Ryder and I

One.

A bit of blood landed on my hand as I coughed into it. My ribs were aching and I slowly lead my fingers towards the swollen bruises on my back and stomach. As my fingertips stroked the skin I felt the warm pounding where his heavy boots had hit me. I sat up in the bed and sighed heavily as I remembered that it was Saturday. Saturdays were the only day of the week when my father wasn’t working.

I walked into the kitchen expecting to see my brother making breakfast. Instead, I was greeted by the face of a stranger. I instinctively took a step back and worked up the courage to peak back into the room. She was tall with long strawberry blond hair and dark brown eyes. The old radio was on in the corner of the kitchen island, playing an old song and she mustn’t have heard me come downstairs because she suddenly looked up and smiled at me before giving me a confused stare as she inspected me from head to toe. Half my body was in the kitchen and the other half was in the living room as I leaned on the wall separating the two rooms.

“You must be Levi! Marco’s told me so much about you! You’re a lot shorter than I imagined!” She said as she approached me with her hand reached out.

Right as she was about to grab my hand, Marco came running down the stairs with only a towel around his waist. Water was dripping from his hair, landing on his bare torso and sliding down his abs before vanishing into the white towel. I always envied my older brother. Everything about him screamed of masculinity. He was tall, fit, and handsome and on top of that, he had a great sense of style and humour. He was simply impossible to dislike. Impossible to not be friends with.

As Marco walked past me he put his large hand on my head and stroked his thumb over my forehead, as he always did. His height towered above me as he stood at nearly 192 cm and me only at 160 cm. I glanced up at him and met his hazel eyes smiling at me. The hand that was resting on my head slowly slid down to my back and Marco gave me a gentle push forward.

“Levi, this is my girlfriend, Gwen,” Marco said and made a gesture to the woman in front of me. “Gwen, this is Levi, my little brother! I’m so glad you two finally got to meet!

My heart froze. Marco never brought people over to our house, especially not when dad was home. Gwen smiled at me and I wanted to hide again. Marco never told me he had a girlfriend. He never even mentioned it. Yet here he stood wearing only a towel in the kitchen on a Saturday morning introducing me to a stranger. And so I suddenly felt embarrassed. We never had people over at our house and it was dirty and messy. Marco never brought anyone here, not even his closest friends. Why? Because he knew that it scared me. Every time he’d ever brought someone here he always made sure I was 100% okay with it.

“It’s nice to meet you!” Gwen said before taking a step back and bending down slightly to meet my eyes. “How old did you say you were?”

Marco stroked my back with his thumb and squeezed my waist slightly when I didn’t answer Gwen’s question.

“He’s shy!” Marco said with a laugh and looked down at me. “Levi’s 16.”

The expression on Gwen’s face changed slightly as she looked at me for a second before standing back up. “You certainly look younger!” She said as she chuckled. She must’ve been at least 170 cm tall and suddenly I felt like a baby.

Our father was the CEO of a large toy company. For as long as I could remember he had worked late nights and early mornings. Ever since then, Marco started acting more mature and fatherly. It didn’t matter if our father had a good or a bad day at work, he’d always come home and take it out on me, finding something to blame me for and then beating me until I fainted or confessed to it. It could be anything, all from standing in a weird way which caused him to go to work in a bad mood to not properly covering up the bruises he left. To avoid the beatings as much as possible I only wore hoodies and jumpers, that way he couldn’t say I was showing the bruises or trying to draw attention to myself.

Marco approached Gwen and his hand travelled from her hip to her waist as he leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. The kitchen smelled of fresh pancakes and bacon. In the corner of the room stood the table, set for four. My heart froze. A cold crawling feeling spread underneath my skin as I heard the heavy steps come down the stairs. The distinct sound of his large shoes echoed like thunder in my head and I could imagine exactly what he was wearing. In my mind I saw him in his black suit and tie, wearing the same old white dress shirt underneath while he was wiping his thin glasses on the tiny handkerchief he kept in his right pocket. As the steps moved from the stairs onto the floor I felt his tall silhouette coming up behind me. He was just as tall as Marco but with a larger, wider frame, very well built for his age with a wide, muscular chest and thick arms which ended with his big meaty hands.

“Good morning.” my father said as he walked past me, giving me a heavy pat on my left shoulder, right where he left a big bruise the night before.

“Good morning Mr Johnson!” Gwen said with a smile on her face as dad walked into the kitchen.

“Good morning Gwen!” my father said in an oddly sweet voice before he looked over at my brother, giving him a confused look before wheezing. “Marco, go put on some clothes damn it...”

Everyone seemed to know Gwen except for me. I was pretty sure she’d never been to our house before so I assumed that our father had met her on some other occasion. I wanted to run back to my room and hide. Marco had gone to his room and I was left standing all alone in the kitchen with one stranger and one wolf in sheep’s clothing.