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he sees the shoes as he hides beneath the bed, the leather boots scuffing across the floor. and he holds his hand over his mouth, holds it tighter and tighter and tighter as though he’ll be able to block out the choked sound of his sobs. hot tears prick at his eyes and his vision blurs but still he can see two worn knees touch down on the floor, palms following quickly behind. and he pushes back, scrambling away, avoiding his father’s gaze as two grey-green eyes lock onto his quivering form. hands touch ankles and he wants to scream, to tell him to stop stop stop but his lungs are frozen in his chest and suddenly he’s out in the open, blinded as the light hits him in the face. finger tighten around his collar and he’s thrown back onto the bed, his father standing over him, the low hiss of how dare you ringing in his ears. he knows what’s coming next, the same thing that’s happened almost every day since he was eight years old. he feels a hand on his thigh and immediately whispers no. grip falls away and he hears what did you just say to me? and every fiber of his being is telling him to be quiet, but he won’t. he can’t. with tense shoulders he raises his voice nobody should do that to anyone else. there’s no reply except for a quiet warning of Patrick but he continues on anyway, even louder this time, nobody should do that to anyone else. this time there is no warning, this time his father’s hand is suddenly around his throat, raising him up until his toes are just skimming the bed. and his father leans in, knuckle pressing against his throat as he murmurs if you tell anyone about this, I will snap you in two. then his father throws him back onto the mattress and turns him onto his stomach and the moment his face leans into the pillow is the moment he wakes up, a scream tearing itself from his throat as he falls off of the bed, sheets in tangles around his legs. his wife is beside him in an instant, her murmur of Patrick Patrick Patrick circling round and round in his mind and it’s not for another ten minutes that he finally breaks free of the nightmare, of the flashback, of if you tell anyone about this, I will snap you in two. and he leans into his wife’s shoulder, shaking and sobbing and wishing more than anything for the drugs of his past, for a razor blade or an open window. something, anything, to stop the pain. this wasn’t supposed to happen to him, this wasn’t supposed to be his life. but it was and it is and there’s only one thing that can save him now. nobody should do that to anyone else he breathes into his wife’s shirt. I know, she says. but he knows that she doesn’t.