“When I come home after working sixteen straight hours at that disgusting sweat house of a job, I do not expect to see cold dinner waiting for me in this filthy place you call a home!”

A loud smacking sound, and then a thud. Mom’s scream quickly lowered to a quiet crying noise. “Shut up! Stop screaming, do you want to wake up the entire neighborhood? Get up, you lazy...”

I knew Mom wished she could awaken the whole neighborhood. Unfortunately, the only person who had woken up was me, and I couldn’t do anything. Whenever I tried, Mom just said that I shouldn’t have to get involved.

Paul, that’s my step-dad, never really hurt me. It was probably because I stayed up in my room once I got home from school, in case he got home early. It was eleven forty-five, now, and I heard him throwing his feet down as he walked up the stairs. I knew if he caught me up this late, I would never be able to live it down. Quickly, before he turned a corner, I shot into my room. My hair tickled my nose when I got in the bed, and just as I was laying down he brushed passed the door. I sneezed, because of my hair. That’s when I heard him stop...he turned, and came towards my door. I could feel his stare, but then, when the feeling disappeared, I turned over slowly. He was no longer there. I sighed, and when I heard his bedroom door close, I lay on my back, and my heart stopped thumping.

“Close...” I whispered to my self. I looked over towards the light in the hallway. I could hear Mom grimacing in pain, and I sat up in bed. Carefully, I walked towards the door, and peeked in the direction of Paul’s room, to be sure that the light under his door was out. It was. I tip toed out into the kitchen. Squinting through the light, I saw mom holding one arm up, and using the other to pick up some pieces of glass from the floor. “Mom?” I said, quietly, poking my head in the door.

She jumped and gasped, “Oh...Josie...it’s you.”
I grinned a little to make her feel better, “Yeah. It is.” I went into the kitchen and began helping her pick up glass, and saw with her upheld arm. “Is your arm okay?”
“Yeah...” She whispered back.
“Let me see it, Mom,” I said as I put some pieces of glass on the table. We stood up straight and she handed it to me slowly. She gasped a little. I looked at it deeply. One spot, near her wrist, was beginning to turn purple and swell. The whole of it didn’t look straight at all. “Mother, look at your arm, he broke your arm!” I said, relatively loudly.
“Shhh,” she said, “No, no, sweetie. I just hit it on something, it’s normal, it’s perfectly fine, it’s--”
“Mom!” I yelled.
“Josephine, would you please lower your voice! You’re going to wake up your father!”

But it was too late. Mom looked up, and in the door way, leaning on the refrigerator, was Paul. “What’s this?” He said, his icy stare lingering right into my eyes.
“I’m sorry...did we wake you up...dad?” I said.
He was quiet for a while and glanced over at my mom, then back at me. He looked at the floor a while, and then back up and sighed. “I was dozing.”
“Having a good dream?” I said as I picked up some glass. Mom just looked at him and gave a fake smile, though I could tell she was scared.
Another long pause. “I was planning on it.” He turned, slowly, and left.

I sighed once he was out of sight. Then I picked up the phone.
“Josie, who are you calling?” My mom asked suspiciously.
“An ambulance and a police.”
“JOSEPHINE!” My mom whispered loudly, and she quickly pressed the receiver down. “We don’t need a big scene! I’ll just wrap it in an ace bandage for now and I won’t move it for a month.”
“Mom, he could have KILLED you.”
“Your father would do no such thing.”
“He’s not my dad, he’s the devil himself!”
“Josephine Claire Michaels, you will be quiet right now or...”
“Or what?”
“Or...” She paused for a moment, and then sighed. “Sweetie...” She put her good arm around me, “I know you don’t like this, but remember, if we call anyone or tell anyone, he’s going to kill us in our sleep, he said it himself.”
I looked at her. “You’re impossible,” I said, and pulled myself away from her grip. I walked towards the living room where my mom had her blanket and pillow on the sofa for herself. I stopped in the doorway and turned to face her, “He’s already killed us. He’s killed me. You’ve killed me, and you’re killing me right now.”

I walked out quickly and back up to bed. Laying there, I heard the sofa bed clank as it was opened up. My bedroom darkened as it’s dim light supply coming from over the hallway banister looking downstairs was shut off as mom turned off the living room light, and then a loud creaking came as I heard her crawl into bed. A quiet, “Ow,” was the last I was witnessed with that night. It was then that I grabbed the bible that was on my bed table, and held it close to my heart. I turned over, and after my quiet prayer and an a-men, I fell asleep, soundly.

***

Lunch, sixth period. The freshmen and sophomores had already had theirs, now it was our turn. My best friend Seth Adams and I had just sat down at one of the round tables off towards the side of the cafeteria by ourselves. Seth was sixteen, almost seventeen years old, like me, and was really shy. If he wanted to say something, he would wait five hundred years (or close) to say it. He was one of the best looking people I knew. He had dark wavy hair and eyes, and for some reason, I thought he had great lower arms. He was kinda tall, and once, when I touched his head, he got all mad because he thought I messed up his hair. It was really ridiculous. A lot of the kids in school think we’re going together. It’s not true, really. If we need comforting, we’re there for each other. Holding onto a guy and crying with him doesn’t mean you’re involved. It’s not like we kiss or anything.

Seth and I opened up our cans of Dr. Pepper, and started munching on the one bag of chips we had enough money for. We never ate the cafeteria food. At least not since it gave poor Seth food poisoning. I leaned

Paul broke my mom’s arm...” The tears started up in my eyes.
He frowned. “Josie...really?”
I nodded and clasped my hand around the soda can a little tighter. I knew I would start crying soon, but I didn’t want to. Not during school. I always told Seth everything about my life, and especially my family. Sometimes, when I would talk about it, I would cry so much that I would give myself a migraine, and Seth would have to take me back to his house for some Tylenol and a nap.
“What happened?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and continued. “He came home late from the workhouse yesterday, and thought he would have a nice hot meal. When he saw cold microwave pizza, he went bizerk and plates went flying. I’m not sure what happened to the pizza. I would have eaten it, but since I can’t find it...”
Seth grinned when I mentioned eating the pizza. “How’s you’re mom doing right now?”
“All right...she’s just going to wrap an ace bandage around it for a month and make my dad think she tripped when she was coming out of the bathtub.”
“Did you try calling 911?”
“Yeah, mom hung it up though. She didn’t want me to make a scene.”
“Oh. Are you okay?”
“Yeah...” I looked up at him and smiled a little and timidly said, “I could use a hug.”
Seth laughed as he put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him. Just then my other friend Natalie Greene came and sat next to us. She smiled. She didn’t think anything was wrong with my family. All she beleived was that my parents were divorced and that I had a step dad.

Natalie had red hair, a little past her shoulders, and darker than pale skin. She had dark gray-blue eyes, and was always very spunky, probably taking after her mother who never stops the car unless it stops it self. Well...also if she’s sleeping, but that’s hard for Natalie’s mother to do. “Nothing,” I said. “How about you?”
She beamed when I asked, “Dude, I got a ninety-five on the geometry test. I’m SO close to actually getting an A average this semester.”
Seth took his arm off of my shoulders and started folding up the top of the bag of chips so that he could stick it in his backpack for after school. “I got a ninety eight,” he said.
I looked at Seth and smiled, then, still smiling, looked back at Natalie, and giggled a bit when I saw her eyes widen. “Na-uh,” she said. “How did you get a ninety-eight? The grades went from ninety five to one hundred.”
“Well,” he answered, “I would have gotten an eighty-five, but I answered the ten point bonus question and got it right.”
“But that’s ten points, shouldn’t you have ninety-five too?”
“Yeah, but I wrote down all the questions when I didn’t have to, and I got three extra points.”
Natalie stared a while, then groaned and stuffed her paper back into her binder. “One of these days, Seth.” She laughed and put her folders into her back pack. “I need to run. I have to study for the science quiz again so that I can positivley be sure I get a higher grade than Peter Carrier...he’s such a dork.”
“Good luck,” I called after her, and then I turned around to face Seth.

He just grinned at me and rolled his eyes. I laughed as the bell rang, and we stood up to go throw away our trash.