Excerpt: One Beat Shy

One Beat Shy

Prologue

“I hate you!” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted it. I knew I would die. Mother slung her legs over the bed. Her lacy blue nightgown hung down exposing one of her large breasts. A fire was in her eyes.

I ran to the bedroom and pushed my body against the door, all one hundred pounds of it, which didn't stand a chance when she hit it with her two hundred and fifty pounds. But still I tried. I pushed as adrenaline pumped in my head. There was no mistaking he look in her eyes.

The door gave, and I was trapped between the door and the wall, air leaving my body fast, sure I would bust through the cheap sheet rock wall.

“I'll make you thing you hate me!” he words were short and quiet compared to my begging. I had resorted to begging rather than smothering. She flung the door back and air flooded my lungs. “You stupid little bitch.” A wad of my hair was wrapped around her fingers. My head busted the wall the second time she pounded it on the spot.

I wasn't going to live through this beating. “I'm sorry. Please stop, Mama.” The only time I called her mama was during pleas, during her abuse. “You're going to send me to the hospital.” Sometimes this scared her.

“I know exactly what I'm doing. I want to hurt you. I don't care if you go to the hospital. No one will side with you this time.”

“I'm sorry.” I whispered, bu she never heard it. She was too busy screaming.

“You're a whore, a dirty little whore.”

The truth was I turned fourteen that year and only began to kiss boys.

She backed up to come in for the final attack. I spun around and threw myself on the bed. This was the stupidest move I could have made. Mother pulled the belt from behind her. It was one my dad wore when he was in the Air Force before he left us to live in a tiny two bedroom apartment. She flung the belt with the precision of a talented sportsman. No matter how many times I was beat with this belt, I never remembered how bad the first blow felt until the leather made contact with me. This time it curled around my skinny legs like a large serpent. The brass buckle dug into my shin. Blood spurted.

“Stop, please, stop.'

Mother changed some jumbled words like a spell and then hit me over and over. A white flash of light replaced my vision of the room. I realized I was praying to die aloud. This brought the blows harder and faster all over my body. I curled into a fetal position, no longer making sounds, almost accepting.

“Get you ass up! Get your ass up now!”

I moved one leg and the blows came swifter.
“I said move!”

I was alone in the world. I was going to die in the bedroom alone, unbearable. I struggled to my feet. My body moved from my body and I hung somewhere from the ceiling watching, accepting.

Mother dropped the belt. “Cover those marks! I don't want to see them! If I see those marks, I whip you again.”

A hysterical laugh began in the very pit of my stomach, but somehow I kept it down inside of my chest.

“It's your fault, Ann. You never know when to shut.” She walked from the room with her uneven limp that had marked her all her life.

The numbness and self-loathing once again filled me up and ran out of me as I shook. Pain began to pound in my legs and arms. How, how would I ever cover he marks left? How would I hide this from my world, from school?

Two days later, just as the bruises began to turn from purple to yellow, I was told to dress out in gym class. It was at this time I thought maybe someone would finally help me. But I knew I would never escape her. The smell of her skin, past her heavy fragrance and the scent of powder, the scent of something dead, wrong. I would never outrun her. She would always, always be two steps ahead, watching and waiting.