I hated to admit it to myself, but I was falling for her and from the way she looked at me, I thought for sure she felt the same way, but then she freaked out and I couldn’t understand why or what was happening.

The one thing I did know was that something wasn’t right. Patience was hiding something. Whether it was a severe psychological disorder or the fact that her dad beat her, she was definitely hiding something.

The next day I stayed home all day. I knew it was a bad idea being stuck in the house with my dad, but after the night I had, I had too much on my brain and that last thing I wanted to do was hang around anyone. I’d be shitty company.

I was sitting on the couch, playing my acoustic guitar and thinking about my mom, when my dad came in the door from a tow run. Needing to be out of the same space as him, I got up to go to my room. He never gave me that chance. Instead, he went straight for the fight.

I’m not sure if seeing my guitar with my mom’s handwriting all over it set him off or what, but he said nothing. He didn’t give me any reason for this fight. I pushed my guitar out of the way and covered myself. Except this time was different, this time he didn’t just try to break me; he also broke things around us. He threw a plate against a wall like a Frisbee, and then tossed the coffee table across the room in a heated rage.

“You look just like her!” he spat in my face.

My cheek exploded when he brought his fist down on it and I tasted blood, but I ignored it all. I zoned out and I would’ve stayed zoned out had I not heard Patience’s voice.

At first, I thought I was losing my mind. I thought maybe I conjured up the sounds of her soothing voice as a survival mechanism. But then I peeked up and saw her standing in front of me and I knew she was real.

She stood in front of my dad like a petite avenging angel. Her blue glare cut into him as if her vision could cut him in half, and her tiny fists were balled up like she was minutes away from kicking some ass. It was the most heartwarming and frightening thing I’d ever seen.

My dad’s large frame towered over here. His shadow crept across her face, and still, she held her ground. Her T-shirt strained against her puffed out chest and her cheeks flushed with anger as she stared him square in the eye.

“Don’t you dare hit him again!”

My dad looked down at her like she was a joke at first. Too much beer had obviously riddled his brain. Shaking his head, he adjusted his vision.

I remember telling her to let it go, I remember him pushing her to the side and saying something rude as fuck, but the minute I saw him hit her, a rage that I’d never known struck me. I didn’t feel anything anymore. All I knew was he had to die.

I watched as her head snapped to the side before she went down. In that moment something cracked inside me, something other than a rib or a wrist. This time it was something deep set inside my soul. It cracked and crumbled into miniature pieces of fury.

I didn’t wait for him to come at me. Instead, I went straight for him. My fist connected to his cheek and for a second he looked at me, shocked. Years of abuse and I’d never so much as lifted my hand to him, but he crossed a line and on the other side of that line was a new me—a me that would kill someone before I let them hurt Patience.

My anger was fueled by years of being his punching bag. I saw images of him hitting my mother, images of his fist coming toward me, and finally, the image of Patience going down after he hit her ran through my mind over and over again. I couldn’t have stopped if I wanted to.

He could hit me all he wanted. I’d get my ass kicked every day if that was the way it was, but I drew a thick, black line at Patience. She was the only good thing, a slice of sunlight in my eternal night, snowflakes in my hell, and I’d do whatever it took to protect her from me and my world. I’d kill him for putting his hands on her.

I’d been so blinded by my red-hot rage that I didn’t even realize what I picked up. I didn’t know that I’d used my most prized possession to take my dad down. Heartbreak unlike any other ripped through me when I pulled back the broken pieces of string and wood, and tears threatened to break through.

Patience knew about my guitar. She was the only other person in the world besides my dad who knew. When I looked over at her and showed her the broken parts of the favorite memory with my mom, her face told me she understood the massiveness of what I’d just done.

My eyes met fair skin that was starting to swell and again I felt my anger rise. Breathing deep, I tried to squash it before I did something really stupid. The corner of my mouth burned and the taste of blood was on my tongue, but I was more worried about her.