I'd been late from school that day, getting held up at the locker by this guy I'd been eye-banging from across my biology class, talking about hanging out one day, maybe. Making my little teenaged heart skip at all the possibilities, the chance at something normal, something good, something happy in a life so devoid of it.
When I walked in, I remembered I had been humming. Just some silly pop-rap hit about falling in love.
I could never hear that song again without feeling sick.
I stopped humming as I walked in the door to find my father in the living room. But, for once, he wasn't alone.
The door closed behind me.
And my stomach knotted immediately.
"My father didn't have friends," I informed Christopher.
No one became friends with a black hole of a person.
Something inside me said to run.
I'll never understand why I didn't trust that gut instinct.
"You were a kid," Christopher told me, shaking his head, eyes already getting sad.
I was a kid.
But I was too old enough at that point to think that my father might, you know, be a dad, take care of me, protect me.
When I tried to go back and remember that moment, I couldn't figure out what had been in my head, what I had thought at the sight of the man.
He'd been my father's age, stocky, pock-marked, oily-skinned, with these weird, short-fingered hands. I remembered focusing on the hands for some reason. And their jagged fingernails. And the dirt under them.
"Mel, why don't you go put your bag in your room?" my father asked.
There was something strange in his voice then. I couldn't wrap my head around it, but it sounded weird; it sent a shiver through my system.
I did it, though, I walked into my bedroom.
I closed the door.
I didn't lock it, though.
I was vaguely aware of the front door to the apartment closing. And I guess I just assumed it was my father's 'friend' leaving.
There was a bit of relief in that assumption.
But then my bedroom door opened, making me jolt as I turned, worried I would be on the end of my father's wrath again.
But, no.
I was on the end of my father's desperation.
I was right; he didn't have friends.
He had someone who liked young girls.
He had someone who would pay him money to get access to me.
So he could get just one more day high, one more day without being sick.
That was all I was worth to him.
"Your daddy made me a real good deal," the man said as he moved into my room, turned to close the door behind him, lock it, lean back against it.
I knew enough about the world, about how women could be used by men, to understand exactly what was going to happen next.
There was maybe one moment of hesitation before I turned, made a dash for the window, for the fire escape I knew I would find outside of it, for the chance at avoiding this horror.
But the window tended to stick.
And the room was small.
Hands grabbed me from behind, pulled, sent me flying backward, landing on my bed with a grunt.
Panic soared through my system, making my heartbeat go into overdrive, making my breathing quicken, shorten, making my skin feel electric.
I attempted to roll off the other side of the bed, but my ankles got snagged in strong hands, yanked backward.
Those short, fat fingers held on tight as I kicked, as I screamed.
Screaming was useless, though, seeing as the guy in the apartment next door was blaring some metal crap like he always did. Even if someone heard me screaming, they'd have assumed it was part of the song.
And pretty quickly, one of those hands went over my mouth, muffling any of the sounds.
The other hand roamed over me, grabbed, pinched, yanked at clothing and what was beneath as my hands slapped, scratched, tried to hurt him badly enough to loosen his grip.
Just as a hand slipped inside my pants, inside my panties, my head turned to the side, seeing my backpack, remembering what was stashed in the front pocket.
It had actually been a gift.
From this kid I'd met in foster care.
He'd been aging out, and saw himself as some sort of elder, full of wisdom and experience.
He'd walked up to me, all leather jacket and scarred knuckles, flicking it open, whirling it in his fingers, then holding it out to me, blade side facing himself.
"Shit might get ugly," he'd told me. "You take this, you keep it on you, and you use it when you need to."
I remember thinking it had seemed dramatic of him to say 'when' instead of 'if.'
Turned out the kid had just been realistic.
My hand shot out, digging inside, trying to find the handle as my pants and panties were pulled down, as I felt a weight move over me.
Knees pushed mine open just as my fingers curled around it, pulled it out, flicked it open.
I didn't think beyond feeling him curling over me, feeling his weight, feeling his dick against my thigh.
I just swung out with every bit of force I possessed.
The knife lodged itself in the middle of the man's neck.
I remembered the bulging of his eyes, the internal panic as I saw the blade stuck in the center of the man's windpipe, the gut instinct to yank it back out, the gasping, and wheezing after I did so.
And the fact that he was still moving.
Still grabbing for me.
A hand struck my cheekbone, sending sparks across my vision, creating an immediate migraine.
My arm struck out again, stabbing.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Blood splattered everywhere.
Over my face, neck, the bed around me.
His body collapsed forward, unconscious, pinning me down.
I fought against his weight as he slowly bled out, soaking my clothing through.
"Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God," I gasped, finally shoving his body off of me, scrambling away, falling off the side of the bed, tripping over my pants around my ankles.
I fell backward against my bedroom door, gasping for breath, trying to think through the shock in my system, my racing brain.
I don't know how long I stayed there like that. Eventually, though, the shock subsided into tears that dried and left me with dread.
Regardless of my reasoning, I'd killed someone.
Sometimes, they didn't care about the why. They just cared about the result. They just cared about getting a case closed. Getting a guilty party.
I could go to jail for it.
Eventually, I stood up on shaky legs, pulled my pants back into place, made myself take a few slow, deep breaths.
And then my father came home.
"I always used to think it was ridiculous when someone who'd been hauled in for a murder charge would say they blacked out," I told Christopher. "But, honest to God, I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was standing over my father who had stab wounds to his chest and neck."
I seemed to be on autopilot after that, showering, gathering my bloodied clothes in a trash back, grabbing the knife, and just... leaving.
I walked out.
I tossed the bags in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant.
And I didn't go back.
"Where'd you go?" Christopher asked, breaking into my memories, helping my stomach unclench.
"I lived on the streets for a while. Which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was Spring. I imagine it would have been hell in the winter. But it was Spring. People took pity on me and gave me some food. I learned how to wash my hair in a sink with hand soap."