Pieces Of You by Jay McLean

1

Jamie

My lungs burnedas the hand covering my mouth shifted, making sure I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. Or scream. I don’t know why she always went to that extreme. I never spoke when I was home.

It was one of the rules.

Don’t make a sound.

Don’t exist.

“Good girl, Jamie. Just stay quiet.” Mom’s warm breath fell on my shoulder while anger raged through me.

I squeezed my eyes shut, hiding the heated tears that were forming, and repeated over and over in my mind: I will not break. I will not break. I will not break.

I was nine years old, and this wasn’t the first time it was happening. I knew it wouldn’t be the last. I also knew that it wouldn’t kill me—but sometimes…

Sometimes I wish it would.

“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am.” I could barely make out Beaker’s voice through my pulse pounding in my eardrums, rapid, manic. “I’m not sure where they went, but they’re not here.”

“Can I come in?” Even at nine, I knew it wasn’t normal to know who was at the door based on the car in the driveway and the type of knock used. But I did. The woman at the door was the third social worker to come to the house that year, and every time one would show up, Beaker—my mom’s boyfriend—would have a story to tell.

A lie.

“Do you have a warrant?” That was Beaker’s go-to line. The final nail in my so-called coffin.

Head spinning from lack of oxygen, I reached up, tapped Mom’s forearm—my signal that I just needed one tiny breath. She gave me a second’s reprieve before placing her sweat-covered palm over my mouth again.

It was dark in the closet where Mom held me to her, but I could feel her bones trembling against her flesh. Against mine. She was more afraid than I was, which made sense. Her punishment was far greater than mine.

At the sound of the door closing and heavy footsteps approaching, Mom’s grip tightened. Through the cracks of light in the closet door, I knew he was there. Watching. Waiting. He wouldn’t do anything—not until he was sure the social worker’s car had gone and she’d left entirely. When the closet door opened, I didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. And even though nothing was blocking my airways anymore, I still didn’t take a breath.

That day’s weapon of choice was a leather belt already wound around Beaker’s fist. “Disappear,” he ground out. The devil’s eyes were the shade of slate, and he focused them on my mother, even though his order was for me.

I looked up at my mom, finally releasing the tears I’d been holding onto, but I didn’t make a sound. I begged with my eyes, pleaded for her to come with me. We could disappear together. We could leave the hell of Satan’s wrath and just go.

She didn’t move. Not until I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye. Beaker raised his fist, aimed at me, and my mom blocked the blow just like she always did. “Run, baby!” she cried out, and so I did.

I ran out of that room and out of the house, and I cried silent tears along with my silent shame and regret, and even then, when my life was filled with nothing but lies—there was one thing in the entire world I knew to be true: my silence would kill us both.