Tripping
"Jesus, dad, no!" I shouted. My father was once again drunk, very drunk, and was coming at me with a kitchen knife.
"Youworthelesssonofabitch," he shouted at me, while throwing a wild stab with the cutlery. I dodged it and ran to the foyer. I fell down as the carpet slid on the wooden floor. The crash threw my dad off for a second before he sent the knife flying across the room to lodge itself in the wall. He seemed to abandon the use of it and resorted to kicking me. I rolled over and stood up. Running up the stairs I took them two at a time. I slammed the door and collapsed down on my bed. Pain was a normal feeling for me much like love is normal for most people. Living like this every day is tough at first but once seven years passes you get used to it and start to accept it. I breathed deeply several times before throwing my cell phone across the room at the wall. The chips in the paint varied around a central point directly across from my bed where all of possessions were eventually thrown.
"Murtagh, your little girlfriend's here," I heard my dad shout from the entrance hall. Jesus Christ, I thought, Mae is NOT my girlfriend, just a good friend. I ran down the stairs to see her standing on the front stoop of the house. As I walked by I grabbed the knife from the wall and walked out the door.
"He's drunk again isn't he?" Mae asked sort of rhetorically.
"Whadda ya think?" I said waving the knife in her face.
She laughed slightly and said, "You take it so well, if I was in your position I would fall apart."
"I don't handle it as well as you think."
"School starts tomorrow. You'll have to cover up those bruises somehow," she looked at me and gave an inquiring look, "Are you ok?"
"Don't worry about me Mae."
"That doesn't answer my question," she said.
I stopped walking and placed my hand on her shoulder, "You'll know when I'm not ok. Ok?"
"Yah, sure, whatever." We walked a little further in silence before I turned to her and grinned my infamous mischievous smile, "Happy seventeenth, Marina."
"You never forget do you?"
"No. Now give your arm," I instructed her, pulling a black Sharpie out of my pocket. We have been writing things on our arms since the second grade. We also probably both have ink poisoning or something. She held out her arm and I wrote "Never forget" on her forearm.
"Race you to the bridge," I shouted already several feet ahead.
"Not fair, you gotta head start."
It was that odd twilight time that always makes you think of going to get ice cream as a little kid. That renders head lights on your car useless, even though you can't really see without them. Mae and I both sat with our knees pulled to our chests under the highway bridge. The cars roared over us as we stared out over the wide river.
"Hey after you graduate you can get out of here away from your father. You won't have to put up with any of his shit," she looked at me.
"I can't just leave him like this. He has beat me, cut me, and me deserves none of my care, but I can't leave him to fend for himself."
"Just promise me you won't let him get to you."
"I won't, 'promise." She grabbed my arm and wrote "Don't trip over the little things" just above my right wrist.
A/N- Was originally written as a brain child of writers block but it turned out to be my best written story and more people like it than any of my other stories. Short first chapter but its basically a prologue-y type thing.
