This is what it feels like to be kicked in the stomach. It’s this moment of pain that’s almost visible and you curl up around it and then you can’t breathe. This is what it feels like to be thrown against a wall, momentum stopped in an instant.

It’s weird living with my dad because there are the times when that doesn’t happen. He doesn’t do anything to me. He takes me out to eat and rents movies and does work shit at home sometimes in his office. He asks how my day was and he buys me stuff and it’s weird. I know it could all come crashing down at any time. And then I don’t know what to believe when he’s being okay. Maybe it’s not as bad as I think, or it seems, or something.

At least during a beating and after I know what to believe. When he’s strapping me and his face is that angry contorted mask I know that it’s bad. When I’m in my room and can hardly move and everything has this dull ache, at least then I know what’s going on. But when he’s being nice to me and buying Chinese food and studying science with me, that’s when things get tricky. That’s when I feel guilty for hating him. I feel guilty for fearing him.

I’ll tell you, when he’s hitting me it feels so good to hate him, it feels so good to be so angry with him. I think these terrible things to myself, call him names in my head so he can’t hear. And he’s not the only one I’m angry with. I’m angry with my mother for dying. I’m angry with Joey for not, for not something. He should know, or I wish I lived with him instead of my dad, with him and Angela.

I am so fucked up. Pretending all the time. Pretending nothing is wrong. Pretending that nothing bothers me, but it isn’t true. My self esteem is just shot. Because after all part of it is my fault. Of course it is. If I was better, if I didn’t make my dad so mad, if I wasn’t so terrible. If this and if that and it all boils down to the fact that I wasn’t quite good enough. I mean, my dad’s a surgeon, and so he’s real smart. I’m not. I can’t do anything right, not in school and not at home or anywhere else. So I must be a disappointment to him. That leads to the fact that I deserve it. I deserve to be hit and strapped and punched and kicked.

That’s what I think sometimes. Other times I’m so mad and I know I don’t deserve it. I know he’s out of control and he shouldn’t be beating me, that nothing I was doing warranted it. I was just a kid and not perfect like anybody but I didn’t do anything so terrible that he should do that to me. And sometimes he really hurt me. Sometimes I had these splitting headaches and could barely open my eyes. Sometimes I pissed blood. Sometimes the bruises were so painful and so dark purple and black that I just stared in awe.

Who’d believe me anyway? I mean, he was a doctor. He fixes people. So it didn’t seem likely that he’d be hurting me so badly.

“Hi, Craigger,”

“Hi, dad,” He was home from work, and things were fine. His mood was okay. I was acutely aware of his moods. He was flipping through some mail, and I could tell by his expression, his posture, his energy that he was okay today. He wasn’t angry or too stressed out from work today. I sighed in relief, now I could relax.

He could cook pretty good when he wanted to, and he did tonight. He was actually in a good mood, talking about work, being careful not to mention any patients’ names even to me. I mostly listened, and I liked to listen to him when he was like this, in a good mood, generous. I talked a little about the neutral things, not mentioning mom, God forbid, or Joey or Angela.

Upstairs in my room, the music on, doing my homework, I felt this kind of pain. Psychic pain. He was good tonight, he was nice to me. And I hoped it would stay that way, I really wanted it to so bad but I’d wished it so many times before that I didn’t dare hope for it anymore. Because it wouldn’t stay like that. His job was stressful, I was a fuck up. One of the two things would piss him off again and he’d do it again, he would. He was going to beat me because he had so many times before.

It’s not like he was some alcoholic and we lived a shitty life and he beat the crap out of me all the time. Things weren’t all bad and that’s what was confusing. He made a lot of money and we had nice shit. He could be so nice, so much of what I needed him to be. But it wouldn’t last, and I knew that.