“What should I wear?” I knew that I should feel less concerned
about my appearance than with my conversation with Alec. There were many things that still needed to
be resolved between us. Yet, I couldn’t
help but dressing up in my nicest dark denim skirt and turquoise tunic and
fixing my hair in a neat French braid.
There was still a good half hour before he
was supposed to be here, so I decided to straighten the downstairs. Alec had never been inside this house before
and I couldn’t let him see the pile of beer cans that my mother had left in the
kitchen. Or inhale the stench they left,
for that matter. Luckily, in the front
closet, there was a half-full can of air freshener. I covered the house in the smell until not a
trace of the alcohol odor was detectable.
Replacing it on the shelf, my head turned slightly to see that James’
car was in the driveway. I opened up the
door and peeked outside.
“That’s weird,” I thought. James, my mother’s boyfriend, wasn’t anywhere
in sight, yet his car was in the driveway.
I checked in the kitchen.
Nothing. Next, I went into the
living room. Nada. Finally, I decided he was probably in mom’s
bedroom, where he spent most of his time, even when mom wasn’t home. Of course, now I wondered what he found so
interesting in that room when she wasn’t there.
After all, mom didn’t have a TV in her room and James wasn’t into
reading. Surely, he wasn’t sleeping all
that time, was he?
There was only one thing to do: find out
why he spent so much time in that room.
My feet crept quietly up the stairs, careful not to spook him. I just had to know what he found so
interesting. As my hand silently turned
the knob, I nearly threw the door open in anticipation. “Whoops,” I whispered as I slipped in only to
realize James wasn’t in there. “Where on
earth could he be?”
Walking around carefully as to leave my
presence untraceable, I searched the room, looking for something, anything to
solve the mystery of James’ absence. As
I neared the closet, a stream of light from the floor caught my eye. I remembered the door between here and
Charity’s room. Without thinking, I
crawled through the open door and tumbled into Charity’s closet.
“Do we really have to do this again? We just did it two days ago.” I heard the small, timid voice of my baby
sister.
“Yes, I already told you that. If you don’t do exactly as I tell you, I’m
going to tell everyone what a filthy little slut you are. Now, take off your clothes.” He said, scrutinizing her careful movements.
It suddenly all made sense. James spending the majority of his time at
our house, “napping” in our mother’s bedroom.
Charity’s withdrawn and abnormal behavior. Her reluctance to let me even come into her
bedroom. All this time I thought she
was just upset about our parents’ divorce.
Obviously I was wrong.
Untamed fury overtook me. I marched up to the creep and found a
baseball bat from Charity’s closet in my hands.
I struck him once on the back and felt a small release of my anger. Suddenly, the anger that had collected since
my parents’ divorce rose to the surface.
All the hurt and the pain seemed to dull with each blow. “Don’t you ever do that to my sister
again!” The bat hit him in the leg
twice, then on the arm and I continued to strike him as hard as I could.
“You’re hurting me,” he shouted as he
cowered on the carpet floor. Blood began
appearing in random places on his body.
“I don’t care,” I screamed at the top of
my lungs.
“Faith, you’re going to kill him,”
Charity’s eyes met with mine for a brief moment, but I continued to hit him.
The door slammed open. “What is going on in here?” I heard a familiar voice say, but I didn’t
look up. Before I could realize what was
happening, I felt a man’s arms around my waist, pulling me away from James.
“Let me go!” I flailed and tried to escape
the firm grip.
“Stop it, Faith. You’re going to kill him if you don’t.” Alec’s firm, nonstuttering voice was enough
to stop me in my tracks.
“You don’t understand, Alec. He hurt Charity. This creep has been raping my baby sister. He doesn’t deserve to live!” I meant it with all my heart, yet the fierce
anger in my heart was enough to even scare me.
“I know, but you’ll only hurt yourself by
doing this.” His hard grip on me
loosened as the bat fell to the floor.
Carefully, examining the now unconscious body of my mother’s boyfriend,
I realized that blood covered his arms and legs. Alec had probably just saved me from committing
a murder I would regret later in life.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” Alec exited the
room, leaving me alone with my sister.
Guilt and shame quickly replaced the
anger. All these months, I just thought
my sister was upset about our parents’ divorce.
I’d been so wrapped up in myself that I never knew she was secretly
being raped by my mother’s creep of a boyfriend. Nearly running to her side, I wrapped my arms
tightly around her and sobbed. “Charity,
I’m sorry. Sissy, I’m so sorry I let this
happen to you.”
My shirt quickly became wet with the
mingled tears of mine and my sister’s.
“That’s okay, Faith. It’s my
fault for not telling you.”
I pulled away from her slightly so as to
look her in the eyes. “No, this was not
your fault at all. I want you to
understand that. Nothing that James did
to you is your fault, you understand?”
She gave a partial nod and I embraced her once again. We were still like this when the paramedics
barged in. They asked us to exit the
room and I gladly followed their orders.
It was becoming difficult to look and the unconscious man in my sister’s
room without feeling like crying over my sister.
Alec and a middle-aged police officer with
a slightly protruding belly were standing downstairs in the living room. Apprehension threatened to overwhelm me as I
thoughts about the possible consequences of my actions. Would I go to jail? Would they put me on probation? What if I could never leave the house
again? Thoughts began to race along with
my heart.
“Hello, Miss Johnson. Alec here was just explaining the situation
to me. Right now we’ll take your sister
to the hospital to get examined, but afterwards we’ll need you both to come
down to the station and answer some questions, okay?” He smiled and patted my shoulder as if to
reassure me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I would soon be suffering
the consequences of my unchecked anger.
© 2015 Hannah Rollett
