Jack stood in his apartment waiting for his parents to return home. He paced the floor anxiously. It had been almost two whole days since his mother or father had last been home. The eight year old Jack had been left alone without food or supervision the whole time, forbidden from leaving the apartment while they were away.
Just as Jack was certain that his father would never ever return for him, he heard a pounding on the front door. "Open the door now!" he heard his father yell.
Jack scrambled to the door as quickly as his little legs would carry him. He struggled with the heavy door but managed to pry it open. "Daddy you came home!" he chirped excitedly.
"Jack," he said in a detached tone ,his voice never had sounded so cold before. "What are you doing here?"
"Daddy where have you been all this time?" Jack asked his father.
"Where's your mother?" he asked, dodging the question.
"I don't know daddy. She left and she hasn't been back."
Mr. Kelly slapped his son hard enough to knock him to the floor. "Where's your fucking mother Jack?"
"I d-d-don't know she l-left with Mi-Mi-Mi-Mister Calderon,"Jack conveyed despite his heavy crying. He clutched at his face where he had been struck by his father's large hand.
"Go to go room Jack."
"But."
"GO!" his father commanded.
Jack fled to his bedroom on shaking limbs. He hid beneath his covers and waited for his mother to come home and listened to his father get piss drunk in the other room. Jack's small body heaved with sobs beneath the quilt his parents had supplied him with. Finally he heard the front door open.
"What're you doing here you whore?" Jack was able to hear his father's voice come muffled, through the wall.
"Alex please," she attempted to reason with her husband.
"You fucked Íñigo Calderon. You cheated on me you whore."
"No I didn't."
"Our son saw you leave with him."
"That brat!" She exclaimed in a stage whisper. "He lied to you. Kids make things up Alex."
"Sure." Jack heard the sound of a slap, then a scream and breaking glass. Jack heard a moment of dreadful choking followed by eery silence that dragged on for too long.
Too petrified to sleep Jack lay awake in his sheets. He waited for his father to leave for work before leaving himself, never to return.