"Sarah, leave. I'm 18. I can handle myself." I growled as I glanced at my friend over my shoulder.
"I know. However I have been your friend for 4 years now. I can see that look in your eyes a mile away.
"What look?"
"The look that tells me you're about to do something really, really stupid." She waited for me to deny object. When I didn't respond, she stepped into my path.
"What?"
"I accuse you of doing something stupid and you don't even try to correct me? That's not like you. What are you about to do?"
"Nothing, I'm just running away from home." I sighed, stepping around Sarah.
"Oh." She fell in step with me. "So you're gonna go live with Sam?"
"Yeah."
"About time"
I stopped "What do you mean by 'about time'?"
She continued walking "Well I've known you for four years now. In those four years I've seen you come to school with wounds as small as a scraped knee to as large as gashes all the way from your ankles to your elbows. You've passed out on my porch three times from massive blood loss. I've had to visit you in the hospital six times because one of those to drunken fools got mad and found a gun."
"Hey at least life is never boring." Sarah gave me a dirty look. I just grinned back.
"As I was saying, I've known you four years and I've seen what they do to you. Everyday after school you'd say 'See ya tomorrow' and couldn't help but think 'If you're still alive that is'. You're my best friend and I can't help but worry. I don't know why you don't just turn them in for child abuse."
"They weren't always like that. But something happened and they changed. I guess I'm just being naïve. I keep thinking that I'll come in that door and they'll be there smiling and they'll apologize for all of the times they hit me, all the times they shot me and all the love they deprived me of. All the love they were supposed to give me."
"You're right you are being naïve. But what happened that made them change?"
"I don't know." I was lying as you could probably guess. I knew it was Keth's sudden death that caused them to change. On the other hand, I had never told anyone about Keth. I guess I thought that if I never told anyone about Keth I would never have to face that he was gone. I would never have to face that he died trying to save me.
"Well if you figure it out I'd kill to know."
"I'll bear that in mind."
I took a quick a quick left behind Sarah's back and ran quietly as possible toward my true goal. The alleyways. The one place Marget and Stan had told me never to go. Even after I became nothing more then pain relief. Glaring into the darkness I steeled my will and prepared to enter the alleyways were my biological parents had died.