Between Friends by D. L. Sparks Page A

bruises from the fights with my father with the makeup she would sneak from her mom’s room.
    â€œHe gon’ get his one day, Trip. You just watch,” she would always say as she gently applied the tacky mixture to my bruised skin.
    I turned the water on in the fancy sink, bent down, and splashed some water on my face before pulling my locs back in preparation for my shower. I looked up into the mirror. Stared at the man staring back at me. I tried to see past him—didn’t want to see him—but I couldn’t escape him.
    It was my father.
    I saw him in my hazel eyes, in the hardness of my jaw line. I’d even inherited his long eyelashes. It was his face. I was becoming him.
    Everyone always told me that I looked just like him, and I fought hard to reject that my entire life. Always insisting that I looked like my mother. I didn’t want to give that asshole credit for anything. He didn’t deserve shit but the dirt resting on top of him.
    I closed my eyes against the memory, but it hit me like a runaway train.
    Â 
    I was ten years old when I was awakened by my mother’s scream. She was cowering in the corner of the bed that rested against the dark wall. My mom, my little sister, and I were all crammed into a twin-sized bed in a small bedroom on the second floor of my grandmother’s house. My little sister was huddled with her in the corner. She was clinging to her nightgown, with eyes wide as saucers. I was at the foot of the bed.
    I felt my mom’s hand on my leg. “It’s okay,” she whispered.
    All of a sudden my dad’s voice came booming through the room. He was screaming at my mother, accusing her of sleeping around. I could tell he was drunk. He smelled of liquor and cigarette smoke. He was probably high off some weed or something, but I wouldn’t have known the difference. The screams that escaped my mother’s lips were due to the crutch that he was using to beat her.
    â€œI swear to you, I didn’t,” she cried, barely above a whisper. She pressed her body closer to the wall. Tried to sink into it. Holding my sister, trying to shield her. I Stayed under the covers. Pulled them farther over my head. I didn’t raise my head, only craned my neck enough to see my mother’s face. The light from the hallway was falling across the bed; she had a look of terror in her eyes. It was a look I’d seen many times before.
    He swung his weapon of choice again, this time catching her on her leg and clipping my foot. I scrambled to the head of the bed, ready to protect my mother with my tiny body. He looked at me and scowled, ready to challenge me as always, but the crutch broke from that last blow. I could hear the wood crack and the pieces hit the hardwood floor.
    He threw what was left of the shattered wood to the floor. The crutch was my uncle’s. He had had a motorcycle accident and had broken his leg a couple months before. The crutches were still around the house. He turned and walked out of the room. He was mumbling and calling my mother every name but what her mother had given her. I heard the change in his pocket jingling along with the keys in his hand as he stumbled out of the room and down the steps.
    My mother looked tired, worn, and much older than her license said. The tears ran down her face as she sobbed in the corner. After hearing the front door slam shut downstairs, my mother slid out of the bed, hobbled on her bruised legs, and padded to the bedroom door. She leaned against the door frame for a second; I guess she was making sure he was really gone.
    Her thin nightgown clung to her sweaty body. Her breathing was ragged and fast. She slipped out of the room into the hallway and then down the stairs. I heard the locks click and the chain rattle on the front door as she did everything she could to lock out her attacker. To lock out my father. My mother limped back in the room and crawled into bed. She grimaced out of pain