Mom’s slapping me awake and I’m laughing because I can’t feel her hand and I can’t feel my cheek and I don’t know why she’s even bothering. I try telling her she’d have better luck slapping Bobby awake but I can’t move my face, so how is it I’m laughing? Except it isn’t my mother slapping me. It’s Dad, and he’s not slapping, he’s punching, and his hand’s drenched in my blood and it wasn’t me laughing either, it was Dad the whole time, cackling and howling and screaming with laughter. I bite my tongue off and swallow it before he can steal it from me.
