Behind the Façade

---------Carson---------

I open the front door to my house and step inside carefully, closing the door softly behind me. The house is silent, and I hurry for Brianna’s room, but as I reach the banister I hear a hideous cackle that sends shivers down my spine. I spin to face my father standing behind me, a broken beer bottle in his hand and a menacing smirk playing on his lips.

“Where oh where has little Carson been?” he slurs, grabbing my arm and slamming me against the wall. "I've been waiting for you."

He smashes his beer bottle on the wall above my head, sending glass shards over me, slicing into my forehead, and scattering onto the floor. A streak of blood runs down my face and hits the floor. I cover my head to protect myself from more shards of glass and bite my tongue to keep myself from crying out in pain as he throws his fist towards my cheek.

“You going to answer me or you going to make me guess?” He grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks it, causing me to tumble to my knees before kicking me repeatedly in the sides. I bite the sides of my cheeks, begging not to make a sound. The inside of my mouth is sour with the taste of blood, but I ignore it, letting myself fall to the ground as he kicks at my legs. My father sneers and stands over me,

“Stand up, you worthless bitch,” he spits. I don’t move, and he kicks hard at my stomach. “Stand up!” he repeats. I shake my head furiously, and he kicks me in the ribs, so hard the wind feels like it whooshes right out of my chest, just as my cell phone begins to ding from the pocket of my jacket.

“Little Carson’s getting a phone call.” He leans down and grabs my shoulders, yanking me to my feet and strikes me with the back of his hand, sending me towards the stairs. I stumble backwards and trip over the bottom step, landing hard on my back. He sneers and reaches down to my pocket, pulling my phone out and whipping it open.

“Carson!” I hear Brianna’s terrified voice scream through the phone, her voice shaking. “I’m upstairs, in my room, where are you?” my father lets out a hideous cackle and pulls the phone right to his mouth.

“I’ll be right up,” he says monstrously, snapping my phone shut and throwing it across the room. He reaches over and snatches a shard of glass from where the pieces of his beer bottle lay. Giving me one final blow to the ribs, he kicks me off the stairs and heads for Brianna’s room.

“No!” I scream, running after him. “Don’t touch Brianna!” I reach the end of the hallway to find my father standing across the hallway from her closed door. I clench my fists, my nails digging into the palms of my hands and run at him.

“Open this damn door, Brianna!” he screams. “Or I swear I’ll knock it down and you’ll be dead by the time I’m finished with you!” I hear Brianna’s whimpers coming from the other side of the door. I silently beg her not to make any noise; it was what made it so fun for my father.

My father takes a running leap and throws himself at her door repeatedly. A slim crack appears in the center of it, and I can hear Brianna’s muffled screams escape from the inside of her room. I ram into my father just as he prepares to hit the door again, with no success. He guffaws loudly and throws me off of him, knocking me to the floor before ramming into the door again.

Weakly, I crawl to the stairs and grab the crow bar he kept hidden in the corner. Shaking, I pull myself to my feet and run at my father again. This time he has his back to me, and I, gripping the crow bar so tightly that my knuckles turn white, strike him in the back of the head. He wobbles on his feet, his eyes roll upwards and his fists drop the shard of glass he’d been holding, and he crashes to the floor.

Wasting no time, I step over him and bang on Brianna’s door, “Brianna it’s me, everything’s okay.”

“What about dad?” she whispers fearfully.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I took care of it. I want you to stay in there, okay? Keep your door locked and don’t open it for anybody, alright?”

“Okay,” she whimpers.

“Stay strong,” I whisper, turning to face my father’s crumpled body. I pick up his arm and drag him towards his bedroom, leaving him on the floor. I lock his door from the inside and close it, hurrying downstairs to pick up the mess before he wakes up.

As I scrub the bloody floor with a sponge, my phone rings loudly from the other side of the room. I hurry to it, hoping the noise won’t wake my father, and snap it open without checking to see who it is.

“Hello?” I whisper.

“Carson?” Hunter’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Is that you? Are you okay? You don’t sound very good…”

“Hunter this is not the time,” I hiss.

“Why are you whispering?” he asks. “Carson, what’s going on? You sounded so scared on the phone earlier…you said something about not letting him hit…”

“My dog,” I lie. “My father gets so mad at my dog when he has an accident… I just don’t want him to hit Bri- Breeze… again.” I winced; my lie didn’t even seem convincing to me. Hunter sighed.

“Fine,” he says doubtfully.

“I really have to go,” I hiss, and without waiting for a reply I hang up, turn my phone on silent, and continue cleaning up the mess my father’s left behind him. Again.