In Time Will It Come by Kaitlyn Garlets (best sci fi novels of all time txt) 📖

been?” my dad screams. I stop and dramatically turn around. I really didn’t want to deal with this. I had to deal with too much at school, so why should I deal with him? I could run out the door and never come back. My real mother taught me to forge documents. I could move to a new school and start over, and no one would ever know what had happened.
But instead, I walk into the living room and stand in front of my dad, who grips his beer bottle tightly. “Yes, dad?” I manage to ask.
He burps, and then takes another swig of beer without turning his eyes away from me. “Where the hell have you been?” he asks. “I thought I told you not to miss that goddamn bus today. And what the hell were you thinking when you took that stupid sketch book to school? I thought I told you to stop drawing. Or have you stopped listening to me altogether, now, too?” He asks, taking another swig of beer.
I look down at the floor. I wish mom was home. I don’t like her, but she’s the closest thing I actually have to an actual mother, considering that my real mother ran off with some other man, leaving me with my brother and my dad. Dad had married only a year later from loneliness. That’s when he started drinking. I shove that thought out of my head and tried to tell him that it was the new guy’s fault that I was late for the bus. He wouldn’t stop talking, and made me late, but dad doesn’t see it like that.
“You could have fucking told him to shut the hell up and get the hell out of your way, now couldn’t you? Oh, wait. I forgot. You don’t remember how to say anything anymore, right? Not since your stupid brother died.” Tears fall down my cheeks. It wasn’t my fault Rasimus died. It really wasn’t, but no one seems to believe me at all. Not even my own father. I know he blames me, and that’s why he hates me.
I narrow my eyes at him and turn on my heel and I head up the stairs, not caring if I was making a lot of noise as I bound up the stairs. I head for my room where I slam the door shut. I toss my backpack onto the floor and I flop onto my bed. I suddenly hear large, heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs. My heart quickens and I run to the door and turn the lock on the door so he can’t get in. I really wish my step mom was here. She could keep him under control, but then she would lash out on me for even thinking about making dad angry.
Dad’s fists connect with the wooden door and he bangs and bangs until he finally gives up and I actually can breathe again. I slip under my covers and sleep.

7:08 P.M.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zora

I wake up to someone fist pounding my doors. I groan and sit up in my bed. I really didn’t want to get up and see who it is. It still could be dad still drunk, ready to slap me across the face. I flop back onto my bed, but the pounding is still there.
“Go away,” I say to the door.
“Sweetie, it’s me. We need to talk,” my step mom says. I sigh. She doesn’t sound angry. Maybe she had a good day at work today. Yeah, right. Mom never has a good day at work. Not unless she just got her paycheck. “I know how your feeling, sweetie. I can help.” She always thinks she can help me, but I know she can’t. Not since Rasimus died. No one can help me. I might as well die right now.
I don’t answer and she finally goes away. I sit up, tears falling down my face. I don’t know why, but I just need to cry right now, for dad, for mom, for my step mom, for Rasimus, for myself. I really don’t know who I was crying for, or if I was just crying because I needed to cry, but I wasn’t about to stop crying just to figure it out.
Finally, something breaks inside of me. I look over to the other door in my room, where my bathroom is. I am so glad that I don’t have to share a bathroom and that I don’t have to go out of my safe room just to take a pee. I would rather pee my pants or in a soda bottle then go out there where my drunken dad is. I slip out of my bed and head into the bathroom, still crying. I open the mirror door open and pull out my razor, watching it carefully, as if it will cut me into pieces if I turn my back on it. I set it on the side of my bathroom tub and sit down on the toilet. I haven’t cut myself since Rasimus died. Not since dad remarried. I roll up my sleeve and glance at my scars that I had on my upper arms. I roll up my pants leg and see the newer scars from when I had cut myself right after Rasimus died on the backside of my calves.
I turn my head as a knock comes at the door of my bedroom. “Honey, I have the key to your room, you know, and if you don’t open the door right now, I will unlock the door, you hear me?” her voice doesn’t sway once as she says that. “Honey? What are you doing in there? You’re so quiet? Are you alright?” She bangs on my door once more. Then I hear dad’s large footsteps down the hallway. Oh, God.
“What the hell are you doing?” dad demands from mom. “I thought I told you to leave the little shit alone! She’s nothing but trouble. If she wants to hurt herself, then let her. That’s not our problem.”
“Like hell it isn’t! She’s our daughter!” my step mom says. A memory flashes through my mind of my real mom and dad having what seemed like their first fight. It was right after Rasimus died and I had first started cutting myself. I was in so much pain, mental and physical pain, and they didn’t even seem to notice until one day I came out of my room, my legs bloodied from where I had cut myself. Mom and dad were in the hallway, arguing about something and I stood in front of them until mom noticed. She screamed and rushed over to me, but I ran back into my room before she could get to me. I should have stayed out there. I could have saved mom from being beaten by dad for the first time. I could have kept her here, but instead, I hid in my closet with the door locked and I cried, cutting myself even more as dad beats on mom, telling her that it was her fault for letting me be alone with Rasimus. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t. It isn’t.
Not my fault.
Isn’t my fault.
Never was my fault.
Will never be my fault.
It was an accident.
I didn’t mean to.
I’m sorry.
It is my fault.
He’s right. My fault. I let it happen, and now he’s gone because of me.
I should have listened.
I. Should. Have. Listened.
That’s enough to make me go over the edge as I listen to dad beat on mom, who screams for me to open the door. I don’t. I should. But I don’t. Instead, I grab the razor and take apart the plastic, leaving just the razor in my sweaty palm.

12:42 P.M.------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zora


I somehow make it back to my bed, where I slip under the covers, my legs and arms still bloody from where I had cut myself where I fall asleep, tears still covering my face.

7:24 A.M., the next day---------------------------------------------------------------Zora

I awaken to a silent house. It seems too quiet to me. Whenever someone in the house has a bad day, or ends in a fight, the house is usually silent the next morning. Dad is probably still in bed, sleeping from when he dropped on the floor or the couch, asleep from drinking too much. I really don’t want to get out of bed.
There’s a knock at my door. I don’t move, but my eyes shift to the door. I don’t know who’s on the other side, but I’m pretty sure that its either mom or dad, and I don’t think I could face dad because of last night, or mom because she’s probably all beaten up.
But instead, I sit up and slip out of bed and I head to the door, where I unlock the door. I don’t even bother to open the door. Everyone in this house knows that if the doors unlocked, then you can come in. It’s mom. I almost gasp at what I see when she opens the door to reveal what dad had done to her.
“Sweetie, your breakfast is ready. I was trying to be quiet because I didn’t want to wake your father up. How did you sleep last night? I know things have been hard around here, but things will get better, I just know it.” She sits down on the edge of my bed. I’m surprised that she hasn’t seen the blood all over the sheet and comforters yet from my arms and legs. I look at my hands. They have blood on them too.
I nod, not sure what to say. “What did he do to you last night?” I ask. She sniffs and twiddles her thumb. I grab her face in my hands and force her to look at me. “I don’t know how you can stand to stay here with us. Look what he did to us last night. He beat you up because you wanted in. I know that I should have, but I was too afraid to let anyone in. And he pushed me over the edge, forcing myself to do this to myself,” I say to her, standing. Her eyes widen when she sees what I did. I close my eyes and fall to the floor, sobbing quietly so I wouldn’t wake him up. If he found out about this, he would beat on us even more than he did last night.
She falls to the floor with me and we quietly cry, holding each other. “Why don’t we do something fun today and just skip school? Huh? What do you say to that?” she asks.
My shoulders slump. No ordinary mother would say something like that. My real mother took me to a psychiatrist when I first cut myself. She told me that I was crazy and that I should be doing these things to my body. I ran away from mom as soon as we pulled up into the parking lot of the place. I didn’t come home for two whole days, and those were the toughest two days of my life. I had almost been raped by someone, and I was robbed by another, who only ended up taking a piece of gum that was already chewed up because that’s all I had left. I didn’t have money or anything.
When I had come home, mom wasn’t there, and dad was sitting at the table, drinking. There were empty bottles lying on the floor and across the table when I entered the kitchen. I had asked dad where mom was, and he had handed me a piece of paper. I took it from his hands and read what was on the