My vision blurs.
Pfeiffer tilts her head, assessing me like I’m some kind of medical experiment.
Then she stands. She’s the same height as me which only makes it worse.
“So, what were you thinking?” she says, her voice dropping just enough to feel personal again—but it isn’t. It’s worse. “You think I’m weak or something?”
“No,” I say quickly. “No, I just?—”
“Or you just wanted an excuse to talk to me?”
The room erupts into more laughter. My chest tightens and I can’t breathe.
“That it?” she presses. “You thought if you sounded all deep and serious, I’d be impressed?”
My mouth opens but nothing comes out. There’s literally nothing I can say that won’t make this worse.
She waits, her eyes dancing with spite. Then her lip curls.
“If you’re going to pretend to be a man,” she says, loud enough for everyone to hear, “you should wait until you at least have a man’s voice.”
The room explodes and it’s deafening. My heart drums faster,my blood racing, the cortisol spinning around my system like a carousel.
Pfeiffer steps back and sits down, seeming to lap up the applause she’s now receiving.
I walk numbly back to my seat, jibes and laughs punctuating every step.
I don’t remember sitting down. All I remember is feeling like the foundations had crumbled. I’d never be anything at that school. I’d never have the courage to speak again.
And so I don’t.
The news reaches homebefore I do. Even though there are no other mob kids in my class, the teachers are crooked, and most probably on my father’s payroll.
By the time I step through the front door, he’s already waiting.
“You embarrassed yourself today,” he says.
My throat locks as he stands slowly, crossing the room like a viper with a snack in its sights.
“You let them laugh at you,” he says, the complete disappointment lacing his tone.
The first hit comes so fast I don’t see it. I just feel the crack of it across my jaw, snapping my head to the side.
“You sounded like a child.”
Another.
“You looked weak.”
Another.
Movement to my right makes me turn. As my eyes lock onto my younger brothers, another punch knocks me to the ground. None of them call out for him to stop. They just watch, as they’ve been taught to.
Down on the floor I curl into a ball, anticipating the kicks and stamps. They come, but they’re harder this time. I feel a rib crack under a deluge of blows to my torso. A boot flies into my face, fracturing my nose. I try to hold my hands in front of my eyes but he stamps on those too, breaking three fingers.
When I think he might be done, he bends over and grabs me by the hair, then he drags me yelping and crying into the guard dog pen outside. My brothers follow and I hear a small, quickly swallowed whimper from Brando. When I glance at them through swollen lids, I see Remo clap a hand over our youngest brother’s mouth.
Once inside the pen with the two German Shepherds he kicks me one last time and bolts the door shut, then storms back inside the house, leaving my brothers to stare.