Page 130 of Tiny Fractures
Fuck, this isn’t good. I desperately try to make my way out of the house, hoping I’ll be able to make it out through the sliding glass door to the backyard.
“Ronan, stop moving and turn the fuck around,” my mother orders me, and there’s something in her eyes that scares me more than ever. Or maybe it’s the blankness, the way her gaze is devoid of any compassion. Unlike in the past, I don’t obey her order; I don’t stop, my eyes moving between her face and the hockey stick she’s obviously intent on beating me with. Fuck that.
“I’m warning you, Ronan,” she yells. “Don’t fucking try me!”
I just shake my head at her, continuing to tread backwards. I don’t know where this resolve to defy her suddenly comes from—does love do that, too? Give you strength and courage you didn’t know you had? Part of me is very, very aware that I’m playing with fucking fire. I’m internally screaming at myself to stop moving and take whatever punishment she’s intent on dishing out, but something is different today. Her rage, her hate seemingly radiate off her, crashing against me, and I know without a shadow of doubt that I’m in real fucking danger. My life is in danger.
“Mom, no,” I urge, holding my hands up in front of me when she raises my hockey stick over her shoulder, winding it up, ready to swing like a baseball bat. But her pupils are huge, swallowing the green of her eyes, and her face is filled with pure rage.
“I’m so god damn tired of you doing whatever you fucking want. You’re just like your father. You don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself,” she screams, and begins swinging the hockey stick, aiming for my face over and over again, but I manage to duck and avoid it every time.
“You’re a worthless piece of shit, Ronan,” she shouts, increasing her pace, diminishing the distance between us even more. “All the fucking sacrifices I’ve made,” she screams, taking another swing at me, but she misses. “Me. I did it all. And you just take and take.”
Another swing; another miss.
I don’t understand what she’s saying; I don’t know what set her off. I don’t know why she’s so vicious today. Though I don’t try to figure it out as I continue to back up into the living room, keeping an eye on her and the weapon in her hands. My adrenaline is in overdrive, shutting down all thoughts, all emotions, everything but the most primal survival instinct as I try to figure out a way to escape her. I attempt to calculate my odds of getting out of here unharmed, or at least alive.
But I’m not lucky enough to get away from her. As my mother pulls the hockey stick back yet again, my heel catches on the small area rug on the living-room floor. I trip and stumble, and I desperately try to regain my balance.
The stick swings forward and crashes into my face right below my left eye, splitting my skin open. The pain is blinding. The force of my mother’s hit causes me to fall backwards into the glass coffee table, which shatters under my weight.
A million tiny shards of glass surround me, digging into my flesh, cutting my back, my arms, my hands as I lie on the floor. I struggle to get up quickly, knowing that the longer I’m on the ground, the more vulnerable I am.
I feel like a wounded animal backed into a corner, and while I would have just relinquished myself to my mother in the past, everything feels different today. And not just her anger, but my need to defend myself, to get the hell out of here, to escape her unjust punishment, to fight back.
My mother steps toward me, my hockey stick raised over her head, ready to swing it at me again. I can’t say it happens voluntarily or is in any way planned or premeditated, but I kick my leg out and into her knee, hard.
She’s thrown off-balance and falls down.
The split second my mother hits the ground, I scramble to push myself off the floor, the shards of glass piercing the palms of my hands, cutting them open. I barely even feel the pain. I just need to get out of this house, need to get to the backyard.
I get half upright, finally regaining my footing. I take two hurried steps—the broken glass making a crunchy sound under the soles of my shoes—my left hand reaching for the glass door only a few feet away from me, when I see my mother move out my periphery.
“You’ve lost your god damn mind, Ronan!” she shrieks, somehow swinging my hockey stick into my leg. She hooks my ankle and yanks it back, and I slam face-first back to the floor. The pain shooting through my left shoulder knocks the wind out of me, and I groan with the effort to roll onto my right side. I’m still desperate to evade my mother, who’s back on her feet now, her eyes wide with hatred.
“You think you can kick me, you piece of shit?” she screams, and brings my hockey stick down on me with as much force as she can muster. “You think you just get to defy me? To disrespect me in my own damn house? I will fucking teach you, Ronan!”
I’m utterly unprotected while she beats me. My face, my head, my shoulders, my back, my stomach, my knees—none of it is off limits, and she keeps hitting me with no relief in sight, hacking and slashing away at me as I try to protect my body against the blows.
I hear bones cracking, and pain pools in the areas where the hard wood of the hockey stick connects with my body. It spreads through every muscle, into every nerve. I keep trying to find a way to get up and off the ground, but the blows, the hits, the pain keep forcing me back to the floor.
Finally, my mother slams her heeled foot down on my left hand so violently that it breaks.
It’s not enough. Her rage is unyielding, blinding as she takes it all out on my bruised, bleeding body, all the while screaming at me, reminding me that I’m nothing—unwanted, unworthy, unloved. When she swings the hockey stick over her head and brings it down on my right knee cap, it fractures it into what feels like a million pieces. The pain that tears through my body makes my vision go black for a moment.
I cry out, begging—for the first time—for her to stop. “Mom… please… no more,” I plead with a groan, my voice constricted with pain, barely able to get the words out.
“You know how I hate it when you beg, you piece of shit. If you beg me for anything, beg for me to put you out of your misery. Come on, Ronan! Beg! Beg for me to kill you!” she screams, and crashes my hockey stick into my body again.
The wood splinters with a loud crack, and my mother throws the now-useless weapon to the floor with a thud. But it’s still not over, and I know it won’t be over until I’m dead. Until she has beaten the life out of me. Instead, she begins kicking me in the face and stomach, unforgiving, relentless. I can feel warm blood streaming down my forehead and cheek where my skin is split open and raw from the impact of her tireless blows.
Everything hurts and I’m nauseated. My body is weak, no longer able to guard against my mother’s violence. She continues to kick me, taking advantage of my inability to protect all of me at once, finding the vulnerable areas that remain uncovered while my arms attempt to shield my head and face from more kicks and more injuries.
I’m pretty sure my nose is broken, my left eye is already swollen shut, and my ears ring as I beg her to stop—beg for my life, without avail. My mother is the embodiment of wrath, and it dawns on me that I probably won’t make it out of this alive. This time, she may finally step over the edge. But this time I have something to lose, and the thought of not being able to see Cat again is as painful as my mother’s unyielding blows.
I need to get up somehow; I need to get out of here. So I gather every last bit of strength left in my battered, bleeding body, relying on sheer adrenaline—because I truly have nothing else left—and I move my unbroken hand to push myself off the ground. The sharp edges of the glass scattered on the floor violently embed themselves in the palm of my hand. Big mistake.
My mother’s right foot slams into my mouth, knocking me back to the ground. I feel my skin tear open as I start to black out from the pain consuming my body. Every inch of me is on fire, my insides burning.