“Come on. Get it together! Stop being such an idiot!” my dad yelled at me as we sat playing cribbage together with my older sister in the living room.

“God damn it, what are you doing!” I flinched away from his violent words as I tried to stop the tears that were welling in my eyes.
“I’m sorry. I made a mistake,” I said trying to be as polite as possible.

“Well, maybe if you weren’t such a dumb little s*** you wouldn’t make such stupid mistakes!” he yelled back at me. It didn’t matter what I said; I was always doing something wrong in his eyes.

He was sitting on the coffee table that was right in front of the couch my sister and I were currently occupying. We kept on playing like this for a while, me making a mistake, my dad yelling at me, and my sister sitting in silence. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but at some point in the midst of our game he called me a dumb ass. Being so sick of his verbal abuse, I reacted without thinking, and kicked him in the face. What he did next though was uncalled for. He picked me up and threw me across the room I landed hard on my side at the foot of the little couch. He then picked up the little metal brain teaser he had on the coffee table and whipped it at me; it hit me in the knee. That wasn’t enough for him though, so he grabbed his almanac from table next to the couch and threw that at me too. That one hit me in the head. He then leaped across the room in one quick motion and grabbed me by the shirt and started dragging me across the floor. When I tried to get up he shoved me back down so my whole body slammed into the ground sending a surge of pain through my chest. On our way out of the living room my shoulder slammed into the door frame, I yelped as I felt the sharp jabbing pain in my shoulder he just kept dragging me though. When we finally got to my room he picked me off the floor by my shirt and threw me onto the floor in my room. He then walked away. I laid in the fetal position on my floor sobbing for only a couple minutes before he was back again and ready to go another round.

“Get up and get your ass into the living room”

“No, I don’t want to,” I said back trying to sound as determined as possible. He marched into my room wrenched me off the ground, grabbed me tight by the arm, and forced me into the living room.

“If you ever do that to any of your friends, I will give them full permission to kick the living s*** out of you! Do you understand!?” He was crouched down so his purple face was only one inch from mine. He was so close that I could see the vein on the side of his head was popping out. I didn’t respond. I could barely talk through the tears.

“Well, do yaw!?” he asked as he slapped me in the head.
“Yes, I understand,” I replied as loudly as I could
“What!?” he screamed so the whole neighborhood could hear him.
“Yes, I understand,” I tried again
“Ok, good. Now go to your room!” I ran out of there as quickly as I could.

My sister joined me in our shared room shortly after. She didn’t say anything she just put on her pajamas and got into bed. We laid there in silence for a while, neither of us wanting to speak, because we knew if we did we’d have to admit to ourselves what just really happened. I lay in bed thinking about all the horrible things my dad has said to me over the years. He quite often liked to call me things like flabby or Flabs. Those were his terms of affection though it wasn’t until he was mad that he called me things like piece of s*** or little b****.

“You can’t tell anyone,” my sister finally said breaking the silence

“I won’t” I replied.

“No really you can’t, they’ll take us away from him”

“I won’t” I repeated more forcefully and I never did.