He shaved my fucking hair off. I lost a damn race and he shaved it all off. I still feel the razor on my scalp, the way he pushed down harder to draw blood every time I winced because ”Men don’t wince. Men aren’t fucking pussies, Roy, be a fucking man.”

I felt sick to my fucking stomach, like physically ill. The urge to throw up my guts was a powerful one, one I’d indulge in if I wasn’t lying on my back with James lying next to me. The kid was crying so hard he passed out half way through the cut. The bastard threatened him as well, told him that this is what happens when you act like a fucking loser and the great Gregory Jacobi doesn’t fucking have loser sons.

But he does, from my friends, personality and hobbies, my father saw me as nothing but a loser. A clog in the hegemonic masculine pipeline, a broken cog in the patriarchal machine.

A fucking mistake. A malfunction. A regret.

An odd sense of relief had always filled me at the idea that my father regretted me, he wasn’t a man I wanted to make proud, appeasing the devil doesn’t make you any less of a demon. I turn my head and look over at James, his cheeks splotchy but his eyes still closed, breathing calm. He wouldn’t be up for a while, and even if he was, my father had satisfied his lust for abuse for the night and had gone to satisfy another type of lust so he’d be safe.

He’d be okay. So run. Even if it’s just for the fucking night, go somewhere, anywhere. Just run.

My bedroom was situated on the first floor so all I had to do was jump out my window. Slipping my torn up kicks and hoodie on, I lift the hood to conceal my buzzed head before hopping over the window ledge and landing with a light thud outside. The over grown grass knee high and the of ivy digging into my skin brushing against my form. I stand and stare at the clear March night sky, inhaling a deep breath of cool air that tickles the bottom of my lungs. It’s so fresh and clean that it’s like drinking a cold glass of water and feeling it travel down your throat.

And then I run.