By nightfall, the swelling in my jaw had doubled. I pressed a cold spoon to it in the bathroom, staring at the stranger in the mirror. My lips were split, my left eye slightly bruised from the angle of the hit. I didn’t look like someone who could fight back. I looked like someone who’d already lost. But I wasn’t. Not yet. That night, while they sat in the living room arguing over what takeout to order, I sat on the edge of my bed and started planning. My hands still shook, my face still burned, but my thoughts – my thoughts were razor sharp. This time I wasn’t going to wait for them to break something else. This time I was going to make sure they learned what real damage felt like. And when it happened, they’d never see it coming.
By the next morning, the swelling had hardened into an ache that spread from my jaw to my temple. I could barely chew the piece of toast I’d forced down just to keep my stomach from turning on itself. Every time I opened my mouth, I remembered the sound of bone against bone. My father’s “lesson” echoing in my head like it wanted to be permanent. But that ache had company now, a quiet, sharp thought that sat in my chest and pulsed every time I heard their voices.
When I stepped into the kitchen, Dad was already there, sipping his coffee like he hadn’t left a mark on my face 12 hours earlier. Mom was at the stove, humming while flipping pancakes, the good kind she never made for me. Only for Kyle. He was at the table, hair a mess, grinning lazily as he forked syrup into his mouth.
“Don’t just stand there,” Mom said without turning. “You can pour juice for your brother.”
My jaw ached when I clenched it, but I poured anyway, sliding the glass toward him. He didn’t say thanks. He never did. Instead, he tilted his head with that familiar smirk. “Still talking funny,” he said, mimicking my stiff jaw. “Guess Dad really knocked some sense into you.”
Dad chuckled without looking up. “She’s lucky I didn’t break more than her mouth.”
I froze there, juice still in my hand. And in that moment, something crystallized. This wasn’t just cruelty. This was their normal. And if I stayed long enough, it would become mine.
That night, when the house had gone quiet, I unlocked the old cedar chest in my closet. Buried under old blankets were three things they’d forgotten: my high school laptop, a set of spare house keys, and a spiral notebook. The laptop was slow. The screen flickered, but it worked well enough for what I needed. I started writing. Not a diary, not a confession, but a blueprint – not just for leaving, but for taking something with me that they could never replace.
The first step wasn’t confrontation. It wasn’t telling them off. It was invisibility. For the next few days, I became so obedient, it was almost boring. I cleaned without complaint, ate in silence, even laughed at Kyle’s pathetic jokes. I kept my eyes down when Dad spoke. Never asked questions. Never talked back. And it worked. They stopped looking at me like a threat. They stopped looking at me at all.
