I hurried to get Charlie's food cooked perfectly before he came home. If his food was not made and on the table with a beer when he got home, then I would have to pay the price. Then again, he would beat me anyway. He gets drunk out of his mind nearly every night, beating both me and my mother senseless. I hated it. I have more bruises covering my body than I can count, and nearly every bone had been broken. I had never seen a doctor, so many of them had probably set wrong. Nothing would ever be done about it.

I know that Charlie doesn't care about me. No one does. Maybe my mother, but she's rarely ever here. Charlie makes her work at a strip club in Port Angeles because he doesn't have a job. He just spends all day fishing and then comes home to dinner waiting warm on the table for him.

I knew that tonight was going to be nightmarish. I wouldn't be able finish dinner on time. I bit down hard on my lip, hoping for Charlie to be late. He wasn't.

He burst through the door and into the kitchen just as I started putting the food on his plate. My eyes widened in horror as he looked at me. "Girl!" He yelled. It's a good thing we have no close neighbours. For Charlie at least. No one can hear my daily screaming as Charlie beats me. "Why isn't my dinner ready?!"

I swallowed hard. He was very angry. "It wasn't ready yet, sir. I wouldn't want to serve you uncooked meat." I tried to look horrified at the thought. I've never been the best actress.

"Oh really?" He asked menacingly. "I don't believe you. You where probably off being a slut. Weren't you?" He sneered. It was times like this that had me stumped. He doesn't like me to disagree, but I couldn't agree, so I said nothing. I was getting a painful beating tonight. Charlie just said, "I thought so," before he went to the fridge to get a beer. I quickly loaded his plate with food and set it down on the table. Charlie came back into the kitchen with a full case of beer. I felt my eyes widen. He grinned evilly at me.

I figured that he had just devised a new method of torture for me. Like kicking me in the ribs with steel toed boots wasn't bad enough. I looked at Charlie fearfully as he downed his dinner. When he finished, he chugged a beer and said, "come here," so I came to his side. He grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the stove.

He turned a knob and a burner turned on. He waited for it to heat up all the way. When it was glowing red he placed my hand on it and held it down as I screamed, trying desperately to pull away from the pain. Charlie's grip was too strong, and he held me there for a good minute and a half, chugging another beer.

When he decided that my hand had been on the burned long enough, he flung me to the ground. I felt my head hit the tiled floor of our kitchen. Charlie started kicking me hard. In the morning I would have a lot of bruises in the shape of a boot covering my stomach and back. He screamed at my while he beat me. Telling me that I was a whore and a slut, while he got more and more drunk.

When Charlie got too drunk to stand he stopped the beating. He collapsed on the couch, and began snoring within seconds. I shifted myself into a sitting position and just sat there for a while, breathing heavily.

After a long while I stood up and turned the burner off. I was about to go upstairs and treat my multiple injuries, when I heard the front door open quietly. I paused to see who it was. Mom. We smiled grimly at each other, before I walked upstairs to take a long, cold shower and make the pain stop.

The pain didn't stop. Even when I was all bandaged up and laying in bed. It was still there. It felt like It was in my chest, deep in my heart. I realized what it was. Loneliness. I was always alone. I had a boyfriend, Jacob Black, but he was constantly jealous and beat me as well; though not as often or as severely as Charlie. My mother was not exactly comforting. I rarely said a word to her, and we where both simply trying to survive Charlie. Nobody would ever really care about me. I was alone in the world.

Tell me what you thought. Any ideas? I could always use ideas.