Page 135 of Where Your Scars Meet Mine
“You’re getting mouthy,” he says.
I hadn’t said anything.
That doesn’t matter either.
The room gets quieter.
Even the TV feels farther away now, all its bright fake people fading into background noise. My heart starts up hard enough that I can feel it in my throat. I know this part. This is the point where the night decides if it’s going to stay ugly or become unforgettable.
Pushing off the sink, he walks toward me slowly.
Barely a stumble now.
That’s worse.
Because sometimes the drunkest nights are the safest. Sometimes he falls asleep in his boots. Sometimes he throws up in the bathroom and never makes it back out. The dangerous nights are the ones where the alcohol sharpens him instead of dulling him. Where it peels away the last of whatever kept his hands to himself.
He stops over me.
I can smell the whiskey on his breath before he speaks.
“Look at me.”
I do.
Because not looking is one kind of danger, and looking is another. At least this one gives me half a second warning.
The TV flickers blue over his face. He looks older tonight. Meaner too. Tired in the cruel way men get when they think the world owes them a softer life and decide to collect on whoever’s closest when it doesn’t.
“You got your mother’s eyes,” he says.
The sentence lands like a slap.
Not because it’s affectionate. Because it isn’t. In his mouth, nothing about her is clean.
I don’t answer.
His hand comes down faster than I expect, fingers hooking hard into my jaw, forcing my face up higher. Not enough to break anything. Enough to remind me he could.
“I said,” he murmurs, leaning in, “you got your mother’s eyes.”
My own breath goes shallow.
He uses that grip to study me for one long, unbearable second, and in that second, something in me shifts. Not courage. Not yet. Something colder. Something that has been building quietly for years under bruises, broken plates, and nights like this one.
Because I know this look.
I know what kind of night this is now.
For the first time, instead of feeling only fear, I feel the first clean edge of something else.
“And you’re a piece of shit-”
My jaw barely starts the last word before his palm slams across my face, cracking my head sideways so hard I see double. The TV’s busted corner flashes twice. Blood floods my mouth. Staggering, I spit, trying to lunge for the hallway.
He catches the back of my shirt and rips me off my feet, slamming me onto the busted coffee table. Splinters bite my side. Clawing at the carpet, dragging myself toward the door, his boot crashes between my shoulders and pins me flat. The weight knocks the air out of me. I choke, sucking in dust and stale beer.
“Don’t you talk to me like that, boy,” he snarls, breath hot with whiskey. The boot grinds harder.
