As the brother got older it happened more often. By the time she was ten she didn’t bother trying to chill out watching TV unless he seemed to be in an especially mellow mood. Most days she would rush to get home first, run upstairs and pretend not to be there till she felt it was safe to come out. In the summer, she would dash back and either take me out for a walk – (those were my favourite days), or grab her bike to go to a friend’s house till her mum was back from work.
Of course, she tried to tell her mum, but she always asked her,
“what did you do to provoke him?”
Her mother could not accept that he might just do it for his own reasons. She hated that. She would sneak me up to her bedroom (which terrified me because I knew if her dad was home and caught me I’d be in big trouble). Once up there we would curl up on her bed together and she would tell me she didn’t understand why her family didn’t love her, or even appear to notice her.
One day I thought he’d killed her. They got home together – or rather he caught up with her at the back door and he was already in attack mode.
“I’m going to get you!” I heard him snarl. She was clearly scared, and trying to unlock the door. She must’ve been terrified. I heard the key drop. She started to shout,
“stop, plea..” I heard some strange coughing noises and a thud. The door opened and he stepped over her as he walked in. She was on the floor. It was a forever moment before she coughed and moved. He’d strangled her!
No comments:
Post a Comment