An excerpt from my WIP

I just recently hit 40,000 words in my longest WIP ever. I'm not even close to done, but this is the first WIP I've written that I've gotten far enough to consider one day publishing. I haven't shared anything about it on here yet (not even a summary, woops), but I wanted to just post a snippet of the MMC's backstory. Enjoy!

content warnings!: domestic violence, physical abuse

keep in mind that I haven't edited this yet and this is only my first draft!

Jack was fourteen years old when he stood up to his father for the first time. 

Turning fourteen had made him more bold. Though he was still awkward and pubescent, with a face full of acne and limbs too long and gangly for the body he hadn’t fully grown into, he had been recently struck with a newfound anger. It was as if after years of sitting quietly and taking it, he’d finally realized that this– what he and his mother had put up with for so long– was not okay. 

He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. The glass was dirty and streaked, and beyond it, his reflection was scowling back, his arms covered in black and blue splotches and his head freshly buzzed. A week earlier, his dad had grabbed him by the hair and pulled him across the table, berating him for letting his hair grow out so long and calling him names. Jack wasn’t sure why exactly he had been expected to apologize for his hair growing when nobody had offered to cut it for him, or even suggested he take the scissors himself. He liked his hair longer. He hated this. He hated his dad. He hated the way his breath reeked of alcohol; he hated how he never gave him anything but criticism. 

When he stepped out of the bathroom, he could hear a truck pull up on the gravel out front, a loud shout signalling Jimmy Harker's arrival home from work. 

“Angie!”

He saw his mother’s face fall as she stood in the kitchen. She could never hide her emotions, no matter how hard she tried. He always noticed. But today, the man outside sounded different. 

His dad threw the door open, and Jack kept his eyes fixed on the floor. He wished he could be in his room right now, or over at Trey’s, or out in a field somewhere. Just anywhere but here. But somehow, he’d been unlucky enough to cross paths with the angry, greasy mechanic that was his father.  Usually, his father’s arrival came with slamming doors and yells and comments about how nothing was clean enough, nothing was ready for dinner, or how his day was awful, and it was all their fault somehow. Today, the door slammed, but the man’s voice was tinged with something unfamiliar. 

Happiness.

“Was work good today?” His mother tried. Every word was cautious, like speaking to a dangerous animal. 

He laughed, bitter, as if it was a stupid suggestion. “Only one good thing happened today.” From his pocket, he pulled a wad of cash, presenting it proudly in the air. “God finally blessed me.” 

Immediately, it was clear to Jack– even at his naive age– that the money wasn’t a blessing from some God or the result of his father’s hard work, but the earnings for something he must have pawned. For years, he’d dealt with the understanding that things could go missing from the trailer, both things of his mom’s and even some of his own belongings. He’d had to say goodbye to his CDs, his radio, comic books, and other things purchased with his own savings. He hated that his father assumed he was too stupid to understand how the money was being spent, and he hated that his mother allowed it. 

“That’s nice.” His mother was saying. “We need to pay that electric bill…”

Jack knew the money wasn’t going to go to any bills. 

“Where’d you get the money?” He finally squeaked out, a pit already forming in his stomach. To get that much, he must have pawned something nice. Dad wasn’t particularly lucky with gambling, but they didn’t own much that was worth anything. 

The man looked at him, his laughter stopping, as if offended that his spawn had dared to speak up. “What, y’haven’t noticed?” 

“Jim.” His mother spoke, meek and cautious as she tried to quiet her husband. 

He didn’t acknowledge her, and barked out a laugh at his son’s obvious confusion. “Yeah, I guess you’d be cryin’ like a chick if you knew.”

“Jim, he’s been next door all day. He hasn’t been–” 

Jack was already on his way to his room at the back of the trailer. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. But he knew the truth deep down, as he burst into his room and noticed an immediate, gaping emptiness next to his bed. If there was only one thing that Jack was immensely proud of, it was the guitar he had spent an entire summer working for. A shiny, black Strat that he'd saved up hundreds in cash for. The one he'd played consistently, passionately for the past two years. His one escape from this hell. 

The one thing he valued more than anything else in his possession, and it was gone. He would. 

“Not like you’ll be needing that thing anyway.” His father stood behind him, taking a swig of a beer as the son felt hot tears well up in his eyes. “No son of mine's gonna be a fucking loser.”

Jack bit back his cry and swallowed the lump in his throat. He wouldn’t let him see.

At dinner that night, Jack sat quietly, seething and staring at his plate. The TV dinner steak made his stomach turn. His dad was across from him, staring at him like a predator stalking his prey, waiting for him to break. To cry, to show any sign of weakness. But he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He wouldn’t even meet his eyes. The eyes he shared.  

His mom set a dinner plate down in front of her husband, the same microwaved dinner from a box that they’d had for the past few nights this week. He dared a glance up at his face and saw the scowl deepen. “This shit again?” 

“We haven’t had the money.” 

“What happened to you?” He spat back. “You used to be a real wife.”

“Jim, I’m sorry, I–”

“There’s no fucking excuse!” He slapped the plate off the table, and it shattered by his mother’s feet. Jack went rigid where he was sitting, but anger was bubbling up from under the surface of his skin. “You’re fucking useless, I can’t even come home to good food.” He was standing now, cornering his wife in the kitchen. “After all I do for you–”

Jack scoffed from his seat. “Shut up.” 

Both sets of eyes turned to the boy. His father sneered. “What?” 

He sealed his fate. 

“I said shut up.” 

He had planned to give a speech, tell his father off and hope it would leave him realizing the error of his ways, but he didn’t even have a chance before he was lifted out of his chair by the front of his shirt and tossed to the ground. The bite of the dirty linoleum floor was nothing new to him. The floor scraped open his knee, and the boot that made contact with his stomach made him groan, but he rolled over and struggled to sit up. 

“What a fucking girl.” Jack was vaguely aware of the tears streaming down his face, but they weren’t from sadness. He kept his eyes on the ground. “Get up!” His tears were dripping onto the floor between his knees. They weren’t from pain. Maybe it was instinct. Primal. His mother was quiet. Why won’t she do anything to stop this? He pleaded in his mind. Why does she let this happen? Why doesn’t she care about what he does to me? “Pathetic. Just like your mother.” 

The anger was too much for him to handle, and when he looked up again, his father’s attention was back on the woman, his hand tight around her arm, yanking her towards him until her knees hit the ground. Why doesn’t she stand up to him? 

With all the power of a scared fourteen-year-old, he rose to his feet, pulled his hand into a fist, and flew at his father before he could think about the consequences of picking a fight with a man three times his size, age, and strength. 

His fist collided with the man’s jaw, just hard enough to make him stumble aside. Fuck, that hurt. He put on his bravest face. “Leave her alone!”

He could only hope it hurt his father even a fraction of the amount it hurt him. 

“Jack…” His mother was a quiet warning behind him. But if she wasn’t going to do anything, he would have to. 

Jim Harker was rubbing his face, his eyes full of fire, and Jack had a sinking feeling inside of him that told him he was likely about to die at the hands of his own father. By the end of the next five minutes, he’d tasted the wallpaper, tasted blood as he was thrown across the room, and stumbled into the front yard, and all the while, he kept fighting. He was bleeding, and he could barely see out of his swollen left eye, but he was sure that at least a few of his weak, untrained punches were landing. He hoped they hurt. That would make it all worth it. 

When he slunk into Trey’s house thirty minutes later, he was black and blue, his nose dripping with blood, and his mind made up that he would never, ever sit and take it again.