“Like it clean and tidy,” I joked, “and Thunder Bay is your ship.”

“You know me so well.”

I smiled small, but my hand shook as I picked up a forkful of lettuce. It wouldn’t stop shaking until he left for work in the morning.

He dug into his meal, and I forced a bite into my mouth, the silence filling the room louder than the sound of the drops hitting the windows outside.

If I weren’t speaking, he’d find something to say, and I didn’t want that.

My knee bobbed up and down under the table. “Would you like more salt?” I asked, lacing my voice with so much sugar I wanted to gag.

I reached for the shaker, but he interrupted. “No,” he said. “Thank you.”

I dropped my hand and continued eating.

“How was your day?” he inquired.

I looked at his fingers wrapped around his fork. He’d stopped eating, his attention on me.

I swallowed. “Good. We, um…” My heart raced, the blood pumping hot through my body. “We had an interesting discussion in lit,” I told him. “And my science report is—”

“And swim practice?”

I fell silent.

Just tell him. Get it over with. He’ll find out eventually.

But I lied instead. “It was good.”

I always tried to hide behind a lie first. Given the choice between fight or flight, I flew.

“Was it?” he pressed.

I stared at my plate, my smile gone as I picked at my food. He knew.

His eyes burned a hole into my skin, his voice like a caress. “Pass the salt?” he asked.

I closed my eyes. The eerie calm in his tone was like the feeling before a storm. The way the air charged with the ions, the clouds hung low, and you could smell it coming. I knew the signs by now.

Reaching over, I picked up the shaker, slowly moving it toward him.

But I knocked his glass instead, his milk spilling onto the table and dripping over the side.

I darted my eyes up to him.

He stared back, holding my gaze for a moment, and then shoved the table away from him.

I popped to my feet, but he grabbed my wrist, yanking me back down to my seat.

“You don’t rise from the table before me,” he said calmly, squeezing my wrist with one hand, and setting his glass upright before taking my water and moving it in front of his plate.

I winced, my glasses sliding down my nose as I fisted my hand, the blood pooling under the skin because he was cutting off my circulation.

“Don’t you ever leave this table without my permission.”

“Martin…”

“Coach Dorn called me today.” He stared ahead at nothing, slowly raising my water to his lips. “Saying you quit the team.”

The unbuttoned cuff of my white uniform shirt hid his hand, but I was sure his knuckles were white. I started to twist my wrist because it hurt, but I immediately stopped, remembering that would just anger him more.

“I didn’t say you could quit,” he continued. “And then you lie about it like an idiot.”

“Martin, please…”

“Eat your dinner, Em,” he told me.

I stared at him for a moment, reconciling my head, once again, to the fact that it was going to happen no matter how hard I tried to stop it.

There was no stopping it.

Dropping my eyes to my plate, I lifted the fork, less sure with my left hand than with my right, and scooped up some rotini noodles and meat sauce.

“You’re right-handed, stupid.”

I paused, still feeling his fingers wrapped tightly around that wrist.

It only took a moment, and then I felt him guide my right hand over, prompting me to take the fork. I did and slowly lifted it to my mouth, his hand still wrapped around that wrist as the dull points of the silver utensil came toward me like something I’d never been scared of until now.

I hesitated, and then… I opened my mouth, almost gagging as he forced the silver in deep, almost brushing my tonsils.

Taking the food, I pulled the fork back out, feeling the resistance in his arm as I did.

We refilled the fork for round two, my lungs constricting.

“What is the matter with you, exactly?” he whispered. “Nothing can be done right. Ever. Why?”

I forced the bite down my throat just in time for another forkful to be shoved in. He jerked my hand as it entered my mouth, and my heart stopped for a moment, a whimper escaping at the threat of the prongs stabbing me.

“I thought I’d walk in the door, and you’d sit me down and explain yourself, but no.” He glared at me. “As usual, you try to hide it like the candy wrappers under your bed when you were ten, and the three-day suspension when you were thirteen.” His words quieted even more, but I almost winced at how it hurt my ears. “You never surprise me, do you? There’s a right way and wrong way to do things, Emory. Why do you always do it the wrong way?”

It was a double-edged sword. He asked questions he wanted me to answer, but whatever I said would be wrong. Either way, I was in for it.

“Why is nothing ever done how I taught you?” he pressed. “Are you so fucking stupid that you can’t learn?”

The fork moved faster, scooping up more food and rising to my mouth, the prongs stabbing into my lips as I opened them just in time. My mouth filled with food, not swallowing fast enough before more was pushed in.

“Dead parents,” he mumbled. “A grandmother who won’t die. A loser sister...”

Dropping my wrist, he fisted my collar instead and rose to his feet, dragging me with him. I dropped the fork, hearing it clatter against the plate as he backed me into the counter.

I chewed and swallowed. “Martin…”

“What did I do to deserve this?” he cut me off. “All these anchors pulling me down? Always constant. Always a weight.”

The wood dug into my back as my heart tried to pound out of my chest.

“You wanna be ordinary forever?” he bit out, scowling down at me with my mother’s green eyes and my father’s shiny, dark brown hair. “You can’t dress, you can’t fix your hair, you can’t make friends, and, it appears, you can’t do anything impressive to help yourself get into a good university.”

“I can get into a good school,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “I don’t need swimming.”

“You need what I tell you that you need!” he finally yelled.

I tilted my eyes to the ceiling on instinct, worried my grandmother could hear us.

“I support you.” He grabbed my hair with one hand and slapped me upside the head with the other.

I gasped, flinching.

“I go to the teacher conferences.” Another slap sent my head jerking right, and I stumbled.

No.

But he pulled me back by the hair. “I put food on the table.” Another slap, like a wasp sting across my face, and I cried out, my glasses flying to the floor.

“I pay for her nurse and her medicine.” He raised his hand again, and I cowered, shielding myself with my own arms as he hit again and again. “And this is the thanks I get?”

Tears filled my eyes, but as soon as I could catch my breath, his hand would come down again.

And again. And again. And again.

Stop. I wanted to cry out. I wanted to scream.