15-05-2021-052358It-Ends-with-Us

He was on top of her.
They were on the couch and he had his hand around her throat, but his
other hand was pulling up her dress. She was trying to fight him off and I just
stood there, frozen. She kept begging him to get off her and then he hit her right
across the face and told her to shut up. I’ll never forget his words when he said,
“You want attention? I’ll give you some fucking attention.” And that’s when
she got real still and stopped fighting him. I heard her crying, and then she
said, “Please be quiet. Lily is here.”
She said, “Please be quiet.”
Please be quiet while you rape me, dear.
Ellen, I didn’t know one human was capable of feeling so much hate inside
one heart. And I’m not even talking about my father. I’m talking about me.
I walked straight to the kitchen and I opened a drawer. I grabbed the biggest
knife I could find and . . . I don’t know how to explain it. It was like I wasn’t
even in my own body. I could see myself walking across the kitchen with the
knife in my hand, and I knew I wasn’t going to use it. I just wanted something
bigger than myself that could scare him away from her. But right before I made
it out of the kitchen, two arms went around my waist and picked me up from
behind. I dropped the knife, and my father didn’t hear it but my mother did.
We locked eyes as Atlas carried me back to my bedroom. When we were back
inside my room, I just started hitting him in the chest, trying to get back out
there to her. I was crying and doing everything I could to get him out of my
way, but he wouldn’t move.
He just wrapped his arms around me and said, “Lily, calm down.” He kept
saying it over and over, and he held me there for a long time until I accepted
that he wasn’t gonna let me go back out there. He wasn’t gonna let me have
that knife.
He walked over to the bed and grabbed his jacket and started putting on his
shoes. “We’ll go next door,” he said. “We’ll call the police.”
The police.
My mother had warned me not to call the police in the past. She said it
could jeopardize my father’s career. But in all honesty, I didn’t care at that
point. I didn’t care that he was the mayor or that everyone who loved him
didn’t know the awful side of him. The only thing I cared about was helping
my mother, so I pulled on my jacket and went to the closet for a pair of shoes.
When I stepped out of my closet, Atlas was staring at my bedroom door.
It was opening.