Chapter 4: Hurt
"I wonder what your dad's like." Namine giggled as they walked to Roxas's house. "He has to be a great guy, because you're so wonderful." Roxas looked down thinking about how wrong she was about his dad.
"Well here we are." Roxas said quietly as they reached the door. He prayed more than anything that his dad would be out at the bar so he could pretend he was there the whole time and avoid the whole thing. Unfortunately, he didn't have that kind of luck.
"Aren't we going to to go in?" Namine asked politely as Roxas put his hand on the knob and stood there.
He took a few deep breaths before turning the knob. "Yeah, we're going."
Once the door was open, Roxas stepped slowly inside with Namine right behind him. Right in the living room was his dad watching T.V. with liquor in hand.
"Where have you been boy?" His father slurred as he put his glass down and walked over to Roxas. "Who's the bitch?" Roxas looked down without saying a word. "Answer me boy."
"I'm Namine." She said politely, slightly frightened.
Roxas's dad just smiled. "See Roxas, why can't you be more like that. Now where were you last night?"
He just took a deep breath and looked up at his father. "I was out with my friends last night, got a problem with that?"
His dad just looked at him for a minute before punching him on the side of his lip. "You shouldn't be allowed to have friends, you will only destroy their lives. You don't deserve that girl either, you're only going to hurt and ruin her life."
Once his dad left, Roxas could feel the blood trickling down his lip. "Go home Namine." he said. He knew that his dad was far from done beating him, if he was it would be to easy.
"But Roxas, you're hurt." Namine said as she reached out her hand to touch his face.
He caught her hand and pushed it back down to her side. "I said go home!" he yelled. Namine's eyes filled with pain and brimmed with tears as she turned to run for the door. It broke his heart to see that but there was no other way he could make her leave before his dad came back.
"Get in here boy." His dad called from inside the living room. Roxas took a deep breath and walked into the living room. Once he turned the corner something hard hit his head. He fell to the ground holding his head screaming as blood started dripping from his head onto the carpet. When he looked up, his dad dropped the led pipe he was holding and punched Roxas in the nose hard enough to break it. He screamed out in pain again as his dad punched him in the face and he fell to the ground in the fetal position.
Please just let this end quickly. Roxas thought to himself as his dad delivered repeated kicks to his stomach and ribs. He couldn't even find the strength to scream anymore. All he could do was curl up in a ball and hope for the best. As the beating worsened all He was able to see was Namine's heart broken face behind his eyes. Why am I thinking of that now? He asked himself. It shouldn't matter, she was safe.
His dad gave one final kick to his stomach which caused him to cough up a lot of blood. Just then he heard the front door kick open as the sunlight flooded in. "Put your hands in the air." he heard a voice call out as there were sounds of guns being loaded. Through all the commotion a couple of ambulances ran in with a stretcher and equipment.
"You're going to be alright." the female ambulance said as the male started quickly pulling out equipment.
As his dad was removed from the house, Namine came bursting in through the flood of light and knelt down beside Roxas. "it's okay I'm here. I got you some help."
Roxas worked hard to focus on her, "Why...why did you come back?" he asked as breathing became harder for him.
"Because I love you. I ran to get help as soon as walked outside." She said as tears started rolling down her cheeks.
He looked down at the blood that was on the floor next to him as his vision blurred and his eyes started to glaze over. The male ambulance quickly put a breathing mask on Roxas's face. "his lungs are filling up with blood very quickly. We need to get him to the hospital ASAP."
As the stretcher was lifted into the air life seemed surreal to Roxas. It was like he was seeing everything through someone else's eyes as his vision blurred and his eyes started to glaze over. As time slowed down, his body began to feel lighter to him.
"Roxas!" Namine screamed right in his ear. Even though she was that close, to him it seemed as if he was ten feet under water and she was on the surface calling his name. Roxas was only able to make it into the ambulance vehicle and have Namine sit beside him before everything went black.