Forty-five minutes later, my door swung open. “Stand up, you lying little bitch.”
For the first time ever, I held my head high and walked toward him. I looked him right in the eye and was rewarded with a smack! I stared at him in shock. He’d slapped me. He had never hit me like that in the face. He’d grabbed me roughly before and shoved me around when things got really bad, but he’d never struck me with such purpose and force. I gathered myself, straightened my shoulders, and lifted my face to him again. I was scared and shaking.
“Do you want to be a liar and a slut?”
“No, sir.”
Smack! “You little bitch.” Smack. “You lied to me, Diana!” Smack.
Why was he calling me my mother’s name?
“It’s Emerson, Dad!” Smack. I started to sob. “I’m sorry, Dad.” Smack.
“I didn’t even have to touch that little pussy Jackson. He practically pissed himself right there on the kitchen floor.”
Something changed within me all of a sudden. I felt like my father could say anything to me and anything about my mother, he could talk about all the people in the world he despised, all the sluts and druggies and degenerates, but in my book, he wasn’t allowed to touch Jax. He wasn’t even allowed to breathe his name. I wouldn’t let him without a fight.
In a strangely resigned voice, I said, “Fuck you.” My father stood there, glaring at me, motionless, stunned. “I said fuck you, you mean bastard. You have no right.”
With an open-fisted smack, he shoved me to the ground and kicked me in the head. I blacked out and came to seconds later. He was beating me on my back and butt with the buckle end of his belt. I started screaming from the pain and begged him to stop. I tried to scurry away on my hands and knees, but he stepped on my back and then swung me around by my hair. He punched me in the face and I blacked out again. I was hovering somewhere on the brink of consciousness, and I could feel my body getting pummeled as he struck me over and over again.
When my bedroom door creaked open, I saw Jackson’s black hoodie and sneakers coming toward us.
I tried to yell, “No, Jax!” but my voice was gone. I was afraid my father would kill him. In one motion, Jax lifted my father’s weight from me and threw him down, against my wood dresser. I was trying desperately to stay conscious. There was blood on my face and in my eyes, but through it all, I could still see Jackson straddling my father, punching him, one blow after another in fast succession.
“You piece of shit!” He was screaming and crying as he hit him over and over again. When it looked like my father had either passed out or had been knocked out, I watched Jackson get up and come over to me with wide, scared eyes. He lifted me effortlessly. His tears fell onto my face, but I couldn’t feel anything anymore. “Oh god. Oh god.” He kept saying over and over again. “Don’t die. Please, Em, don’t leave me.”
I thought idly that I must look really bad, and then I lost consciousness again. When I came to, I was lying across the front seat of my dad’s truck. My head was on Jackson’s lap. He talked continuously as he drove, “Try to stay awake, Em.” My clothes were sticking to me from the cuts. I started to feel the stinging and ache everywhere on my body. Jackson had his learner’s permit. He would be sixteen in another month and would have his license. Maybe then we can leave Neeble behind, I thought.
“Emerson, I love you. Please try to keep your eyes open.” But I couldn’t anymore because I just wanted to dream about Jackson and me, in some other life, loving each other.
Jax wouldn’t leave my side at the hospital. Even after police and social workers from Child Protective Services told him I would be fine, he wouldn’t leave. I had a concussion, blackened and swollen eyes, a split lip, some minor lacerations from the belt buckle, and a lot of bruises, but otherwise I was okay. When we got word that my father had been arrested without much resistance, Jackson relaxed a little, but he still wouldn’t leave. Not that I wanted him to.
We became something of a media sensation over the two days we were there. A story was written about Jax and me in the paper. The fifteen-year-old boy who saved his girlfriend’s life, drove her fifteen miles to the hospital, and then carried her weak body into the ER. We both got a lot of special treatment. The nurses fed him, fixed up his hand, and let him sleep in my room. But our happiness was short-lived.
“You’re going into foster care,” he said the morning I was discharged.
“I know. They’re sending me to New Clayton. It’s not that far. We can see each other on the weekends.” I was devastated and so was he, but I wanted him to understand that we could still be together. “You’re my best friend,” I said to him.