When Our Worlds Collide (Our Worlds #1)(46)
“Quit being ridiculous and will you please quiet down? I know who he is, but that doesn’t give him a free pass to be a dick.”
“Fair enough and what’s with the cursing by the way? I mean I like the fire, but it’s not like you at all.” Violet laughs. “Now, are you going to go to the baseball game tomorrow?”
“I don’t think I should. Craig asked me to go. I’m just thinking that I should keep my distance from him for now.”
“You’ll say you’ll go for Craig, but in reality you will have your eyes on the pitcher’s mound the entire time. This should be interesting.” Violet rolls her eyes in the over the top way she can only do. “How is it possible that two of the hottest guys in school are trying to get in your pants?”
“I told you already. Someone must have drugged the water supply because it doesn’t make any sense.” We both laugh. We knew it was the truth.
Our waitress comes by the table to take our orders shortly after. Violet being the friend that she is drops the subject immediately. The rest of the meal is filled with conversations about Dan. She still claims that they are just “friends”. It’s cute how her face lights up when she talks about him. I know that there’s more to them, she just isn’t willing to admit it yet. Violet simply hooking up with someone looked different than this. If she’s intrigued by someone she will fall at their feet for a week solid, but it never lasts longer than that. Apparently she and Dan have been at it for almost two months which is impressive for her normal standards for a healthy relationship.
After dinner, Violet drops me off at home and opts out of coming inside to watch a movie. By the way she diligently keeps checking the screen on her phone every five seconds, it’s obvious that she has other plans for the night. I don’t mind. She deserves to go out and have fun. Plus I only want to crawl into my bed, turn out my lights, and read a book until I fall asleep without thinking about a certain baseball player.
And I did exactly that.
At least I was until my phone started to buzz on my night stand. I’m woken from a deep slumber that I was thoroughly enjoying. I reach over in a confused haze rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My breath leaves my lungs as I spark my phone to life. The moment I see the text I instantly regret not ignoring it. There’s no going back now. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.
Chapter TwentyFour
-Graham-
Tonight is even worse than Monday. My father is at it again, destroying every last inch of this family. They must be in the kitchen. The sound of his voice echoes down the hall through our front entryway. I attempt to escape upstairs before he even knows I’m home. He catches me before I can finish the climb of the first set of stairs. He takes long strides towards me until he’s standing inches away from my face. I can smell the whiskey on his breath, his drink of choice. Just the smell alone makes my stomach churn.
“Did you get your curveball down at practice? The last time I saw you pitching you looked like an amateur. You won’t gain the attention from scouts that way, son,” he yells slurring most of his words. Slur is becoming his first language. I manage to hold back a laugh when he calls me son. Must be a joke because the man in front of me is not my father. He hasn’t been for a long time. An even bigger joke is him criticizing my pitching. The last time he was actually at a game was probably last year. Alcohol makes him delusional.
“I’m not really in the mood right now,” I snap back in annoyance. I know my attitude will only set him off. After this week I don’t care. I purposefully look straight into his eyes challenging him.
“Not in the mood? Not in the fucking mood? You know what I’m not in the mood for…your piss poor attitude.” When he speaks he spits a little in my face. I tighten the grip on my baseball bag to stop myself from knocking him out like I always dream of doing.
My mom comes down the hallway with the usual fearful look on her face. That look of fear seems to be plastered on her face more and more lately. She grabs ahold of my father’s arm with a determination to stop his assault. He shoves her against the hallway closet slamming her back into the bronze door knob. The sound that the connection makes thickens the air. I reach down to help her from the ground where she is now cowering in the corner. A look crosses her face. She’s only afraid of what kind of marking his assault will leave this time. Luckily it’s on her back which will be easier to hide compared to the other ones.
I anticipate the hit before I actually feel his fist connect with my ribs. A shooting pain spreads across the plane of my ribcage causing me to barrel over onto the cold tiled floor. There’s no controlling the verbal wince I express. It only means that I deserve one more good blow. He’s fucked up in the head like that.
When the abuse first started I can remember him saying that if I cried, shed any tears, then I would receive an extra blow. I was eleven. I was a large eleven year old who couldn’t fight back when everything in me was screaming at me to do just that. My mother used to always clean me up explain to me that he didn’t mean it, that it was her fault for him being the way he is. I believed her. As I got older she warned me that if I retaliated then she would get the brunt of the punishment. I never did understand why she just couldn’t leave him or at least tell someone what was happening to us behind locked doors. It could have saved a lot of hurt, a lot of destruction.