Chapter One: Bruises and Breakfast Cereal
By the time someone cared, Mickal was already shattered. But sometimes, love finds beauty in broken things.
Mickal had learned how to walk without making noise.
The trick was to avoid the third floorboard from the bottom of the stairs, it creaked loud enough to wake his mother, who’d been passed out since 3 a.m, a bottle of something bitter still clutched in her hand like a lover she refused to let go of. The couch smelled like old sweat, stale smoke, and blood. His father, if he was still breathing, would be in the kitchen, nursing a hangover like it was his only child.
Mickal tiptoed through the darkness of their house, no, not a house. A carcass.
The wallpaper peeled like old skin. The windows were stained with years of grime, cracked in spiderweb patterns from the occasional bottle or fist that had been thrown in rage. The heater didn’t work. The power worked sometimes. That morning, there was a soft light peeking through the shattered blinds. And that meant one thing.
Kate would wake up soon.
Mickal pulled open the nearly empty pantry. One half-used box of cereal. No milk. No bread. Just air, dust and disappointment.
He poured a handful into a chipped bowl and poured cold tap water over it, stirring it with his finger.
From behind him, there was a small voice. Sweet. Untouched.
“Morning, Mickie.”
Mickal turned.
There she was.
Five years old. Wearing her too-small pajama shirt with the faded rainbow on it. Her hair was tangled and messy, her cheeks rosy pink from sleep. She carried a stuffed bunny missing one ear.
Mickal smiled. Softly. Like a man who knew how rare that feeling was.
“Hey, bug,” he whispered. “I made you cereal.”
“Yay!” she squealed, running over and climbing onto the unstable kitchen stool. “My favorite!”
She didn’t notice the bruises on his neck, the fresh cut under his left eye, or the trembling in his hands.
And that’s how he wanted it.
Let her believe in cereal with water. Let her believe this was breakfast, not survival. Let her think the reason he didn’t eat was because he wasn’t hungry, not because there was nothing left.
Next chapter out on Monday
