Chapter 9 - Chapter 8

# Chapter 8
VUSI, AGE 12

Ma slept soundly in her bed, her matted hair spread out over the pillow like a halo.

We both knew she was nothing but a monster.

But the bigger monster was me.

The abomination of a son she was moulding into me.

That was why I was standing by her bedside in the middle of the night with my cricket bat in my hand, gripping the handle tightly enough to hurt the joints in my fingers. Bruises lined my arm from when she beat me with the frying pan this morning, the ache a constant reminder of how her torture would never end. She'd even caught me in the back when I threw myself down on the couch in the kitchen to protect my head. Three more blows followed, but I was numb to the pain.

I didn't know when I'd learned to block it out.

If you lived in the shadows long enough, you soon called them your home. As wrong as it was, Ma's abuse had become my comfort zone. I knew what to expect beneath her foul words and blows. I knew how to not feel.

As I hovered by her bed, imagining beating her ashy, gaunt face to a pulp, my head grew dizzy with the possibilities of how I could end this nightmare once and for all.

But I made no move to hurt her. The bat remained clasped tightly in my hand, my fingers curled around the wood. I couldn't bring myself to kill her. Not that night.

Instead, I tossed the bat beside her on the bed and walked out, knowing full well she'd punish me in the morning.