Between the Two [COMPLETE]

~Trigger Warning: Attempt abuse and murder~ Red wine and blood don’t mix. Despite their color similarity, they are not the same—especially when they are combined. Wine is looser, more diluted, and quicker to spread along the cement, while blood is thicker and more condensed as it spills slowly from his head. His dark eyes were still peeled open in shock, looking up at me with his mouth agape. A second ago, he was pinning me to the couch, and the next, he was on the floor, the neck of the glass bottle still in my hand. What have I done? I could already hear my mother’s voice in my head as I kept staring down at my stepfather’s lifeless body. “Why’d you fight back? You stupid girl! You killed him! Why didn’t you just…” I wouldn’t allow myself to think about it anymore as my hands went cold and the blood in my veins simmered in fright. She always loved him more than me. What should I do? If I called for help upstairs, no one would come—she never helps—and if she did, she’d blame me. This was self-defense, right? Right?! She wouldn’t see it as such. Not for him. Not for the man who quote-unquote “Gave her a reason to live” after I ruined her life. Think! Think, goddamn you! His blood now coated the soles of my feet, the gruesome echo of his head slamming against the cold, hard floor of the basement still ringing in my head. I killed Rob. Dropping the broken bottle, I hastily bent down at his side, trying to shake him awake. “Please wake up,” I begged, shaking him back and forth. “I didn’t mean to. I’ll be a good girl, I promise. Just wake up, please!” After a few minutes of rocking him, the tears in my eyes dripping on his body, I decided to give up. He was dead. I killed him. When he first started pursuing me, I imagined it more than once or twice, killing him for touching me. I didn’t think I would ever do it though. I needed to think, think damn it! My mother would kill me if she found out and it wouldn’t be a quick death. A shiver ripped through me at the thought. I had to get rid of him. I tried to think about my favorite show, Dina Solves It starring Heather Brookshaw, about a teenage girl who solves neighborhood crimes around town and school. I’ve probably rewatched the entire series so many times I knew every crime, every mystery, and how it was resolved. The problem was, instead of solving a crime, I was committing it. Quickly, I opened the backdoor and grabbed Rob’s hands to drag him outside, a stream of blood following. He was heavy compared to my small size. I was dressed in a gown in the dead of night but that was the least of my problems. I pulled him from the den to his car parked on the lawn, heaving, and huffing with tired arms. He usually parked there when he just wanted to head into his den, usually intoxicated. Luckily, the door was unlocked, him growing incautious or just plain lazy. Lifting him to get into the seat was the hardest part, his body limp and blood still running down his head. In the passenger seat, there were already empty bottles of wine and beer. Crawling over him, I pulled the gear stick to put the car in neutral. “I’m so sorry, daddy,” I cried, closing the door, the blood from his head splattering on the window. From the front, I pushed the car, taking a few minutes of panting and sweating, to roll its way to the gate. We lived on a curved slope, so the moment the car fully passed the gate, it went sliding out of my hands. It twisted this way and that like a snake down the road until it reached a passing eight-wheeler which smashed it over the edge, and down the cliff overlooking the rocky beach. Standing in the freezing night, the cold air burning my skin as if punishing me for what I did, I watched as the trailer truck followed down the cliff as well. “I’m so sorry,” I cried, bending down and wrapping my arms around my legs. What have I done? It took me a couple of minutes to get myself under control and head back into the house. The nearest neighbors we had lived half a mile away, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing me like this. The blood had caked onto my gown with the scent of soiled wine. Walking to the house went by quicker than lunging a car to the gates. The floor was a mess of blood and wine, staining the dark concrete. There was nothing left inside me as I started cleaning up the mess, absentmindedly wiping in circles. I went into the den bathroom to rinse out the blood and clean some more, spotting myself in the mirror. I was a mess. My black hair couldn’t disguise the droplets of blood and my light tan body was tainted with crimson, tainted with murder. I looked away. I don’t know how much time passed but by the time I was finished, I’d taken a shower and grabbed one of Rob’s v-neck shirts, his manly scent wafting into my nose, making me tremble. I’d done a bad thing. I was a bad girl who killed her stepfather. I ran upstairs towards my room. “Lily…” a small voice called. I froze in place. “Lily, I had a bad dream.” I turned around, and my little brother, Louie, rubbed his eyes with his small arm and held his teddy bear in the other. Gulping down my panic and wiping my face, I bent down to his level. “Would you like me to sleep in your room?” I asked softly. He nodded, smiling. His hand was so small and warm in mine as we entered his room. I tucked him into his racecar bed he was still getting used to. At almost three, he looked so tiny when I wrapped my arms around him, snuggling him for comfort. “You smell like daddy,” he sighed, curling into a ball in my arms. I bit my bottom lip, willing the tears to cease already. “I miss Nani. When’s Nani coming back?” he asked in the darkness of his room. Nani was our household maid and nanny who went to visit her son on the east coast. She hardly came by as much since Louie wasn’t a baby anymore and Rob didn’t like her calling him out for his drinking habits. I rubbed his hair, “Soon.” He stayed silent while I reflected on what I’d just done. The sun would rise any minute now and I wasn’t ready to face mom. I’d just tell her I hadn’t seen him. He left in the middle of the night. Anything. She’d be mad but if she ever knew I had taken his life, she’d strangle me to an inch of mine. It wasn’t until I heard the light purring of Louie’s snore that I allowed myself to sob again.