- Taylor's POV -
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I let out a deep sigh as I set my bag down. Everyone seemed to be out of the house at the moment. The twins probably had soccer practice. That gave me the rest of the afternoon to work on homework.
After surfing the internet for an indistinguishable amount of time, I pushed my laptop away, then dragged it back toward me. My history teacher had assigned a short essay about any important event in the 1800s. I figured I’d better get to work. Although I usually did well, essays and other writing homework didn’t come easily to me.
I struggled to write the assignment. For some reason, a song I’d never heard before echoed through my mind. I found myself humming some sort of epic soundtrack tune. What the heck? I thought. I don’t recognize this song at all…it must be from a movie I saw a long time ago…
Pausing work on my project, I leaned back in my chair and frowned. Maybe if I keep singing it… I pulled up the song finding app on my phone and hummed it into the receiver. Sure enough, it came up with a soundtrack from a movie--one I’d never seen or heard of. I was puzzled. How can I be singing something I’ve never heard?
As soon as I had the thought, the track vanished from my head. I blinked. What in the world? Scrunching up my eyes, I tried my best to remember how the tune had gone. Try as I might, it had left my mind.
I tapped the sample track on my app. Maybe this will help me remember… The song sounded new. It was like it had erased itself from my mind, never to return.
My heart began to beat just a bit faster. Okay, that was weird, I thought. That was really odd. Did I imagine it?
Suddenly, I felt a stabbing pain in my left index finger. “Ow!” I yelped. “What the—?”
There was a thin slice on the side of my finger, with a drop of blood sliding down my skin. A papercut.
I looked at my desk.
There was no paper near my fingers. In fact, the only paper on my desk was a stack of notes from history class, and it was in the far right corner of my desk. Otherwise, my laptop was the only thing near my hand.
I felt my pulse speed up.
Panic slowly rose in my throat. “What is happening?" I squeaked. My eyes were locked on my finger; the small drop of blood had made its way down the back of my hand now. I rapidly brought it to my mouth and sucked on it to keep the red liquid from splashing on anything.
Deliberately, I took my finger out of my mouth and breathed in, then out, then in again. Calm, I told myself. Stay calm. You’re freaking out over nothing. There’s got to be a logical explanation for this. Of course there’s an explanation. My realistic side kicked in. “Things just don’t randomly start bleeding, Taylor,” I lectured myself. “You’re overreacting. You must have cut it on something on your desk. Something you didn’t see.”
I investigated my desk. It was simple—just a small table, pretty much. I ran my fingers along the corners and edges. Nothing was abnormally sharp. A quick test of my laptop revealed the same results.
My mind raced, but I forced it to slow down. “Overthinking,” I stated out loud, to cement it into my head. “I’m overthinking. That’s all. My finger didn’t just start bleeding of its own accord. That’s just ridiculous.”
Even so, the cut stung.
I glared at it.
Annoyed, I grabbed some alcohol from the bathroom and swabbed it. It stung more. “Well, I’m not imagining it,” I said, wrapping the papercut in a bandaid. I knew it didn’t need one, but I wanted to cover it up. I was frustrated with myself for overreacting over a small cut, and frustrated with the cut itself. For no reason. I was just frustrated.
Placing my hands on the bathroom counter, I glared at my reflection in the mirror. “Get yourself together, woman!” I whispered fiercely. “You have a history assignment to write. Now focus and get to work!”
My angry face scowled back at me.
I made an exasperated sound and stalked back to my room.
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Mom served me a piece of pizza. I smiled at her. “Don’t feel bad for not cooking,” I said gently, trying to comfort her. “It’s not your fault.”
She smiled back at me. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. “Thank you, darling,” she whispered, hugging me. I held her tightly.
When she had come home from the boys’ soccer practice, I was lost in my history project. She had practically run to my room. Flinging the door open wide, she had collapsed onto my bed.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she had sobbed. “I can’t do this!”
I was a bit shocked. Rising from my desk, I sat beside her. “What’s wrong?”
Between crying and wiping her eyes, she told me all that had happened. Dad had come to the boys’ practice and yelled at her for no apparent reason, calling her a worthless excuse for a wife and other names. The scene he had made was loud enough to catch most of the eyes on the field. Dad had finally stalked off, leaving Mom broken and humiliated. It had been all she could do to drive home through the haze of tears.
As she unloaded onto me, anger rose in my chest. I wrapped my arms around her shaking form and held her. Furious thoughts directed toward my dad had run through my head. I was almost ready to give him a piece of my mind, but Mom begged me not to do anything.
“He’s walking all over you!” I spat. “Mom, he's taking advantage of your submission and grinding you into the dust!”
But still she had convinced me not to do anything.
I had suggested a divorce. She had said she’d think about it. She’d already been thinking about it.
I just hoped she’d make it happen before he hurt her even more.
Back to the present, I released Mom from the hug. We shared a mother-daughter understanding look, and I sat down again. Dad was at the head of the table, scrolling through something on his phone.
The boys were making stupid jokes. I laughed at and with them. Elijah winked exaggeratedly at me several times and pointed under the table. I peeked. There was a rubber lizard in his hand.
He jerked his head toward Isaac, who was gibberish talking to Emilie, and gave me a crooked smile. I quirked an eyebrow at him.
Elijah flung the lizard into Isaac’s lap. “EEK!” he yelled. “A lizard!”
Isaac yelped and leaped up, frantically brushing his legs. Elijah and I laughed. He scowled. “Not funny!”
“Boys, settle down,” my dad scolded. Strangely, something was different in his voice. He sounded…well, he didn’t sound angry. He had put his phone away.
It was like he cared again.
Mom sat down with her pizza and we began the meal in relative silence.
“So, Taylor,” Dad said after a few minutes. “What have you been up to lately?”
I shot a look at Mom. What was going on? He’s never nice to me. He’s never nice to anyone, actually, I thought suspiciously. What is he up to?
“Uh, nothing much,” I said out loud, taking a bite of pizza. “Just school. Work. Stuff. The usual.”
“Got a boyfriend?”
He said it so casually I almost choked on my pizza. Gulping water, I stared at him incredulously. What is he getting at? “No. Why would I?”
“Just wondering.” He shrugged.
I shared another look with Mom. The last thing we needed was for him to go back to being, well, a proper dad again. Not after all this fighting and yelling. It would only confuse everyone more.
I set my jaw. My little siblings were not going to grow up with a dad who either hated or loved us with no in between. I wouldn’t let it happen.
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