Young Jessica
The Kansas sun beat down on my tiny hands. Tiny, busy hands. They added another tower to the castle I crafted in the sandbox behind my parents’ shotgun house. I built castles in that sandbox often. And every time, I prayed I might be swept away from my life. That the castles would become real. And that I could live like a princess in one of them.
Safe.
But reality always came crashing over those dreams.
“No, Lucy!!”
Our golden retriever trampled it and jumped on me, licking my face.
“Lucy, you wrecked my beautiful house.”
I pet her soft, caramel coat as I looked at my ruined creation.
“One day, Lucy, we’re going to live in a castle like that.”
A sound of metallic popping came from the screen door and cut through my thoughts. I heard its spring stretching and the soft but frantic voice of my mother.
“Get in here, Jessica! You need to get cleaned up before supper. Your father is on his way home!”
My heart sank, but I jumped up to comply. I showered, changed clothes, made myself presentable, and sat down at the kitchen table. My father came in the front door, passed me like a forgotten piece of furniture, and barked at my mother.
“I’m hungry. What’s for dinner?”
“Spaghetti,” she said.
“Again?”
My mother’s face fell. She gave no response and turned to the pot where she had been laboring. He cast a glance at me as she prepared his plate.
“Jessica, your hair is out of place.”
He looked back at her.
“Hurry up!”
My mother put the plate in front of him and sat down. We both watched him take the fork and swirl a mound of noodles onto it while starting to grumble.
“The factory’s doubling down on hours. I’ll be working late these next several weeks starting tomorrow.”
He put the bite in his mouth. His eyes filled with rage.
“What is this shit?!”
My mother’s frame collapsed as she recoiled from him. Her voice was shaking.
“It’s…it’s the same spaghetti I always make.”
“It’s disgusting!”
He picked up the plate and threw it at the wall. It cracked and fell to the floor, leaving the noodles and sauce to run down. I’d be cleaning it up later. I always tried to help Mother around the house. It was a full-time job taking care of me. And him.
“Fix me something else!”
My mother’s mouth dropped open.
“It takes a lot of time to prepare a meal, dear.”
“Then you better get started!”
“I…”
Her eyes searched the dinner table for words.
“I haven’t had time to grocery shop. I don’t have any…”
“Fix. Me. Some. DINNER!!!”
You’d think, somehow, I would have learned to keep my mouth shut. After all the times we’d done this. After all the times he became worse than any monster in my nightmares.
But I never learned.
And I couldn’t take it.
“Daddy, stop yelling at Mommy!”
His head snapped towards me. His burning glare felt like a stake through my chest.
“Shut up, Jessica!”
Before I could move, he took the back of his hand to my cheek.
“Listen to me, little bitch! No daughter of mine will EVER speak so boldly to an adult. Least of all, her father!!”
He jumped up from the table, knocking over the saltshaker, and took off his belt.
“I think it’s time you learned some manners!”
“Charles! Please, no! She was just trying to…”
My mother stepped between him and me, putting her hands on his chest.
He pushed her to the floor and reached for me, but I evaded him and ran out of the room. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I darted for my usual hiding place.
“Get back here, Jessica!!!”
His booming voice reverberated in my ears. I dove under the couch in the den. The tassels that hung around the base of the couch’s frame completely hid me from view. Being small had advantages. But my mouth had none. I curled myself up in a ball and listened to them fight. He said exactly what I was thinking.
“See what you’ve done?!” he yelled.
“Charles, please!!”
“I guess you’d like to take the belt for her, then?!”
The sound of his belt cracking clashed with her pained cries. They tangled like the spaghetti on the wall and pierced my ears and heart. Lucy crawled under the couch to join me. We shivered together in silence as we listened to them.
It was my fault. My mouth. My disobedience.
Why couldn’t I just be good?
But I couldn’t. So, there was only one thing to do. I had to escape.
“One day, Lucy…” I whispered.
“One day, we’ll get out of here. And when we do, we’re never coming back.”
That's a draft of my rewrite in progress of the first series I ever published. Jessica's Game was raw, filthy, and twisted. And it still will be, but I've changed since I wrote it, and in my heart and mind, so have the characters. It's time for me to update them and the story. The current version is still available on Amazon for now, but when I'm done with the rewrite, I think it's time for that to change to. Most likely, it will only be available through this website.