here, i'm allowed
everything all of the time
–radiohead

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ 10 ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

            "WHERE IS SHE?"     I mutter, shuffling into the house, looking around, checking her bedroom, barging into the bathroom, then the living room again. "Fuck, where is she, Dawson?" I hear myself howl.

"Sit down, son." He says. A shadow of hesitation crosses his face. "And–who are you looking for, son? who–"

"Where is she?" I hear myself bark at him until my throat hurts, my eyes roaming every crevice of the room. My fingers are tugging at the roots of my hair.

He shakes his head, a surprising look of guilt smothering his features. "You're not well, Nathaniel. You haven't been well for a long time," He was staring at me, strangely. I want to be anywhere but here. "Caterina had to bear the consequences for that, and I get that it must have had a big effect on you. I know how it feels, Nathaniel. I lost your mother too. But son," He stops, looks at me dead in the eye. "You cannot keep coming here. It's not healthy, and it won't bring her back. Your grandmother and I, we can't keep covering for you,"

He's sprouting such overwhelming sequences of nonsensical bullshit that I eventually stop listening to the sounds coming out of his mouth and focus on finding Trina instead.

"Nathaniel," The man was saying, and I want to physically refrain him from using his mouth, or cut my own ears off. "There's only so much we can do, only so much money can get away with, you hear me? The police, they're going to stumble upon this place one day if you don't stop coming back, and what do you do then? Your fingerprints are everywhere, your–"

"The police?" I furrow my eyebrows, stopping my search for a second, feeling my heart beat in my throat. Of course, I think to myself. They found you here, in her house, stabbed and bleeding on the floor. They know it was Caterina. I am doused in cold panic.

What if grandmother and father throw her in jail for this?

I clear my throat, furrowing my eyebrows. "Why would the police come here? Caterina did nothing wrong."

I should be grateful that he finally seized his monologue and simply stood staring at me as if I just came to life, but I'm terrifyingly not. His eyes are seeing me for the first time.

They're going to put Caterina in jail for stabbing you, when they find her. They're going to try and get her in trouble so you'll stop seeing her. They've found their loophole.

My hands are everywhere. Throwing punches at him, his stomach, his frail shoulders, his aging jaw. Hitting my childhood tormentor with all my might, all my pent-up hatred, all the anger of a hurt child.

My fingers encircle his throat, and they're squeezing, firmly, squeezing until they turn numb, squeezing until everything turns to nothing and they're still there, squeezing. "You will not touch her." My entire body shakes from the magnitude of what I'm experiencing.

I hear myself scream, and I know, right then, that the entirety of the world could hear me, that every God of every religion is staring down at me as I choke my father. "You will not take her away from me. I'll kill you. All of you!"

They know where she is. They know she has mental problems, and they will take her from me. I feel myself squeezing his throat tighter. "Where the fuck is she?"

I hear white noise. Then, god's voice. No, the man's. "c-ca-caterina isn't–" He finally manages to wheeze, through clenched teeth and a fading breath. "She's dead, son." Low and guttural. The entire sky is pinning me down. "Fuck, Nathaniel. She's been dead for a month,"

Slowly, as my world spins on its axis, I feel my grip on his neck loosen. I don't know if my heart is still beating. "What?" A voice murmurs.

He looks at me, dead in the eye. "You killed her," he shakes his head. "Last month, Nathaniel. You killed her."