Home.
I decided, with the help of my better judgment, to just go in. At least this way, it wouldn't be as bad as if I came home later.
Emmett was with Corey, probably practicing some baseball tactics, so it would be just Dad and I.
I pulled the truck into the drive way and turned it off. Whatever waited inside for me was going to be painful and I didn't know how much the phone call ticked him off. With a deep breath, I got out of my truck and walked up the stairs of the front porch of our tiny, two story house.
My hand levitated over the handle of the door. When I finally decided that I could take what waited behind the door for me, I walked in.
I saw Dad sitting on the couch drinking a beer and watching something on TV. He didn't even turn around when the door shut. That made me more scared than when I saw his car in the driveway.
"Bella," he cleared his throat. "I received a message on the phone today from your principle."
He pushed himself out of the chair and walked over to me.
"You know you shouldn't be late for school. When, oh when, will you learn your lesson?" He asked, but I knew he didn't expect an answer.
I knew from experience that if I talked he would only slap me across the face.
"Come here, honey." He spat. "Let me teach you a lesson."
I took a step forward, but then looked down to the beer bottle that he was now clutching onto. He took a step towards me; I was directly in his swinging range.
In a matter of seconds, his hand smashed the bottle against my stomach and left a few deep long cuts from one side to the other. I could feel the blood seeping into my shirt and I was starting to get lightheaded. My back hit the wall behind me and I slid down to the floor.
"Did you learn your lesson, Bella?" Dad snapped at me.
I could hear his big work books hitting the floor as he walked towards the door. As soon as I heard his car pull out of the driveway and down the street, I let out a loud, horrifying scream. Like the ones that you hear in scary movies.
The tears were rolling down my face. I was starting to get really lightheaded, but I wouldn't let myself faint, not here. With all the strength I could muster, I stood up, trying to walk to my room. I barely made it.
I dug through my drawers trying to find something to wrap my stomach with, but didn't find anything. My head was dizzier than ever and I couldn't stop the fainting from taking over anymore. Everything went black.
"Bella? Bella…can you hear me?" I heard someone yelling from far away. "Please, don't be dead."
Slowly, I opened my eyes to see Emmett looking at me. He let out a breath that he seemed to be holding for awhile.
"Where am I?" I asked him, trying to sit up.
His muscular hands pushed me back down, cautiously. "You're in your room. Are you okay?"
I looked down at my stomach to see the deep gash, well gashes, there were three of them. My t-shirt had dried blood all over it and it, sort of, disgusted me to look at it, even though I was so used to it. Just not this much at one time.
"Where is he?" I asked immediately.
"At work, he must've left right after you passed out." Emmett looked at me with such caring eyes.
"No, he left before I came in here." I told him, remembering.
"How much longer are you going to put up with this?" He asked me.
I smiled at him, but it wasn't a real smile. "As long as I have too."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know. I can't do anything about it. He has more power than me and he'll probably just kill me if I try to do anything." I sighed.
Emmett hit my dresser with his fist and stood up. I was about to try to calm him down when he stomped out of my room.
Emmett was only two minutes older than me, but he acted as if he was two years older than me. He was very protective of me. That's why my dad only abuses me when Emmett is not around, which is most of the time. I never told Emmett that or he would never leave me alone and Dad wasn't too bad; if I were to lie to someone.
I tried to stand up, but I couldn't. My stomach was in so much pain. There must've still been beer in the bottle because the wound looked like it was going to be infected or even worse…was already infected.
I finally stood up, after trying and trying again, and walked out of my room, my safe haven. The broken glass from the bottle was still in the entry way from earlier.
I walked into the kitchen and soaked a rag under the water. Even dabbing my wound with a rag stung and brought tears to my eyes. I held them back for the sake of my brother, because I knew every time he saw me cry it made him hurt inside and I didn't want to cause him pain too.
"You need to take a shower." I looked up to see Emmett leaning against the doorjamb of the kitchen.
I shook my head. "It'll hurt too much."
"Your wound will get infected if you don't." I had to agree with him on that.
He walked over to me and helped me to the bathroom. Before leaving, he looked at my wound to make sure that everything was okay and that the bottle didn't leave any glass behind. But it did.
There was a long piece of glass stuck in the second wound. Emmett was about to take it out when I slapped his hand away. It didn't hurt as much as if I pulled it out versus if somebody else took it out. My hand was shaking and Emmett noticed.
He pinned both of my hands in one of his and reached for the piece of glass. I didn't wiggle away or try to fight him knowing if I did it would just make things worse than they already were.
"Take a shower and rinse out that cut." He ordered after he took out the piece of glass making it hurt less than normal.
"Yeah, yeah." I waved him away.
I peeled off my bloody clothes trying to stay away from the cuts. Every time anything would touch them I would try to shrink away from the pain that it caused me.
I looked in the mirror, examining the cut, but also a bruise forming on my face. Dad must've slapped me when I wasn't aware of it.
I slowly stepped into the shower, hoping that the pain wouldn't hurt as much if I made slow actions. That didn't help at all. The water still burned on my cuts and it made tears fall from my eyes. But the shower was so soothing that I couldn't step out of it.
That was until I heard the front door slam.
"Where is she?" I heard my Dad yell.
"Don't go anywhere near her!" Emmett threatened.
"And what are you going to do about it, boy?" Dad asked him, he was still yelling.
"I swear, you touch her one more time, I'm going to the cops." Emmett told him.
"You wouldn't do that. I take care of you, son. I'm good to you." Dad snapped at him.
I didn't hear a response out of Emmett. Either he was too mad or actually realized that Dad was right.
"That's what I thought. Now get out of my way."
I jumped out of the shower and wrapped the towel around me. I turned off the lights, hoping that my dad hadn't seen them on at all.
The sound of his work boots echoed through the hall and I squeezed my eyes closed tightly. Nothing could stop him from reaching me, especially not a locked bathroom door.
"Bella, where are you sweetheart?" His voice echoed through the hall way, just louder than his boots. His voice held that scary, nice tone that he always used on me.
I heard him stop right in front of the bathroom door. He tried to turn the handle, but it wouldn't turn. Tears were rolling down my face again.
"Are you almost done in there?" He asked me.
I put my hands over my ears trying to block out the sound of his voice.
"Come on out. I have a surprise for you." He told me.
"Bella, stay in there." I heard my brother yell.
"Shut up, boy." Dad snapped for a second time.
I didn't hear anything else. It all went quiet outside of the door. Then I heard a loud smack against the door and the door moved with it, but it didn't open.
"Bella, hurry and open the door." Emmett called from outside of it.
I trusted him and opened up the door. Dad was sprawled across the floor.
"What did you do?" I screamed. I didn't need him getting arrested for killing our dad.
Emmett understood the look in my eyes. "I just knocked him out. Hurry, I'm bringing you to Alice's."
I nodded and grabbed a pair of dark blue pajama pants, a black t-shirt, and underwear out of a drawer in my room. Emmett grabbed my hand, pulled me out of the room, and towards the door.
We got in my pick up and drove away from our despicable house. Tears were rolling down my face more freely now and I couldn't stop them.
"It's okay," my brother tried to soothe me.
"No, it's not." I spoke truthfully.
Emmett didn't try and argue with me, but by now we were at Alice's house. I saw her sitting on the grass in her front yard on a blanket. She stood up when she saw us pull into her driveway. I didn't see him before, but Jasper was lying down on the blanket. He was on his back with his eyes closed resting on the blanket.
"Does Jasper know yet?" Emmett asked me impassive.
"No, I'm going to tell him though. It's not fair for him to not know about his." Emmett looked at me carefully. "Don't worry, I trust him."
I touched Emmett's arm lightly. He looked at me with relief in his eyes. It was probably from knowing that I will be safe tonight from all harm.
"What about you?" I asked him, jumping out of the cab.
"I'll be fine. I'm bigger than Dad." He told me with a giant grin on his face. He flexed his muscles to prove his point.
"Don't kill him. I don't need you going to jail." I told him.
He narrowed his eyes at me and ran his hand through his black curly hair.
That was the only big difference between Emmett and me, except for our genders. His hair was black with curls and mine was just chocolate brown. Nothing exciting.
"Don't go to school tomorrow. We don't need people asking about that bruise on your face." Emmett said and kissed me on the top of the head.
I nodded.
"Goodnight, Bells." He yelled out the window as he pulled out of the driveway.
"Bella, are you okay?" Alice asked, running over to where I was standing.
Jasper was right behind her. "What's wrong?"
"Jasper," I took a deep, staggering breath. "My dad beats me."
Jasper just stared at me with wide eyes. "What?"
"What did he do to you now?" Alice asked looking at me.
I had changed into my pajamas in the car. So I lifted my shirt halfway up, just enough to reveal three long, jagged cuts across my belly.
"How the hell did he do that?" Jasper asked, pissed off now.
"He hit me with his beer bottle." I explained. "He got the phone call before I did."
Alice nodded slowly knowing what I was talking about.
"What phone call?" Jasper rose.
"The school called my house and left a message that I had missed first hour." I told him.
"I can't believe your dad does that to you." He tried to breathe evenly.
I didn't say anything; I just looked up at Alice. She was staring down at the cuts. I could see the tears about to break loose.
"I'm okay." I assured her.
She tried to smile at me, but couldn't. This is one of those times that she wasn't laughing and if somebody else was around us, they would've been amazed by the silence. It was just the three of us, standing around, not saying anything to one another.
Alice walked inside without saying anything. Jasper and I just stared after her like earlier, when she had her little outburst about Edward.
"She doesn't take this so easily." I clarified for Jasper's benefit.
"I could never understand why." He replied sarcastically.
I smiled at him and he smiled back at me. His gaze went back up to Alice's window. We both knew that she wanted to be alone and we would giver her exactly that.
Thinking about Edward made butterflies rise in my stomach. I didn't know why, but it felt good. It kept the pain away from the cuts. Why did his name raise butterflies in my stomach though? It was really weird.
Jasper finally got sick of waiting for Alice to socome down out of her tower, so he went up there instead. I didn't follow; I didn't do anything. My cuts hurt too badly for me to do anything at all.
I sat down on the blanket that Alice and Jasper had set up earlier and just looked up at the now setting sun. It looked beautiful. With all my might I wished that I could look as beautiful as the sun, but I couldn't and I knew exactly why. My cuts and bruises and beatings would never go away; they'll scar me forever.
"Bella, are you okay out there?" I heard Alice yell out of her window.
I looked over to where she was and just nodded my head. I knew she could see, even if she pretended not to.
"What'd she say?" I heard Jasper ask Alice.
"Nothing," she told him and then shut her window.
I loved Alice and Jasper, but it was a little weird being around them as a couple. They got together in the middle of last summer after Alice yelled out her undying love for him on the top of a cliff by the river. She didn't know he was there, but I did. I had invited him.
After a few minutes on that cliff, Alice was about to jump down into the river. She has wanted to cliff diver her whole entire life. So I wasn't going to stop her, but apparently Jasper would. He came up the cliff and declared his undying love for her. It seemed like a scene out of a really old movie.
"Come on, let's go to bed." Alice stuck her hands out in front of me and I grabbed on willingly.
"Where's Jasper?" I asked her.
"He went home like fifteen minutes ago." She gave me a weird look.
"Sorry, I was just thinking about something." A smile crept across my face. I hoped she didn't see it.
"What were you thinking about?" She asked me suspiciously.
"When you and Jasper finally got together after half of the summer." I told her truthfully.
She had a huge smile on her face by the time I was finished.
"So…" She started. "What's going on with the new kid, Edward?"
"Nothing, why?"
She laughed. "It didn't seem like nothing from where I was sitting. He looked at you like you were an angel from above, but you, you just looked at him in disgust."
I raised an eyebrow at her.
"Come on, he's totally cute and you haven't had a boyfriend since…what was his name?" I looked at her and I know that she could plainly see the hurt in my eyes. "I know what he did to you was bad, but you need to move on." She whispered.
"I can't. It's too hard." I breathed.
"Give Edward a chance; he seems like a nice guy." She told me.
"You know the issues I have with guys." I reminded her.
"Oh…yeah."
We were in her bedroom now and exhausted. Both of us crashed onto her bed and just fell asleep like that. My head wander off into dream land again.
I saw that boy again, Edward. Thankfully I knew his name now so that solved one of the mysteries. Why he saved me last night was still unanswered.
"Bella," his smooth, deep voice whispered into the darkness.
He was moving away from me. I tried to reach for him, but every time I did, he would just move farther away from me.
"What are you doing?" I yelled.
"I can't help it. You need to…" He trailed off.
I couldn't see him anymore and the darkness wrapped around me.
The feeling of loneliness slowly sneaked up on me.
"You're alone and will be alone forever! Nobody will ever love you! It's impossible to love somebody who is as broken as you are!" I heard my father's voice scream at me.
I woke up to someone shaking me violently.
"Bella, get up. Wake up!" I heard Alice yelling at me.
I opened my eyes to see that she had tears rolling down her face.
"Oh, Alice, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean too." I tried to apologize.
"It's not your fault. You couldn't help it." She tried to explain to me. "Come on, we have to get ready for school."
"Okay," I knew I wasn't following Emmett's orders, but if I didn't go to school…I could just imagine what Dad would do to me then.
7
©Carlie Richardson