The House Across the Lake
rusty_cupcake
Published
01/12/2011
I'd been watching him for what seemed like a lifetime. He and his family lived in the house directly across the lake from my parents house. It made my dad nuts that someone would build a house directly in our view "Why not 100 yards to the East or West!!". I'm sure it drove my father to drinking, but it always made this boy and I laugh. He didn't laugh a whole lot back in those days, but when he did, his smile would always make me stop and stare. He was beautiful.
Smiles were not abundant because his mother was an evil woman. She would beat her son on a daily basis among other horrors that mothers should never visit on there sons. The father was an absent man, always at work or on the golf course. But to say his father escaped his mothers wrath was untrue, often you would see the father with a black eye or busted lip. These of course were the days when children were still beaten, and upper middle class family's never spoke of abuse.
This boy was my heart, he and I became fast friends, and eventual lovers. There wasn't anything we didn't do, anything. Eventually the day came when his mother went to far she had beaten him unmercifully with a belt but been so drunk she used the metal side, cutting deep into his flesh. He could barely stand by the time he got to my bedroom window. It was then that my life changed, it was then I knew that I had what it took to take someones life.
I waited for her that morning, watched her pour herself a glass of wine. Id seen her at my mothers Tupperware parties, you'd never know her to be the monster she truly was. I watched her every move as she got ready for her morning bath. I stepped around the corner of the master bathroom as she slipped into the water. She may have said something to the effect of "What the hell?" but thats not what I remember. I remember the way she looked into my eyes as she struggled to breath, the way I felt holding that monsters head under water. She thrashed forever it seemed, water drenching me, her nails digging into my skin. It amazes me still to this day that as small as I was, that I, a teenager was able to take a grown woman to her last breath.
After her body went limp I went about cleaning up. Including flushing more than half that bottle of wine down the toilet, so it looked like she drunkenly swam to her watery death. I swear I felt like skipping all the way back to my house. He held me in his arms all that night and told me he would love me forever for saving him. But like promises made by boys and silly dreams had by silly girls are often broken, so was ours. His popularity at school soared due to the dramatic death of his mother. And one day he stopped holding my hand on the walk up the school steps into the halls, and started talking to the cheerleaders. My heart never recovered.
On a trip home a week ago, to see my father he told me that the son of the family that lived across the lake had moved back in a bit ago, and that i should say hi. I couldn't have agreed with my father more.
The house looked like shit, obviously neither father or son had managed to take care of the place, even in the dark you could see the paint falling off the wooden shutters. It was late and there was a chill breeze at my back as I opened the side door. I cringed at the amount of noise I was making, but every part of this stupid house was in need of repair. The place smelled of damp lake and cheap home furnishing. Pulling my gun from the back of my jeans I headed up the stairs, gingerly placing my steps wide and skipping a step to avoid the creaks.
I could see him asleep in his room, funny that he would still stay in his childhood room rather than the huge master bedroom. Then my heart did something I had never felt before I was about to kill someone....it skipped. Enough that it made me take notice, broke my concentration. I stopped before entering his room, tried to shake the feeling that was welling up inside me. I muscled back a tear as i stepped to the foot of his bed and raised my gun to his sleeping body.
A touch at my collar made me freeze, catch my breath, and stopped my finger from pulling the trigger. I turned my head to see him behind me, gun aimed at me. "holy shit" was all he said when he saw me, and all I could manage to escape my lips between heart beats was "well, well, well..."
Smiles were not abundant because his mother was an evil woman. She would beat her son on a daily basis among other horrors that mothers should never visit on there sons. The father was an absent man, always at work or on the golf course. But to say his father escaped his mothers wrath was untrue, often you would see the father with a black eye or busted lip. These of course were the days when children were still beaten, and upper middle class family's never spoke of abuse.
This boy was my heart, he and I became fast friends, and eventual lovers. There wasn't anything we didn't do, anything. Eventually the day came when his mother went to far she had beaten him unmercifully with a belt but been so drunk she used the metal side, cutting deep into his flesh. He could barely stand by the time he got to my bedroom window. It was then that my life changed, it was then I knew that I had what it took to take someones life.
I waited for her that morning, watched her pour herself a glass of wine. Id seen her at my mothers Tupperware parties, you'd never know her to be the monster she truly was. I watched her every move as she got ready for her morning bath. I stepped around the corner of the master bathroom as she slipped into the water. She may have said something to the effect of "What the hell?" but thats not what I remember. I remember the way she looked into my eyes as she struggled to breath, the way I felt holding that monsters head under water. She thrashed forever it seemed, water drenching me, her nails digging into my skin. It amazes me still to this day that as small as I was, that I, a teenager was able to take a grown woman to her last breath.
After her body went limp I went about cleaning up. Including flushing more than half that bottle of wine down the toilet, so it looked like she drunkenly swam to her watery death. I swear I felt like skipping all the way back to my house. He held me in his arms all that night and told me he would love me forever for saving him. But like promises made by boys and silly dreams had by silly girls are often broken, so was ours. His popularity at school soared due to the dramatic death of his mother. And one day he stopped holding my hand on the walk up the school steps into the halls, and started talking to the cheerleaders. My heart never recovered.
On a trip home a week ago, to see my father he told me that the son of the family that lived across the lake had moved back in a bit ago, and that i should say hi. I couldn't have agreed with my father more.
The house looked like shit, obviously neither father or son had managed to take care of the place, even in the dark you could see the paint falling off the wooden shutters. It was late and there was a chill breeze at my back as I opened the side door. I cringed at the amount of noise I was making, but every part of this stupid house was in need of repair. The place smelled of damp lake and cheap home furnishing. Pulling my gun from the back of my jeans I headed up the stairs, gingerly placing my steps wide and skipping a step to avoid the creaks.
I could see him asleep in his room, funny that he would still stay in his childhood room rather than the huge master bedroom. Then my heart did something I had never felt before I was about to kill someone....it skipped. Enough that it made me take notice, broke my concentration. I stopped before entering his room, tried to shake the feeling that was welling up inside me. I muscled back a tear as i stepped to the foot of his bed and raised my gun to his sleeping body.
A touch at my collar made me freeze, catch my breath, and stopped my finger from pulling the trigger. I turned my head to see him behind me, gun aimed at me. "holy shit" was all he said when he saw me, and all I could manage to escape my lips between heart beats was "well, well, well..."
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