Something long buried

Thus far, Andy was having a good time going into his past and doing things they way they should've been done. But now he planned to go back to a memory that he always wished he could forget. There, floating in the limbo of his mind, he hesitated, truly terrified of what he would see there.

"Get a hold of yourself, Andy," he said aloud. With eyes shut and teeth clamped, Andy repeated a mantra of self-confidence and empowerment. When he opened his eyes, he was there: a Sunday afternoon at his home, his mother and father together in the kitchen.

Only this was no picture of the American Golden Age. Andy's father had become a drunk in his later years, and regularly took his work frustrations home with him. Andy was already eighteen-- legally an adult-- but he didn't dare stand up to his father, even if he liked to beat the shit out of his poor doting mother, Deborah.

"YOU SAID DINNER WAS READY NOW."

"It'll be ready in five minutes! I just need to--"

"FIVE MINUTES IS NOT NOW YOU FUCKING MORON!"

Andy looked down at himself. Just a senior in high school and standing a good six feet tall, he was in the best shape of his entire life, even if he was not as strong as the burly patriarch of the house.

But then the sound of breaking glass awoke Andy to the situation at hand. There, by the oven his mother laid, trickles of blood running down her forehead, and shards of glass strewn all about the floor tiles. Her assailant stood over her, still livid and unrepentant like a god of war, poised to strike again.

The sight made Andy sick to his stomach, but nothing disgusted him more than his own cowardice. Already he had hesitated-- in the vision of a memory that he was in control of. Worse still, the old traps were coming back to haunt him, the ones in which he was too scared or complacent to act, or in which he told himself over and over again, "Next time. Next time I'll do something." But Deborah deserved so much better than "next time." She would get it now.

Andy stepped forward and raised his voice.

"HEY!"