Counting Paths

Chapter 4.

Roland

"I'm still wearing the tank top you gave me," Sterling tells me. "You can look." I take a deep breath and look at her again. She holds out her arms in front of her and nods towards her bruises, gesturing to them. I step closer and gently grab her arm.

"Start from the beginning," I tell her.

"I never liked my mom's boyfriend because of the way he treated her," she started. "He was rude to her. He constantly called her stupid, threatened to hit her, and broke things whenever he got mad and left us to fix everything. But it was only when they were fighting, so he 'respected' her and 'loved' any other time. It wasn't true. He never hit her like the others but he treated her like a slave. She cooked the food she bought and then served him like his legs didn't work. She cleaned every damn inch of the house, washed his clothes, threw away his trash-she did everything! And he never lifted a fucking finger."

She shudders and wipes her tears.

"He doesn't like me. He never did. One day I guess I was taking too long in the shower and he started to bang on the door. He yelled at me to hurry up. I yelled at him to wait. And we kept yelling until I was out of the shower and he was in. He told me to go to my room and cry like the sad little bitch I was. I had to be the adult and I walk away. It all went don't hill from there-"

"What did your mom do?" There's a lump in my throat that fucking hurts.

A new set of tears pool her eyes. "She yelled at me, said I shouldn't have talked to him like that. She apparently told him the same thing but I never heard her yell. They didn't even fight about it like they usually do. Anyway, the fighting continued between me and him, he made fun of my depression, and no one mention anything to my mom. I didn't tell her because I knew she wasn't going to do anything about it. He disrespected me and she didn't care."

She's full-on crying now but it's not stopping her from telling her story. Her voice is trembling and constantly breaking but she's talking.

I'm still holding her arm, one hand cupping her elbow and the other holding her hand. I'm boiling with anger, how I'm not squeezing the crap out of her arm like a stress ball right now, I'll never fucking know.

"The day I finally had enough, the day I finally picked myself before my mother, there was a bad smell in the house. I couldn't smell it, but my mom and he did. My mom left to the story or something and he saw his shoot and took it. He walked around the house calling me a dirty-smelling bitch. I stormed out of my room and told him to grow the hell up and say it to my face." She squeezes my hand. "The fucking asshole had the audacity to say he wasn't even talking about me. He got in my face and I shoved him off me. He threatened to punch me if I ever laid hands on him again...I wanted to see how far my mom would allow this to happen, so I pushed him again."

She gets quiet, tears pouring out of her red, foggy eyes like waterfalls. I can only describe her expression as a troubled ghost experiencing their death.

Then, after what feels like forever, she abruptly shudders. With her eyes shut tightly and her voice breaking, she continues, "he grabbed me by my arms, shoved me against the wall, and when I tried to fight him off me, he choked me. He threw me on the floor with his hands around my neck. I tried to fight him, to get back on my feet, but he only slammed me to the floor again. He eventually gave up and left to his room. I got up and started yelling at him through the door. He threatened to hit me again, so I grabbed a hammer and hit the door a few times. It shut him up. My mom came home and saw the holes in the door but no one said anything. I just packed a bag and left. The rest of the day, she blew up my phone. I don't know what he told her, but when I finally answered her calls, moments before I met Ryan, I tried to tell her what happened. I didn't even get to tell her the whole story...because it didn't matter. I said he threatened to punch me and she didn't believe me. I showed her the bruises and...nothing. Her answer to everything is 'no one's going to say anything.' As if I could go back there."