiinnggg in his ears.

Then the second shot was fired. Rod didn't feel a thing until he saw a pool of blood. He had no idea how it pierced his right arm, shattering his bones and resulting in a dislocated shoulder. But right now, in his room, he wishes it just ended there.