JUNE, 1989
“What do you wanna be when you grow up?” I asked.
Victoria hung upside down from the branch over me and stretched her hands out lazily toward me. “A grilled cheese sandwich maker,” she answered, matter-of-factly.
“That doesn’t exist in real life,” I answered, laughing.
She smiled, “Then I wanna be your wife.”
“Okay,” I answered with a laugh, “You can be that someday maybe.”
Victoria smiled brightly. “What do you want to be, Nick?” she asked.
“A singer,” I said, without any hesitation.
She smiled, “I knew you would say that.”
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I explained.
“I know,” she said. “It means so much to you. You’re brilliant at it, too, Nicky,” she said. “Absolutely brilliant.”
I turned red and shook my head, “Nah.”
“It’s true,” she said, “Someday, you’ll be a world famous musician, and you’ll visit Japan.”
“And you’ll come with me?” I asked, hopefully.
Victoria laughed, “Why would you need me if you’re a world famous musician who’s so famous he goes to Japan?”
“Because I love you Vicky,” I answered, “With my soul.”
Victoria smiled – I loved her smile – “You’re sweet, Nicky,” she said.
“Vicky?”
“Yes?”
“Promise me that if I ever forget you that you’ll come back to me,” I said, “And make me remember?”
Victoria leaned down from the branches and kissed my forehead. Her lips felt warm and feminine against my face. “I promise,” she whispered, “I’ll come back to you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, “Because I never want to forget you.”
“I never want you to forget me, either.”
“I never will… I promise.”
Suddenly, from far away, I could hear my father calling my name. He sounded angry. “I gotta go,” I said. Vicky watched from the tree branches as I jumped up and ran through the trees and down a steep hill into the backyard of my family’s house. He was standing on the patio, fuming.
“Where the fuck were you?” he demanded, grabbing my elbow, hard in his grasp. He pulled me towards the house. “We’ve been hollering for you for hours.”
“I’m sorry,” I answered, “I was talking to a friend.”
“You don’t have any friends,” he answered, shoving me roughly into the chair in the living room. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag. The living room smelled like smoke and booze. He was the main source of the smell – he positively reeked of it. “Your mother tells me you broke another lamp, boy,” he snapped.
I had. I'd been rough housing with the dog and I'd knocked over the faux Tifffany style lamp. My mother had been shaking she was so irate - it was her favorite lamp, she claimed. "Just you wait," she'd bellowed, pointing, "Just wait until your father comes home." It was the ultimate threat. It was then that I'd retreated to the tree, my meeting place with Vicky when things at home was bad. She was always there for me, waiting...
I frowned, “It was an accident.”
“Oh I’m sure, it’s always an accident with you,” he rolled his eyes. “Like I don’t have enough to deal with all fucking day at work, I gotta come home and deal with crap like this from you…” he threw a blow across my face, his palm open, backhanding me. My head whipped to the right with the strike, and my cheek burned hot and tears sprang to my eyes. He hadn’t taken off his ring, and it had caught my jaw and my jaw was screaming out in pain. “That was an accident, too,” he jeered.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, swallowing and blinking back the tears that were threatening to fall out of my eyes. I refuse to give him the satisfaction, I thought.
He stared down at me, as I fought the tears. I knew he knew I was putting all my effort into not crying. He put his hands on the arm rests of the chairs and leaned in, his face right in my face, his breath sopping with the smell of beer. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and pressed the tip against my leg, burning a little round hole through my jeans and into my skin. I let out a scream, and the moment the sound escaped me, he pulled the put-out cigarette away, snorting, and slamming the butt into an ashtray.
"You can't even handle a little sting, boy?" he snapped in my face. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the pack and a lighter. I grabbed my leg with my hands, the spot visible through my jeans bright red and raw, almost bleeding. I screwed my eyes tight. "Guess we need to toughen you up," he murmured, fingering the buckle of his belt with one hand and lighting the cigarette hanging out of his mouth with the other.
I stared up at him, afraid.
Twenty minutes later, when he was thoroughly finished screaming at me, I made my way up the stairs to my bedroom, my backside smarting from his belt and my leg burning from cigarette butts. When I got to the top of the stairs, the tears finally started falling down my face.
Victoria was waiting for me in my room. The moment I came through the door she flew off my bed and ran to me, her arms wrapping around me, tears falling from her own eyes as well as mine. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you, ever, ever again,” she sobbed, “I love you… I love you…”
“Please just make it stop hurting,” I begged, as we dropped to the floor, “Why does he hate me?”
Vicky pulled my head onto her lap and I curled myself around her. Her fingers found the perfectly round sear marks in the jeans and the rapidly forming blisters beneath on my burned-raw skin. She shook her head, “Oh Nick…”
“He hates me,” I cried, spit connected my upper and lower jaw together as the sob escaped me. She smoothed the hair back from my forehead gently. "Why does he hate me?"
“I don’t know how anyone could hate this wonderful face,” she whispered.
“Sometimes, I want to die,” I confessed to her, feeling as though my heart was being torn out of its cage within my ribs and torn to pieces by ravenous wolves. Most nine year olds worried about playing games and their favorite TV shows and comic book heroes. Their biggest concerns are whether or not Michael Jordon could kick Godzilla’s ass in one-on-one hoops. Their concerns were not whether or not they were going to get belted – literally – for breaking a lamp. Their concerns were not about getting a call back at an audition so that they could earn the money to feed the family. I squeezed my eyes shut, the pressure of the world closing in around me. “I really want to die,” I cried again.
“Nicky… no,” she whispered. “I love you too much to let you take yourself away from me… ever. You belong to me. Don't you ever forget that."
Bad Romance by Pengi
Author's Chapter Notes:
Note the updated warnings.
