Kinky curls

Eyes, Captivated

CHAPTER THREE
Eyes, Captivated

I threw up when I returned to my house last night. And then I got beat for making a mess of it in the foyer. By the black and hideous bruise swelling up on my forearm, I was dragged into the kitchen, where paper towels were shoved against my chest. I received the nastiest, most threatening scowl from my father, before getting his infamous disappointed head shake. I stared, fingers twitching, as he pointed back to the entrance. I waited until he retreated back to his living room, eyes sunken and face deadpan, to blink.

The physical pain went away not long after.

The next morning, I stood in the same kitchen, making him his usual Saturday morning breakfast he chowed down on before heading off to the city. The first time I handed him my famous pancakes, he asked how I learned to make them so well. We never spoke much about Luke after then. Using a spatula I bought from Doose's market, I flipped over the pancake and let it sizzle against the boiling hot pan, just as my father entered the room.

I stared straight down at the stove, fixing the pan so the handle stuck out over the counter instead of toward my body. I didn't want him knocking it over again. I cleared my throat as the thumping of his heavy boots stopped behind me. The old lawn chair screeched helplessly as he pulled it out from beneath the plastic table, and he heaved a heavy sigh as he slumped into it, like putting on his boots was the most strenuous deed he's done all week. I chewed on the inside of my cheek. It was.

"You're up early." I shook my pan back and forth before checking either side of the first flapjack, and I reluctantly turned around, approaching his unsightly figure with a strained smile. He grunted in response. I let the beautifully golden-brown pancake fall onto the paper plate I set up for him with an unpleasant smack, and he nodded an unspoken, half-assed thank you.

"I won't be home by the usual." The baritone of his voice reverberated through my bones, and in the most off-putting way. I almost forgot what he sounded like. I glanced back at him, pouring the next set of batter into the pan. "Double shift—I'll be back with Chinese by around, say, nine? Eh, I don't know."

I went along with his we're living a family television show life banter. "You know what I like," I said. I smiled and pulled a tall glass from the cabinet beside the broken microwave. "Orange juice?"

Using the fork I also set up before-time, he pointed at me with it, a discomforting grin on his round face. He looked a little to my left, and his chewing was a lot sloppier than normal. His unexpected cheeriness happened with reason. He already picked his poison, and it wasn't orange-flavored. His happy juice had to have been running through his system for around twenty minutes by now; past that time, and he grew sour.

"You know what I like." His booming, frighteningly humorous cackle permeated the house, startling it so much that the floor trembled. Sure, we lived by the highway, but there was no doubt that the spine-chilling noise ripping from his throat had anything to do with it. I let out a small laugh, its shakiness uncontrollable. I flipped the pancake over before heading to the fridge.

"Oh, geez," I said. I pulled out the carton of orange juice and unscrewed the cap a bit, a repugnant stench spewing from the edges and filling my nostrils. I twisted it back on tightly and searched for the stamp. "You don't want to drink this. It expired weeks ago."

He threw his hands in the air, his small eyes going wide and his eyebrows nearly flying off his face as he shot them up. "Well, it doesn't matter. I have to go now, anyway." My eyes fell to the pan on the stove, then back to my father, who proceeded to stand from his seat with a large chunk of golden-brown in his mouth. "Eat that pancake yourself; it's my gift to you."