Read Between the Lines Read Free

wanted him to know I wasn’t afraid. Sure, I knew he’d probably come after me. Make me pay. But maybe I could outrun him. My anger was stronger than my fear and common sense.
    I gripped the edge of the door and felt the solidness of it. Then I put everything I had into slamming it closed against the House of Horror.
    Somehow though, I wasn’t able to move my hand away at the same time. It was as if the door itself was grabbing me. Trapping me.
    I’ve got you. You’re not going anywhere.
    I felt a hot, hot pain when I finally freed myself from the door’s jaw. My finger swelled up just like it is now. I bit my lips together to keep in my scream because if my father heard, if he knew I couldn’t even get slamming the door right, he would laugh. He would say it served me right. And I couldn’t let him say that. So I swallowed the scream and my tears and choked on the pain as I ran down the driveway and up the road. I ran and ran and wished I would never have to turn back. Never have to face the ugly mouth of That House again.
    I ran until I found a stand of lilac bushes. I crawled under the lowest branches and hid there, crying privately under the green leaves, just as I did the day my mother left us. A deep hole had been dug out there by some neighborhood dog. I fit myself into the hole and wished I was that dog. A dog someone probably loved and didn’t mind if he dug a hole under the lilacs to stay cool in the summer. My dad would make fun of me for knowing the name of the bushes. He would call me a sissy or mama’s boy or worse.
    But lilacs were my mom’s favorite, so of course I recognized them. Every spring she would cut a few sprigs and put them in a vase so the house would smell nice. “Like the promise of summer days coming,” she always said. Then she would hug me close, and I could feel her hope and love settle into me.
    That’s how I knew what the bush was called.
    I was no sissy.
    Maybe I was a mama’s boy, though.
    Until she left me.
    Then I was no one’s boy.
    When someone leaves unexpectedly, it has to be someone’s fault. You need someone to blame. My father blamed me. He blamed me, so he hated me.
    The day my mother left us, I was never his boy again. I was his burden.
    When the neighbor and her dog found me in the bushes that night, I begged to be left alone. But she brought me home anyway. And that night, more than my finger throbbed with pain.
    No one slams the door on my father.
    But secretly, I really thought he beat the crap out of me because I came back.
    Mrs. O’Connor waddles over to the refrigerator to get an ice pack for me. I glance at her very tidy desk. There’s a bouquet of flowers on one corner with a card sticking out. I bet it’s from her husband. On the other corner, there’s a framed photo of her family. She has four kids, and she’s posing with them and her husband. They’re all wearing jeans and white T-shirts. They’re beaming, as if they are the happiest family in the world, even if they also look like the dorkiest family in their matching outfits. The kids seem to range in age from about four to twelve or so. They all have really white teeth. I wonder if they were Photoshopped. I wonder if they are all really that happy. Probably.
    “This will hurt at first,” Mrs. O’Connor says as she hands me the ice pack. “But it should help with the swelling.”
    She pulls a piece of paper across the bed behind the curtain and puts a fresh paper case on the pillow. “Can you sit and lean against the wall? I think you should keep your hand raised above your heart for now.”
    I nod and adjust myself on the bed. It farts awkwardly as predicted. I lean against the cinder-block wall. It’s cold and reassuringly hard. Solid. I close my eyes and feel myself disappearing, just like little kids think they do when they hide their faces. If only.
    “You’ll be all right,” Mrs. O’Connor tells me. “Let me know if you need anything.”
    She pulls the curtain shut.
    I listen