Care For Me Not, I'll Hurt You Too Much

Your eyes snap open at the feeling of yourself falling. You don’t know what’s going on as you feel the floor collide with your chest. You gasp out suddenly at the shock and the force of your body hitting the floor. You feel a sharp sting shoot through your shoulder, arm, and back as the coffee table comes in connection with you shoulder. The slight pulsating of your arm seems to run through your head. The sudden feeling of reality flooding into your senses surprises you.

You shakily prop yourself up on your hands, preparing to push yourself up to stand.

What the fuck just happened? you think, shaking your head to try and rid yourself of the sleepiness and become more alert.

As if on cue, you feel a heavy boot collide with your back right along your spine. The force pushes you back down and you lay there again, gasping for air but coughing as dirt rises from the carpet and enters your lungs.

“Fucker.” You hear him breathe from somewhere over you.

You attempt to get up again, just trying to get away from him. He won’t let you as he forcefully plants his boot once again on your back. You can feel the pain circle around your sides and embed itself in your chest as you squint your eyes closed. He connects his foot again with your side and ends up gliding it down the side of your chest, causing several large scratches to burn and sting from underneath your shirt. You grit your teeth and wince.

You need to get out of here. You command yourself, once again trying to pull yourself up and run away. You crouch there on your hands and knees, getting ready to push yourself up.

You feel his hands fall clumsily onto your back, gripping onto your shoulders tightly. He grasps right into both your shoulders and stumbles slightly, making your elbow bang forcefully into the table, making you feel as if your entire arm was going numb. He pushes you down, before regaining his balance and pulling you back up.

You feel your head rush, as he quickly pulls you up and spins you around to face him. You don’t even have time to look at him before he pounds one of his fists across your cheek, sending you stumbling backward. The back of your legs connect with the arm of the sofa, causing you to flip over the edge and onto the floor. The carpeted floor isn’t as soft as you remember it being when you were little. The force of your head hitting against the floor makes you see stars as your eyes suddenly gain tunnel vision. You gasp out suddenly from pure shock. You feel as if you can’t breathe as the lungful of air you intended is cut short by all the wind being knocked out of you. You arch your back up, having landed awkwardly so that a sharp tingle inches its way up your spine.

You grit your teeth and attempt to clear the dizziness that just appeared in your head. You screw your eyes shut tighter, and become more alert with your hearing, trying to find out where your father was now at.

“Goddamn, son of a bitch.” The words were not only said with malice, but the heavy slur of a full day’s drinking. You can feel one of his boots now near your feet, and with your head so close to the carpet, you are able to hear his boots as they begin to shuffle across the floor.

One of his boots catches against your leg, causing him to come crashing down next to you with a very loud thud.

Now’s your chance! Go!

You immediately, pull yourself up on your hands and knees again, and attempt to get up so you can run up the stairs to your room. You knew that if he was shocked enough at the fall, then maybe he won’t notice so quickly if you were to run now.

You throw yourself up, and begin to frantically crawl across the carpet towards the stairs. Your breathing is harsh and you feel all the pain rip through your back as you attempt to stand. Your neck sends warning signs up and down your spine, and it hurts to even hold your head up. You crawl over to the wall and try to use that to pull yourself up.

His hand grips your ankle and pulls you back down just as you’re half-way up the wall. The surprise of it all makes your hand slide down the wall again, you having been unprepared for it. Your arm comes down forcefully in your attempt to steady yourself and ends up gliding right across the edge of the table behind the couch. You weren’t wearing your usual long-sleeved shirt, so you felt a sharp sting rip through your forearm as the edge of the table rips apart the skin of your already damaged arm.

You wince at the sting and whine lightly, your head having banged against the wall as well. All of that pain escapes your mind though, as you feel his grip tighten around your ankle and attempt to pull you back. You turn around, only to be met with a disturbing sight.

Looking over your shoulder, you see him propped up on his elbows, holding himself up as he yanks on your pants leg and ankle. His eyes are glassy and filled with hate. The smile adorning his lips nearly makes you scream as he smirks at your dismay.

You feel the strongest urge to leave him, to get away from that devilish grin. You shake your ankle vigorously, feeling his grip loosen. You crawl and practically claw your way vigorously towards the stairs, feeling your entire body shake with fear. He grasps at your ankle again, but you’re suddenly moving too quickly for him to get a firm hold on it.

“Bitch!” you hear him nearly scream at you as you scramble your way up the stairs.

You crawl halfway, then use the stairs as a support as you throw yourself up and grab onto the banister, hauling yourself up the rest of the way. As soon as you get to the top, you run immediately to your room and throw the lock, hoping that it will hold him.

You back away from the door, staring at the handle, making sure that it didn’t move. You finally taste the tears running down your face. Your face tight and your eyes feeling as if they’re going to bleed, you listen intently for sounds of movement outside your door.

You almost scream as you back right into your bed, the mattress hitting the back of your knees. You spin around and see the harmless piece of furniture sitting there invitingly. You immediately scramble across it, scrunching yourself up to the smallest you could become. You clutch your pillow, hoping it will provide some comfort as you curl up in the corner.

Bang! You hear his body crash against the outside of the door, making you jump and cry out a little.

You couldn’t hold anything back now that you were in your room. You shut your eyes tighter, feeling the tears spill out more and more as you cry into your pillow and try to hide away.

Bang! He hits it again, tugging vigorously at the handle, demanding that you open the door and let him in.

You bury your face deeper into the pillow, shaking your head and trying to block out the sounds of his fists pounding against the door.

Bang! He rams himself against the door and third time.

You can hear it bang back against the frame with the amount of force used. You were hoping that it held him out. You just wanted him to stop and go away. The lamp sitting solitary on the floor in the corner of your room rattled at the force, making you clutch more desperately onto the pillow, pulling your legs further into your body.

“You little bitch!” he shouts through the door, banging his fist against it one more time and rattling the handle.

You shake your head, and shut your eyes, feeling the tears run fiercely down your cheeks and stain your pillow. You take in a deep breath, and are reminded immediately of the damage done to your back. The sharp stings run up your sides and bury themselves in your shoulders and neck, making you shiver almost violently.

You raise your head and nearly cry out in pain. Your mouth hangs open as the throb runs repeatedly up and down your back, all the while the tears flow relentlessly. You clutch the pillow tighter to your chest and press the side of your face against it, gritting your teeth and attempting to soothe the sting that was left by his fist. Your face felt as if the half of it was going to go numb at the tingles now swirling through it.

You cry silently until the pain subsides, listening intently for sounds of sudden movement outside your door.

You got away. The voice says, almost soothingly. At least you got away.

You grip the pillow tighter and wonder how it is that all this even began to happen to you. When you woke up, that must have been him throwing you off the couch. But how did you even end up asleep down there anyway? Shouldn’t you have known that if he saw you down there, hitting you would be the first thing he would do?

You try to think back, attempting to remember how you ended up down there.

Realization hits, making you feel utterly stupid.

You remained down there after Gerard left, pondering everything that just happened. You wondered about his thoughts of you, the statement Mikey made about you being “weird” rattling your nerves a little more than expected. You thought about how they now knew you lived next door, and why it didn’t seem to bother or affect you as much as you thought it would before. It didn’t seem like a big deal anymore. Even though before you figured that if they ever found out, your world would come crashing down around you and you would be dead before you got a chance to sleep that night. But now, everything felt fine…well nearly.

The feelings of your father’s beatings brought back the entire reason why you never wanted them to find out. You couldn’t imagine their reactions if they found out what went on inside these walls. You dreaded ever discovering that they could have heard the beatings or the shouting. You physically wince as you think about Gerard ever coming over again and finding you passed out, or on your way to getting there, on the living room floor. You didn’t know what he would do, or how he would react. All you knew was that you didn’t want him to get hurt, especially not like that, and especially not by your father.

The thought of Gerard makes you open your eyes to look at his house next door.

Your jaw drops and you stare wide-eyed at your unknown open window. You could see a glow coming in through the window next door. You scramble up to the window sill and stare wide-eyed and scared as you see that Gerard’s curtains were open and his light was on inside his room.

Does that mean he was inside? You dreaded the thought of him having heard. You wince and stare shocked at the house next door, trying to check to see if he was inside his room and heard your father’s shouting.

After a few seconds of staring, you realize not only that his window was open, but that he wasn’t in his room. Scared, you immediately glance down at the grass in between your two houses, hoping that you wouldn’t spot him running across the lawn to your house. You searched every where your eyes could reach, just looking and listening for some sign of him. It wasn’t until you saw the flicker of the television through the curtains that you finally saw a couple figures laying sprawled out on the floor in front of the television.

You breathe an immediate sight of relief as you spot a figure looking much like Gerard’s lying peacefully on the floor, unbeknownst to the terrors taking place next door. You hadn’t even noticed that you had been gripping desperately onto the window sill until the throb running through your knuckles made you loosen them. You feel nothing but relief at the knowledge that they still know nothing, and begin to relax as you stare at them through your open window.

The sound of a door slamming outside makes you jump and hit your head on the bottom of the window frame. You see stars and your eyes grow tight again as you grasp onto the back of your head, feeling the shooting pains run through your skull and attempting to soothe them.

You pull yourself back in and glare at the window. Pressing your back further against the wall, you sigh dejectedly as you hear your father’s car pulling quickly out of the driveway. You shake your head, trying to rid yourself of the dizziness still flowing through you.

After hearing his car travel out of ear-shot, you knew that you could now leave and assess your wounds. But as you look back at your locked door, a chill creeps its way up your spine, making you reconsider your previous thoughts. Instead, you place your pillow back against the head of your bed, just deciding to go to sleep instead. Small blood spots dotting your pillow make you look twice at it. With a closer look, you realize that they’re still fresh. You wonder for a second how that happened, until you remember your torn arm.

You look at it and see blood smeared around the sides, as a rather large scrape runs its way from your wrist, nearly all the way down to your elbow. You stare at the near gash and feel a splinter poking into your arm because of the scratched and tarnished wood.

You knew you should at least go into the bathroom to clean it, or change your pillowcase. But the thought of leaving your room sets you on edge again, so you just settle for flipping your pillow over so the blood spots were on the bottom, and reaching underneath your bed for a random shirt to wrap around your wound.

As you settle in for another night of tortured sleep, you think back to your father driving off and suddenly have the strongest hopes that he crashes into a tree.

But right before you feel yourself fall into sleep, your wishful thinking is broken as your mind reminds you…

No, that would just get the cops here instead.