i only know i let you

He went into the bathroom on all fours. Gritted his teeth. He was not going to cry. His lips were wet, swelling up, dripping onto the carpet. Why the hell had Mom gotten white carpet?

Why did Mom do a lot of things?

He closed the door softly. The click of the latch made his heart push harder out of his chest. The last thing Trevor wanted was to wake his old man up. He jabbed the button lock (Though that wouldn't stop that man, not if he wanted at the kid bad enough.), another click, slouched against the cabinets built under the sink. He didn't feel anything now. Completely numb. He couldn't even think. He wondered if that's what Angeldust felt like. He could find out any time, knew were Mom's stash was at. There was a unspoken agreement between them to pretend he didn't know what she did locked in her room. But when she'd come out, come into his room when he was laying in bed, gently brush his hair from his forehead... he could smell it on her fingers, on her lips when she bent down to kiss him, on her breath, sticking to her clothes, that smoke.

Oh, and then there were the times when the side effects kicked in and she was freaking out about beavers on their couch and her hands becoming straw.

(He tried to tell himself he didn't care, he wasn't worried about her, but somewhere back there, pushed between his ribs, in his marrow, maybe, he knew he was lying to himself.)



He pulled himself up to the sink, turned on the cold water, let it run. Stared at it. Finally looked at himself in the mirror. In the reflection he saw his father. He couldn't look himself in the eye. He liked to think that that man wasn't his father, that Mom'd cheated on him that one time. But they had the same hallow cheeks, they had the same strong chin. Had the same ugly grey colored eyes, mousey brown hair. They were just too damn similar.

And she would never be unfaithful to him.

His left eye was already swelled closed. He'd have a nice black one tomorrow. He grimaced at touching it. Needed some ice. But that was all over the living room floor.

He clenched his fists, tried not to think about it, about everything, felt a migraine coming on. And then on impulse he grabbed the bottle of peroxide off the shelf to his right. Had trouble unscrewing the lid. Poured it all over his head. It ran down the sides of his face and over the welts from the belt strap, into the cuts from when his old man had started to use the end with the buckle. Those stung bad.



Next day, limbs hanging over the sides of the bathtub, the sound of a wire scratching in the lock. Slowly, the door creaking open. Slippers scuffing over the tile. His mother's fingers in his hair, smelling again like burn rubber, like body order, that stench. Murmuring to herself, something he wasn't tuning in to.

Oh just the opposite of numb now, every muscle aching, his whole body feeling heavy as he pulled himself out of the tub, his sock wet from the leaky faucet dripping on it all night.

"Your hair, what'd you do to your hair?" she asks softly. "My baby, a bleach blonde."

He kicked the peroxide bottle out of the middle of the floor, didn't even look at her, pretended that she wasn't there, her hands still reaching up, touching his hair.

"That can make you all bald... or bleach blonde... blonde."



Left her there, in the bathroom. He'd skip out on that thing called school. Could take his buddy Sam's pickup out for the day, 'round downtown (wouldn't tell Sam that). Nobody screwed with you when you were already that wreaked if you didn't screw with them first. Visit up his scummiest friends if he could find them; probably Dingo's place. Make up a good story about some big brawl he got into, imagine fighting back.