our last summer. (e.m)

sixteen: a mother's betrayal.

the moment i step into the house,
i know something is wrong.
i can feel it in the air;
the tension begging to seep into my muscles,
to bite into my skin.
any of the previous peace i'd salvaged in my time with eddie quickly dissipates and leaves me barren.
i find my father in the kitchen and immediately,
my fears are confirmed.
his eyes hang low as his gaze is cast outside the kitchen window.
i swallow the panic in my throat to say,
"hi, dad,"
"hey, clover,"
he returns,
though his eyes never leave from the view of the backyard.
at this refusal to meet my gaze,
my heart stops.
has he found out?
does he know it was eddie with whom i tangled myself into the night prior?
i go to reassure him that i hadn't meant to lie,
i just needed time to get used to the notion of eddie and i.
but i stop short.
i'm eighteen now,
i'm a graduate on the way to acquiring a college degree.
i've outgrown the parental permission needed to live.
besides,
i've outgrown the habit of asking him.
at the thought,
i feel my heart grow sore.
i'm reverting back to the eight year old whose crying for his approval;
i've crumbled in only a matter of seconds,
all because of this silence.
"what's...what's wrong?"
finally,
he looks to me.
but when he does,
i almost wish he hadn't.
his eyes are full of sorrow and laced with a sense of...
anger.
if my heart could shatter into pieces and litter across this glistening floor,
it would.
and both of us would have to tiptoe around the fragments in hopes it doesn't pierce the skin of our feet.
then he says the words i'd been dreading to hear this entire summer.
my bubble of bliss is destroyed.
i am eight again,
fretting over the disappointment of my father.
"why didn't you tell me, clover? why didn't you tell me about your mother?"
my heart climbs up from the cavity of my concaving chest and sits in my tightening throat.
i laugh dryly in hopes it will all be revealed as some sick joke.
"w-what? what does...what does that even mean?"
my facade is up.
why am i desperately clinging onto something that's beyond lost?
my father knows and i've been outed a liar because of my silence.
"don't do that, clover. you know what i'm talking about."
"it's not...it's not even...dad, i just—"
i bring my panicky hands up to my throat and leave them there to rest.
my heart races deep in my sternum;
pulsing, aching, churning.
tears are rising in my eyes to flood before i can prevent them.
"tell me, y/n."
my name has never sounded so serious on his tongue.
i wish i'd been named something else,
that way hearing it curl from his lips in a manner of disappointment wouldn't hurt so much.
i clear my throat that's closing in and i tell my truth...

it hadn't started off like this.
he was decent at first,
my mother's new boyfriend.
i tolerated him as much as a daughter could.
i knew he'd never replace my father,
but that didn't mean i had to hate him.
if she was happy,
why couldn't i be?
when they'd met at my mother's work,
he was months away from finalizing his divorce with another woman.
my mother saw this as no small feat.
he had chosen her!
that was something to be celebrated,
she believed.
when they began dating,
i rarely saw her around.
she was always out with him,
spending the night with him,
avoiding her responsibilities at home.
the day i warned her our electricity was threatened to be shut off was the day she moved him in.
no word of warning,
no ensuring my comfort,
he was just suddenly there one day.
we stayed out of each other's way besides at dinner,
but even then only small words were spoken.
he was quiet, clean, and minded his own.
that was enough for me to stay content.
until they married two weeks later.
hardly months into dating and she was ready to wed.
i begged my mother to reconsider,
to give it some more time,
but she insisted she knew better than me.
that this new man was who she belonged with.
what could i do but watch?
it began the week they returned from their honeymoon.
he would come lumbering by my room in the darkened hours of the night,
stopping just outside my door like he might be considering coming inside.
that was as far as he'd ever gotten at first.
i'd wait in my bed,
heavy breathing and clutching my blanket tight in hopes of it protecting me,
as he stood just mere inches away being cloaked in the night.
the first night he opened the door,
it was only a sliver.
enough to watch me as i feigned slumber,
despite the sobs that rocked my body proving otherwise.
i had never been so scared.
i feared one day he would do something.
that something would happen and i would never be able to come back from it.
his sick nighttime enjoyments quickly bled into the daytime.
after weeks of watching me sleep,
his stares would burn into me in the sunlight.
it wasn't enough that he'd left me with bags under my eyes and sickly skin,
but he just couldn't stop there it seemed.
i would wince beneath his gaze and beg for someone else to catch his attention.
no matter how hard i tried to cover myself,
drowning in my own sweat due to georgia heat and the baggy clothes i forced myself in,
he would never stop staring.
then it became vocal,
it became physical.
the day it all imploded,
i'd been in the kitchen when i felt his heavy, vile hands on my lower back.
"you're so beautiful when you wake up. you know that?"
i tensed up and forced back the bile rising in my throat as his hand slid further down.
my immediate reaction,
the one i had been keeping in store for this very moment,
was to reach behind and let my fist connect with his cheek.
i'd punched him as hard as my hand could allow.
when i ran to my mother with the fear pounding in my chest and the tears collecting at my chin,
i wailed for her to believe me.
at first,
i thought the look in her eyes was disgust at the man she'd chosen.
but it's okay,
i reminded her.
we've started over before and we can do it again.
until i realized her fury was directed towards me.
with trembling hands,
my mother let her fingers tangle into my hair and rip me forward.
i cried under the force,
considering she'd never laid a harmful hand to me,
and felt the weight of her slap imprint itself on my cheek.
"what did you do?!"
she screamed so close to my ear,
that i feared my eardrum might burst.
she had blamed me for his actions.
she was so sure that he behaved that way because i'd seduced him,
i'd made him,
because i was trying to steal her happiness.
it never occurred to her that maybe he was just sick.
i was sixteen.
what business did i have ruining her marriage?
to want to be involved with a man twice my age?
why hadn't she believed me?
my mother had thrown me to the ground in my silence and wiped away her own tears.
"you selfish-you selfish bitch! you are just like your father."
i scrambled to hide myself in the corner and clutched the cheek she had hit.
who was this monster?
where was my mother?
the same woman who brushed my hair back,
kissed my head,
told me stories?
she was unrecognizable.
i felt smaller then than i'd ever felt before,
trembling as my safety had been stolen from me.
she'd thrown me out shortly after.
i watched as she packed all my things into a trash bag and sent me out front.
i sobbed at her feet and pleaded with her to believe me,
but it was her heavy, evil hands that pushed me right out the front door to never return.
the very same hands i once held during bad dreams?
i couldn't understand it.
when i went to my grandmas for refuge,
she immediately took me in without hesitation.
and she believed me without a moments doubt.
"i saw the way that-that son of a bitch looked at you. and shame on your mother for allowing that drunken fool into your home, for allowing him to come between a mother and her child."
i cried in her arms as she rocked me back and forth,
trying to nurse a wound that would never heal.
"don't you worry, baby. god will handle it, he always does."
i'd found it impossible to believe god would help me now.
where was the aid when i begged him to send that man away from my door?
where was the help when i cried into my pillow while that man watched me sleep?
where was god when i needed my mother to believe me?
i said none of this though,
i only fell to sleep beside my grandmother.
and i would continue to do that for the next year,
considering each time i'd try to sleep alone i'd wake up in a fit,
choking on air in memory of that wretched man at my door.