Polyphia

R Y A N

As I closed the front door, I noticed that the TV was not on. Huh, that's weird. I walked into the living room to see if my father was passed out on his armchair, but the seat was empty, only occupied by three empty cans of beer, and a stained carpet. Shaking my head with disgust, I turned around to leave the room. But it wasn't until I noticed something red peeking out from underneath the armchair, and reaching out to pick it up, I noticed that it was a lacy material. It was a thong. What the hell? I immediately guessed that my father hadn't left the house, and he was somewhere inside the house, so, I left the living room and went up the stairs to where our bedrooms were. Once I climbed up the stairs, I started to hear faint noises that came from my parents' every five seconds; a sound so faint that I had to press my ear against the door to hear it. Suddenly, the noise grew louder, and the bed creaked and quickly realised that it was a woman. Puzzled, I checked the time, it was five o'clock. My mother usually came home at around eight. That was when I realised, that my father was fucking some random woman.

"Oh god! Don't stop!" the woman cried as the bed creaking grew louder and more frequent. I flinched and quickly stepped away with disgust, accidentally knocking a picture from the wall, resulting in a loud crash. The moaning stopped; the creaking stopped.

"What was that?" the woman asked. "You said your wife wouldn't come home for another three hours!"

It took me a second to recover, but as soon as I heard someone approach to open the door, I immediately rushed down the stairs and left through the front door. Holy shit. Holy shit. My dad is having an affair. I should not be surprised, he's a scumbag, an actual prick. But the fact that he would do this to my mother is beyond me. How could he? What did my mother do to deserve this? She was forced to leave her job to take care of her children and is constantly wasting her time with those fucking club 'meetings.'

I must do something about it, she ought to know. She is his wife; she is my mother. I fumbled with my phone and began to dial my mother's phone number. It wasn't until I was about to press call when I hesitated. How will she react? Will she believe me? I did not know what to do. Every muscle in my body was telling me to press call and tell my mother everything; yet the voice in my head was telling me that I shouldn't bother, she will believe my father over me, I am no one's first choice. Never was and never will be.

***

Walking down the aisle, I skimmed through the comics, trying to find one that caught my eye, but everything I saw, didn't quite catch my attention. There was a certain beauty when it came to these stories. Stories that allowed you to escape and live in an alternate universe and live a completely different life. It was a break from reality I so desperately wanted, especially right now.

I watched as my fingers traced the titles of each comic book as I walked by. Maybe walking in here was a mistake, maybe I should've called Lilly and told her everything; she would know what to do, she always knew what the next step would be. She was a guiding light that I would always cling to when I was stuck or felt like I was drowning.

It wasn't until my fingers touched the outline of a comic that caught my eyes. The title was small but outlined from the front cover. Observing the edges, it looked brand new, as if I'm the first one to have ever touched it. Slowly, I began to pull it out of the shelf, until I saw a shirtless man on the front cover, and immediately pushed it back down. What was that? Glancing from side to side, making sure that no one was walking by, I pulled the book with caution, almost frightened to see what was in store for me. I saw the cover again; I saw the shirtless man again. This time, I saw more than just his shirtless torso. His tattooed arm was flexed, his hand running through his long hair. His other hand was placed in his unbuttoned jeans, as though it was pulling it down; his boxers were being pulled down as well, almost showing what seemed to be his big...