AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1
EDEN
VAUGHN
IF HE WOKE UP, he would beat the hell out of me.
I’m talking beat me within an inch of my life.
No.
That’s not entirely correct.
If he caught me stealing from him, he would probably kill me—choke the life from my body while my stoned mother watched in a daze.
I was confident he would take me out of this world without batting an eye—send me beyond the veil with a few choice words and a whole lot of pain.
He was heartless and as mean as a snake.
The first time Allen, my mom’s boyfriend, hit me, it wasn’t that bad—a simple backhand across the face for talking back. I remember thinking it was better me than my mother. I remember thinking that even though I felt like my cheek would explode, I was younger, and I could take more than she could.
That was the first.
A lot had changed since that first time. The last time he hit me was terrible.
Using muscles I had never used before, I fought back, screaming and growling, but it was pointless. Allen was much stronger than I was and had more experience in fighting.
Ending that night with bruises on my cheek and a bloodied lip, I spent the night trying to get comfortable in my single bed while the smell of mildew lingered in my room from a broken pipe under the bathroom.
My eyes were still open when the sun came up, and after a night of thinking about it, I decided I was done. I was determined the last time he hit me would be just that… the last freaking time.
No more name-calling.
No more putting his hands where they didn’t belong.
No more being uncomfortable in what was supposed to be my home.
After I stepped out the front door, I would leave it all behind. Life as I knew it would cease to exist, but until then, I still needed to be cautious, which was why I was ever so careful when I snuck into my mom’s bedroom and slid his wallet from the dresser.
I had seen him counting the money in his wallet earlier in the living room. It was right after his “friends” stopped by and left with little baggies of what I knew was drugs. Since then, he had blown a good bit of the money on beer and pizza, but I knew he still had some left in his wallet. He had sold a lot, which meant plenty of money should be left.
My mother had never been into drugs—at least not until she met Allen, but now it was the main reason she looked away when he would flip out and put his hands on me. She was too stoned to care, and I was too broken to stay. One more blow and I was sure I would crack and break away.
The floor beneath my feet popped and creaked, the rotten plywood just beneath the stained carpet ready to give, and I froze in fear when Allen turned on his side with a moan. If he woke up now, he would kill me for trying to steal from him.
Their bedroom smelled of stale cigarettes and dirty laundry. My mom had always kept a clean home. It didn’t matter if we lived in an old single-wide in one of the crappiest trailer parks this side of Mesa. It might have been ugly, but it was always clean.
Not anymore.
These days, I kept my bathroom and bedroom clean, but I couldn’t do much about the rest of the rooms. Especially not when Allen would invite his friends over, and they would destroy the place.
Standing next to their bed, I took in the profile of my sleeping mother. We had always been close, growing up together in a lot of ways since she had been a young, single mother. Even after I turned eighteen and passed the age of moving out, I stayed with her.
With beautiful, long blond hair and eyes as transparent as glass, she had a smile that lit up the room, and her confidence burned even brighter. But these days, things were different. She no longer cared about her appearance. Her hair was thin, her eyes were dull, and she rarely smiled unless she was high.
When she started dating Allen, things changed, and once he moved in with us, things took a turn for the worse. He had anger management issues and a serious drug problem. Both things meant I spent a lot of time defending her and stepping in to take the beatings intended for her.
I loved her, and looking down at her while she slept, I could almost see the woman she used to be, but after two years of abuse and trying with all I was to bring that woman back, it was time I admitted the truth.
