Bleeding Black and Gold (Bruins- Tuukka Rask)

Old Wounds

"Why are you here?" I growl at my father, stepping into the room. 

"I could say the same of you, Alexandria." 

I flinch as he says my name. "You have no right to call me that anymore; not after you left Mom, Brady, Cate, Dean, and I," I spit at him. 

"I have every right. I'm still legally your father. And now, I'm an assistant trainer on the Bruins." My father spreads his arms wide, and gives me a snakelike smile. 

"I doubt that's going to last, seeing as you abuse even your own family," I retort icily. 

"Pardon me for not being happy with the family I was receiving." 

"Oh, really? I doubt you cared about any of us because we weren't the perfect family you expected us to be. It's bad enough you ruined my life at 13, but now you're ruining my shot at making my own family, my own life? That is messed up!" My voice is rising, and I know it won't be long before my dad and I start shouting at each other. 

"Watch yourself, Alexandria." My father's eyes glitter dangerously. 

"To hell with that. I'm 25 now, and you don't control me anymore." Memories gather on the edge of my consciousness, and soon I'm drowning in them.

"Alexandria you can't do anything right!" 

My father is shouting at me, and my 13-year-old self doesn't shake or turn away, despite the tears running down her face. She doesn't say anything, but instead glares at her father. He stalks closer to the younger me, and I remember being so afraid. But she stands tall; unafraid. My father brings his hand back, and gives her a slap across her face so hard it sends her to her knees and splits her lip. She scrambles up, backing away from her father, who advances toward her. He slaps her again, and she falls to against the counter- right onto a plate, which slips and shatters on the floor. She cries out in pain because a shard cut the inside of her right arm. She can hear footsteps running downstairs from the upper floor, and as blood trickles from the cut on her arm to the floor, her mother runs in. 

"Alex!" Her mother shrieks, and runs over to her daughter. 

"What happened? Did you fall?" Her mother is pressing a paper towel to the cut, trying to slow the blood. Her father gives her a glance that says, 'Not a word.'. But instead of obeying his glare like every time before then, the younger me shakes her head at her father. 

"It was... I-it was him." 

She points with her good arm at her father, and then touches her red and stinging cheek. "And this isn't the first time." 

Her mother presses a new cloth to her arm, and then turns on her husband. "Out," her mother growls. 

Her father laughs. "Oh sweetie, you're not really going to kick me out, are you?" 

"I can, I will, and I am. You hurt my daughter- more than once- and I refuse to accept this. If you don't leave now, I will call the police." 

She makes a phone signal to young Alex behind her back, and she reaches up and grabs the phone, immediately dialing 911. 

"Hello this is 911, what's your emergency?" 

"I'd like to call the police to arrest my father for child abuse," she whispers into the phone. After a brief call with the operator, she hangs up the phone, cradling it to her chest while her parents fight and she waits for the police to come to take her father away.

"He's gone, sweetie, he's gone." 

Her mother hugs her tightly as the family watches the blue lights fade away, her father inside the car. Then, she lets the tears slip from her eyes as her siblings hug her and her mother.