Escaping the Void

Chapter Five

I was watching TV in the bedroom when I hear the front door open and close loudly. I sit up on the bed as I see Trevor walk through the room door striping off his befouled shirt. The tank top underneath it is as white as ever, though. He eyes me as I yawn. He looks tired and withdrawn. "Hey," he says.

"Hi," I say back. Trevor comes and sits down on the edge of the bed. He stares at my face tentatively. "How was work?" I ask.

He doesn't answer me. He just keeps examining my face. "I can't believe I did all of that to you," he whispers. I glance down at the covers without saying anything. Trevor moves so that we're now side by side. He brushes his hand over my cheek, but I flinch because of the pain. It causes his hand to shrink back to where it was. "What the fuck is wrong with me?" 

I don't answer that. I just assume it's a rhetorical question. Instead, I listen to the noise of the TV in the background.  In my head, I want to tell him that everything is wrong with him. Everything he does, everything he says, everything is wrong. 

"I beat you until you passed out last night. I don't know why I do this when I love you."

"I think you do," I blurt out. He stares at me in my eyes, but I don't back down, "but you're just not telling me." I don't feel at all threatened with my eyes locked in his like I usually do. He doesn't look angry at me for talking back; he looks tempted. "It's okay. You can tell me."

He stares down at the cover shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut. He takes my hand in his, holding it tight. "There's something about me and my past that I've never told you before. It's about my childhood," he sighs.

"What is it?" I question. He looks up into my eyes, and I can tell that there is a whole story behind them that's just waiting to be told. A sad one.

"My mother was a loving, hard working woman. She did her best to take care of my brother and I," he began.

"Brother?" I didn't even know Trevor had siblings. I always thought that he was a only child.

 "Yeah, I have a little brother named Tommy. Anyway, my father was a drunk. He drank all the time. And with the heavy drinking came the violence. He liked to bounce my mom off the walls. He hit her all the time. Sometimes it was it front of us. But my mom always put up with it. Always. She was always smiling and telling us that it was alright. God knows that I loved  her."

"What happened to her?" I ask.

"One night during dinner, my parents were arguing. My dad was mad because the food was slightly burnt. He was screaming in her face and she was trying to calm him down by saying that she would make it again. Tommy ran to our room crying because he didn't want to see our mom getting hurt. I got out of my chair and backed away into a corner, watching. He took her by her hair and dragged her off to their room and slammed the door.

"I ran after them and put my ear to the door so that I could listen to what was happening. He was yelling at her, calling her all kinds of names, and she was crying. I heard him hit her a few times. She shrieked and cried louder, begging him to stop. Some of the furniture was being banged against the wall. I started to cry, too. 

"My mother was on the other side of that door being beaten, and I couldn't do anything about it. My father was a big man, and I doubt a seven-year-old me could stand up to him. The screaming got louder. I could hear Tommy from the other side of the house sobbing so loud. It was almost unbearable listening to it all. But then I heard three loud bangs. 

"My mom's screaming stopped immediately after that. My body froze, and I was praying to God that the sounds weren't what I thought they were. My dad was pacing back and forth in room, crying and talking to himself. Then I heard another bang go off and a loud thud to the floor.