I fell asleep to my father slamming his fists against my bedroom door. My eyes were finally heavy enough to take my mind off of the twisting pain in my stomach. I was so hungry, but I wasn’t about to face my father.

I started to dream about my mother; about all the times I watched my dad make her feel like she was nothing. I tried to let her know before she died that she was everything to me. For a while, she believed me. My dad liked his drink. He liked it a lot more than even something as small as bringing my mother flowers. The last couple of years, he’s also started taking pills for some old injury. Now with the pills and the drink, he cares about them even more than feeding his family.

I woke up and my head was pounding. My father was still pounding against the door. I’ve heard him yell so much before, that I’m able to tune it out and fall back asleep. I never dream about my father, only my mother. In my dreams, she listens to me about leaving him. Only in my dreams. I think if he had ever gone the extra step of laying his hands on me, my mother might have actually left. It’s too late for that now though. She’s gone.

My stomach wakes me up. My father isn’t pounding on the door anymore. I can’t stay here any longer. I’ll starve. I quietly move the chair that I had tucked up underneath the door knob, and then I try to quietly unlock the door.

POP

The sound is too loud. I open the door. It’s just the hallway. I walk down and I pass by the big mirror on the wall. I was twelve when I went into that room three days ago. I don’t look twelve anymore. I walk into the kitchen, and my mother is still lying on the floor. He’s been feasting off of her for the last three days, and what’s left doesn’t look like her anymore.

I start crying. If I had done something sooner; stood up to him before he became whatever he is now, we’d be somewhere else. She’d still be with me. My stomach lets out a gurgle that echoes, and then I hear a wail come from the back of the house.

I know I can run out the back door and hide somewhere, like I used to when he would hurt her. I never stood up for her the way I should have. She would want me to stand up now. I grab the rolling pin off of the table still crusted over with the cookie dough that my mother was in the middle of rolling out. I also grab the butcher knife from the block and I turn around. He’s standing there behind me waiting to pounce. The outside of him finally matches what he always was inside. I’m never backing down again.