High Stakes

Chapter 1



Daddy shoves me back inside my room when he hears noise near the entrance. Pounding fists, followed by the sound of snapping wood and my mother’s screams. I want to dive under my covers. I feel safer under there. Hidden. It’s what I usually do when I hear Mom and Dad shouting, but not tonight. Tonight, I can’t look away.

BAM.

The door flies open and smacks against the side of the wall. I see Dad backing away into the kitchen as three dark shapes move inside swiftly, with purposeful strides. My heart hammers hard against my chest and I know that I should hide, I should run, but I can’t. Something is about to happen—something that makes the screams catch in my throat. I’m about to yell a useless warning.

He grabs my father by the throat and holds a knife to his neck. They’re shouting things—things that have been lost in memory. Everything’s a confusing blur, except I remember well how Mom begged them.

“Please, don’t kill him! He’ll get the money!”

At the word, ‘kill,’ I burst out of my hiding place and confront the three, terrifying men. They’re so bold that they don’t even wear masks. Time twists their faces into grotesque masks. They look like cartoonish villains.

“Daddy!”

My Daddy can barely speak with their hands wrapped around his throat. “Adriana, go back inside.”

He never says my full name. It’s always ‘Ade.’ For some reason, I fix on that detail. I scream as one of them steps towards me, and the shrill sound makes the man holding Dad jump a little, and then a thin, red gash opens in his neck as the knife slices him.

I’m screaming and screaming. The blood is so dark, almost like syrup. It bubbles from his neck and he collapses, grasping his neck as if he can’t breathe. And—

I jerk awake in my too-small bed, my heart pounding hard as graphic images burn in my head, as clear as they were thirteen years ago. My chest constricts until I feel I might pass out. Under the covers, I feel like a ten year old kid again. The covers stay over my head, even though I’m boiling under the sheets and sweat has soaked through my t-shirt. I’m shaking and the pain in my chest is sharp. I feel like I’m going to die.

You’ve been through this before.

Shaky breaths rattle through my lungs. My dorm room is completely silent, save for Maria’s snores next to me. She sounds like a freight train and I can’t believe I slept through her racket, but I still wouldn’t trade her presence for solitude. My head pounding, I grope in my sheets for my cell phone. 5am.

I still see it. The gaping wound vomits blood. The color leaves his face, drains out of his neck. I can hear him with that horrible gasp as he looks straight at me, his blood soaking through my pajamas as I kneel next to him.

I need a fucking drink.

Fuck.

I swipe my fingers over my eyes again and again.

Stop crying. He died a long time ago.

But I can’t help it. Under the covers, I’m still a kid. I can feel everything—I can even smell his blood.

Under the covers, I wait hours until light filters through the blinds, illuminating the present. The yellow glare washes over the bland walls around my side, over the cheap furniture and over the glossy posters on Maria’s side and the dozens of photographs plastered to the wall. There are no photos on my side, no parents or friends, or anything that might indicate I exist.

I sometimes wish I didn’t. I flip the cover over and breathe in air.

Then I finally feel safe.

* * *

Finals week.

It’s only sophomore year, and I already feel overwhelmed. At my desk, I nurse a cup of piping hot coffee as Maria bounces in her chair next to me as her headphones blast pop music. It’s so loud that I can hear every syllable. My head pounds as I turn to the sheet of paper on my desk with the list of prompts my professor could ask on the final.

Describe Petrarchan conventions using the sonnets we’ve studied this semester citing specific examples.

Petrarchan conventions? My head swims as I try to remember what the hell that is. I flip through my notes, exhaustion and frustration building inside my chest. I should know this. I look outside the window, New York City’s traffic rumbling below as young people walk down the streets in the brilliant sunshine. More than anything, I want to feel the sunshine on my skin instead of being cooped up in this dorm. After weeks of rain, it’s the first nice day outside and I want to take a stroll through Central Park and go to my favorite pastry shop.

“How’re you doing?” Maria slides her headphones around her neck and cranes her neck, looking at my desk.

I gesture towards the blank piece of paper. “Shitty. Taking this lit class was a giant mistake.”