~This one is for love. For dreams, desires, and hope. Without it all, we simply give up.
The debut novel from London CaseyHURT LIKE HELL
Tessa Belle barely escaped her father’s abusive hands ten years ago, when she was just thirteen.
On her own now, in her own apartment, she tells herself it’s time to start living. Her dating life has been lackluster as no boy or man could ever love her or protect her the way Jack Smithen had. After all these years, she can still picture his face that fateful night.
When her deadly past comes crashing into the present, she feels too alone to do anything. That’s when her long lost love, Jack, appears - literally - and takes hold of her life, and her heart. It’s been ten years since their first kiss, ten years since their lives were changed forever. But now they’re together again, adults now, able to help each other, able to love each other openly. Jack’s the only person who understands what Tessa endured, because Jack endured the same from his own abusive mother.
Just when it feels they can share the life they always dreamed, Tessa’s father is released early from prison. His sole mission is to finish what he started that night in their basement ten years ago…
Hand in hand, Tessa and Jack prepare to face Tessa’s father one last time… but this time, can they both make it out alive?
This is going to hurt like hell.
1
“Who do you want to be?”
The question caught me off guard as Jack sat on the couch at what seemed miles away from me as I sat on the other end. He would sometimes ask random questions after thinking for a while. I felt bad for Jack but I was happy he was my neighbor, and that he could understand the kind of pain I felt.
Jack was born Jackson Smithen. He had the same last name as his mother because his mother didn’t know who Jack’s father was. She had a drug problem, one she was open about and one she swore was completely under control. She worked long hours, almost every day, and if I had to be honest, I don’t think she ever loved Jack. When I looked into Jack’s eyes I could see he knew this but he didn’t talk about it.
He only talked about the future. I asked him once why he was so obsessed with the future and he looked at me with tears in his eyes – the only time I ever saw Jack cry – and he pointed to his heart and said, “So this will stop hurting.”
I never asked again about the future.
In fact, the more I thought about the future, the more I liked it. It was so open, so free, with so many choices. Worst case, I had five years until I turned eighteen and could get away from my father. That was, if he didn’t kill me by then… but he wouldn’t kill me. Never. He had too much to lose. Everyone knew he had a drinking problem, but as long his business smile was bright and he appeased the higher ups in the city and local towns, my father was golden. He used the death of my mother as a way to make him an even better citizen, raising a daughter on his own, sometimes parading me around as some kind of tool or bait to get what he wanted. But when the doors were shut and shades drawn, he became the devil. The back of his hand sometimes felt like a brick, but I just had to suffer, for a little while longer.
In my vision of my future, my father would die.
I’d be free, he’d be dead.
And I’d have Jack.
Hopefully.
“Tessa? Did you hear me?”
I nodded. “I heard you. What do I want to be when I grow up?”
“No, not grow up. Not a career. Just who do you want to be?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want to be Tessa when you get older? Do you want to be Theresa Belle… and all the stuff that goes with it?”
I paused and looked at the floor. The stone floor was cold. My mind felt the same way. Any thought of thinking outside my house and life at that moment scared me, but Jack had found ways to open me… and steal my heart.
“So, you mean change my name?” I asked.
Jack looked at me, smiling. “Yes. That’s what I want to do. I want to change my name. Then I can be anybody I want.”
“You could be anybody you want with your name,” I said. “I like Jack. A lot.”
Jack shook his head. “No. I don’t want to carry anything with me. We’d be able to create our own lives then. Start from the beginning.”
“Then what? Make up stories of being kids and stuff?”
“Yeah. That would be… awesome. Wouldn’t it?”
I loved the way Jack’s eyes beamed when he talked about the future. He really believed in the future, and it made me believe too. The both of us would finally have a chance to get out of all this. I licked the corner of my mouth and felt the small scab crack. The pain was hell and the blood tasted horrible, but I was used to both. I could only dream about a life where I didn’t have to cover up bruises and scars, and force a smile at the fear of receiving more bruises and scars.
Wow, what a great dream…
“Think about it,” Jack said, “when we’re finally free. Together. We can have our own names, tell stories, make everything up, and be happy.”
“Wouldn’t it be lying?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t it be better than the truth?”
The question shut me up.
Jack opened his mouth again and I heard a creak. The smallest of sounds in a big old house, but my ears picked up on it. I’d been trained to hear everything. Sounds were sometimes the only warnings I got before a decent night would turn into hell.
“Shh!” I cried to Jack and put my hands out. I focused all my attention on the sound. I couldn’t tell if the creak was the old house moaning or my father shuffling his way around the house. Sometimes he’d get up from a bad dream and need a drink. Sometimes he’d wake up in a deathly sweat, mad that he drank himself to that point, and then take it out on me with his hands.
Jack shook his head and put his hands up as if to say, I don’t hear a thing, Tessa… but I didn’t care. I still listened. And waited.
A minute could have passed, maybe an hour, or just a second even, and I finally let out my breath.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I understand. I’m not used to it… my mother’s never home…”
Jack looked away when he said that. He never made eye contact when he talked about his mother. The pain would be too obvious.
“Abby,” I said.
“What?” Jack asked.
“Abby. That would be my name.”
“Like Abigail or something?”
“No, no proper first names. Theresa is bad enough right now. I want to be Abby.”
“Abby,” Jack whispered. “I like that. It fits you. I can see you as an Abby. What about your last name?”
“My last name?”
“Well, yeah. You need a last name. To be a real person. So people will know who you are.”
I thought about it. A last name. I never really cared about last names before. I was Theresa Belle, that’s all I knew. Now my new first name was going to be Abby. Abby… what? I didn’t know how to make up a last name. I thought about some of the weirdest last names I’d encountered in my life, but I didn’t want to steal someone’s last name.
I wanted my own.
“Wednesday,” I said.
“Wednesday?” Jack replied, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah. I’m going to be Abby Wednesday.”
“Wednesday? Why Wednesday?”
“Why not? It’s the middle of the week. It’s a good place to start.”
I left it at that and Jack bought it. The truth was that I chose Wednesday because that was the first night Jack came to my house. My father had been in a ba
d mood about something. After working through his anger on me, he sent me to the basement, telling me I was not worthy of a bedroom. He told me I belonged in the ground, like my mother. I’ll never forget the way his voice sounded when he said it. He sounded serious. I’ll never forget the way his eyes looked at me. Like he was capable of doing it.
That night I wished to die. I didn’t understand what dying really meant, but if I didn’t have to wake up and see my father again – Mr. Richard P. Belle – then I would take death.
Death didn’t come, but Jack did. That was the night he tapped three times with his fingernail, twice with his finger, and rolled his fingers on the door. That was the night he began to save me, in so many ways.
2
“What about you?”
The moments of silence between me and Jack that lasted a long time. However, I didn’t mind, because just having Jack there was enough to make me feel safe. Once in a while I would fall asleep and he’d wake me up, gently shaking me, whispering my name.
I was tired, but the idea of picking new names for our future kept my eyes open and mind alert.
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I’ve picked out a few… but nothing seems good enough.”
“It doesn’t have to be good enough, just good. For you.”
Jack smiled. “I guess you’re right. Well, I like Danny.”
“Danny? Why Danny?”
“I just like that name.”
“So… Abby and Danny?” I asked. I liked that, a lot.
“Works for me,” Jack said. “But I need a last name.”
“Oh.”
I didn’t picture our future with two different last names. Would it be so wrong to imagine ourselves as Danny and Abby Wednesday? Married. Holding hands. Kissing.
I started to blush and had to look away.
I thought about kissing Jack, a lot.
“How about Danny Thursday?” he asked.
I laughed and covered my mouth. The last thing we needed was attention drawn to the basement. Some nights my father could sleep through a tornado and others all it took was a droplet from a faucet to wake him. Either way, if he woke up, there would be some major hell to pay.
“You want to be Danny Thursday?” I asked.
“Yeah, so? You want to be Abby Wednesday.”
Fair enough then…
“Danny Thursday,” I whispered. “I like it, Jack. I mean, Danny.”
We shared a smile, too afraid to laugh, and from that day forward, we switched back and forth between being Tessa and Jack, and Abby and Danny. It depended on the kind of day and night we were having. On the bad nights, we remained Jack and Tessa, sitting on the uncomfortable couch in my basement, stuck in limbo of an awkward teenage romance. On the good nights, we were Abby and Danny, sharing our passions, our dreams, planning out our future and (even better) rewriting the broken past.
Those were the best nights.
They were the nights that didn’t come often enough.
And each time Jack left, it became more evident that our feelings for each other were growing serious. We would stare, lips parted, waiting for someone to make the first move. Most of the time he would leave in silence, but a few times he said he didn’t want to hurt me and would storm out of the basement as though he were mad at me, himself, and the world.
I understood that feeling. I felt it too.
3
My father had a business meeting and it didn’t go well. I didn’t understand what his meetings were about, but I understood the term millionaire because he threw it around behind closed doors. In front of people, the ones who he said mattered the most, he was about compassion. I remember once he held an elderly woman’s hand with his hands and told her some sob story about my mother passing. All I could see were those same hands attacking me.
I’ve always had an urge to kill my father, but again, when you’re thirteen, who doesn’t have urges like that? I had other urges though. Those urges were mostly for Jack.
As my father tore through the house, a line of destruction from the front door to the kitchen, I knew he was looking for his whiskey. He often hid it in different places, accusing me of either checking up on how much he drank or accusing me of drinking it myself. Neither of the two I ever did, but talking back to my father wasn’t allowed. I caught myself at the top of the steps, holding the railing, already shaking. I looked back to my open door, the small light flooding from the room, creating a triangle. The light called to me, reminding me that if I went back into my room, I could open my window and call for Jack. His window was close to mine, but not close enough. I thought about jumping from my room to his, but the fall onto the old rusted fence separating our houses would kill me.
I didn’t have Jack but I had the glass shattering sound from my father on a frenzied search for his comfort.
“Goddamn… Theresa! Get down here.”
That was it.
My calling.
I had about five seconds to respond, in person, or else the night would get much worse.
I took the steps two at a time, and twisted my ankle on the last one. The pain was burning. It brought tears to my eyes, but the pain and tears were swept away when I saw the damage waiting downstairs.
My father had torn a large mirror from the wall. The pieces were shattered in large chunks on the floor and the wall was missing a large piece of the paint and plaster. I stepped over the glass and saw myself in the jagged reflection, repeating again and again.
“Theresa!”
The scream made me jump. I spun around and moved towards the kitchen, following footprints of dirt and glistening tiny pieces of glass. At the doorway to the kitchen I forced myself to smile, still convinced that a smile could cure anything. Wasn’t that what they taught kids? Just smile. Always smile.
“What are you smiling about?”
Never mind, smiling doesn’t work.
My father moved at me like lightning. His hands were fast and his eyes were captivating and cruel. One hand was against my chest, forcing me into a wall. The other hand was already back, open, ready. I looked at that open hand and turned my head a little, closing my eyes.
It was best to just get the first one over with.
“I’m going to ask once,” my father said. “Where’d you put it?”
I opened my eyes a little. My heart felt like a clay ball being tossed around inside my chest. My stomach was like a pool of acid, my knees rubbery.
“I was upstairs,” I whispered. “I swear…”
I should have known better. I was only given one chance to answer a question. There was no chance to explain anything, no chance to try and point out the simple truths in my life or my father’s. My saying I was upstairs told him all he needed to know.
That’s when his hand came down at me. He caught me with my mouth open, sending the stinging pain through my cheek into my mouth. The inside of my cheek cut along the edges of my teeth. My head snapped and I winced, fighting the urge to scream in pain.
Screaming was not allowed.
Showing pain was not allowed.
This was part of my life, something I had to except. That was what I was told, time and time again.
His grip pushed harder at my chest.
“Look at me,” he growled.
I felt his spit spraying at my cheek. He was hungry… for a drink and violence.
I looked at him, blinking, fighting back tears.
“Not smiling now, are you?”
I shook my head.
“Now, how am I going to get you to stop drinking? You’re the daughter of a prominent man. How would it look in the papers if you got busted with an underage? Or were you stupid enough to get knocked up?”
I swallowed and felt myself blush. My left cheek was already red and swollen, thanks to his hand, but my other cheek turned red. For some reason, I thought of Jack then. Something about getting knocked up made Jack’s face pop into my head.
“Or is that what you were doing?”
My father’s eyes opened wider, flared more. The amount of evil that poured from him showed me why he drank so much. I actually would have preferred him drunk right then. At least when drunk there was a chance he’d try to hit me, miss, and then pass out.
But not like this.
Completely sober, my father was dangerous.
He wiped his mouth with his hand and then licked his lips. He looked unstable, unsure, ready to… kill.
“You have a boy upstairs? Is that what this is? I’m at a business meeting and you sneak a boy and some whiskey upstairs?”
I shook my head. I opened my mouth but snapped it shut. Words would only make it all worse.
“What’s upstairs then, Theresa?”
I hated when he called me Theresa. Everyone called me Theresa, and I hated it. Jack called me Tessa. I liked Tessa. Until I was able to be Abby Wednesday.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing? Don’t lie to me. Don’t try it.”
“I promise,” I said. “I heard glass break, and I came down, and I…”
Fool me once…
The back of his hand came across my face with a rumble of pain that literally spun me around. I managed to hug the doorway of the kitchen, keeping myself from becoming a heaping mess on the floor. My hair was everywhere, hiding my face, allowing me to finally cry.
“Let’s go upstairs and check.”
A second later I felt my father’s strong grip on my hair. As he dragged me up the steps all I could picture was taking his razor and cutting all my hair off. I hated having hair in those moments. The way he twisted his hands around my hair made the pain intense the entire time, no matter how much I went along with him.
I also thought about Jack. I wished Jack would come in and help me. Jack wasn’t as tall as my father or as thick, but Jack had a bigger heart, a better drive, and I wanted to believe that whatever emotions we had for each other would be enough to overpower the giant that was my father.
Then Jack could sweep me away.
And we could become Abby Wednesday and Danny Thursday.
My father swung his arm and I spun, stumbling into my room. I fixed my hair and stood still, breathing wildly, looking at my father. He looked to the window and saw it closed. Of course it was closed.
“Were those curtains always pulled back?” he asked.
Hurt Like HELL (new adult contemporary romance) Page 1