It started out slow, as most things do. Those brushes in the hall became more than a passing glance. They lingered to become conversations - sort of. After our official meeting in the principal's office, we ran out of things to talk about rather quickly. For a while we were confined to the generic "hey, how are you" and weather. It was hot for that time of year. For being the smooth talker I liked to think I was, I couldn't find one damn thing to say to Meghan. At least nothing that was appropriate. What Tommy said of her family stuck with me and was always lingering there in the back of my mind any time I saw her, but I didn't dare try to cross that line without knowing what I was getting into. I wanted to learn more about her, but I wanted her to offer it to me. Any other girl would have gotten the same bold, sexist comments about various parts of their physique, but I thought better of Meghan than that. She didn't act like those other girls that asked for it, then pretended to be offended when they got it. She dressed modestly, conservatively, almost disappearing in the crowded hallways as she wanted. But she couldn't hide from me. Not that she tried anymore. I came to notice the way she would linger at the intersection where we usually passed, but there was one day when I had been later than usual that I saw her actually stopped and looking around. It made me smile to see her standing there so expectantly, thinking she would just shrug my lack of appearance off then head to class and we'd pick up tomorrow. But she began to wait, anticipating our meetings. So I waited too.

It was one hot and humid afternoon in late May that I saw as the turning point of our relationship. It was the day I realized we were more alike than I thought.

The school building was stifling from broken air conditioning. It had been broken for going on three days at that point. It was too hot to think about learning, too hot to function, too hot to breathe. Definitely too hot to be wearing long sleeves, but that was what Meghan donned as she came down the hall. Her brow was damp with sweat, face red from the heat and yet her hair, too, was still down around her shoulders instead of pulled back away from her face.

"My God, how are you still alive right now?" I asked when she stopped in front of me. I felt suffocated just looking at her. That couldn't be comfortable.

For a moment I caught a glimpse of something strange in her eyes. It looked almost like fear, but I couldn't be certain. Then she looked down at herself and realized I was talking about her attire. "Oh, laundry day," she lied easily, unknown to me at the time, though I still grew suspicious of her explanation.

I eyed the shirt. "Seriously? This is all you had left?" I know all about laundry day. I learned to do my own after my mom got too messed up to do anything but sleep and cry, sometimes both at the same time. If she did any kind of house work it was because Wade told her too, or more like threatened her. She washed his clothes, but didn't touch mine. Most of the time she didn't even leave any detergent and I used dish soap, or lugged my stuff to Jason's if it wasn't too much and his parents weren't home. They weren't quite aware of the full situation I was in at home, except that Wade was a deadbeat step-father. I didn't bother to elaborate the abusive details for my mother's sake. She made me promise not to go telling people about my home life because they would take me away. As much as I hated Wade and what he turned my mother into, I didn't want to be taken from her. I couldn't leave her and I promised I wouldn't. She needed me.

Mistakenly, I reached out to feel the material, just to get a sense of the masochism at play here. Meghan jerked back so fast I froze with my hand still extended toward her, blinking at her a second until I could register what just happened.

"Sorry," was my automatic response as my brow creased at a thought.

"No, I-I'm sorry. You just startled me," she tried to explain, her face becoming redder with embarrassment and shame. But she didn't need to be sorry, she was merely acting on instinct, survival instinct. I knew why. Because she reacted the same way my mother did any time Wade reached for her. The same way even I sometimes did when one of my friends would move to slap me on the back.

I lowered my hand. Meghan was being physically abused. Her flinching was just what put the rest of it into perspective. Her concealing attire made it even more apparent. I'd bet staying in school for an entire year without skipping that there were bruises beneath those clothes, and probably under her hair as well.

"Laundry day, huh?" My tone indicated I no longer believed that story. I knew more about what she was hiding than she realized and wanted to say as much but I didn't want to scare her any more than she already was by attacking her with questions and demanding answers, because I would.

Meghan's eyes immediately left mine and I kept my mouth shut. She no longer felt comfortable in my presence. I stumbled upon too much she wasn't ready for me to know without even doing much of anything. She wasn't stupid and judging from what she said a few weeks back, didn't think I was either. She knew I was going to be able to put two and two together.

"I gotta get to class." She brushed by me quickly without another glance. I let her go, let her breathe. Let me breathe.

I steeled myself to softer emotions over time, learning very early that they provided weakness that predators preyed on. Anger was my emotion of choice. It was quick to find and easy to fuel and the results were immediate. It was why I usually acted without thinking - survival instincts. I could feel my core began to constrict as the anger built from the knowledge of this quiet, gentle girl was being hurt. I had the feeling I already knew by whom.

I went home that afternoon with my discovery weighing heavily on my mind. The more I pondered it, the worse my anger became. I went back and forth between blaming people I didn't know involved in a situation I could relate to, but truthfully didn't know about. In my mind, there was no denying Meghan's abuse, but I didn't know the whole story. To me, that was just minor details that I could honestly care less about, but I was very aware what prying into those truths could do to her. It would make them real. They were real, but sometimes it was hiding it from the world that gave us the relief we sought to live a normal life outside of the darkness we went home to every night. I didn't want to take that from her. Not after I finally got her to smile at me.

I walked into my own darkness as I entered the apartment we could just barely afford. I could no longer keep track of the times we were threatened with eviction for being late with rent. We moved three times within the last year, each place worse than the last. The police were in our building at least twice a week for one reason or another - domestic disturbance being the biggest nuisance of the block. They were at our door, too, on occasion when things would get out of hand between my mom and Wade. Sometimes it was me who called them, but I usually used our upstairs neighbor as my scapegoat.

That day I walked in while they were in the middle of yet another heated argument. I wasn't sure what it was about, or what started it, but I could tell it was fueled by alcohol. Empty and half-empty bottles littered every surface. The place smelled of cheap beer and old cigarettes, burn holes dotting the ragged couch. The walls and ceiling were stained piss yellow from years of smokers residing in the apartment and lack of care on the landlord's part. I could understand why he didn't bother, though.

I was too stressed out to try and play mediator, so I made an effort to sneak back to my bedroom unnoticed, hoping it would fizzle out rather than escalate. I didn't make it far before a resounding slap stopped me in my tracks. When Wade got physical, I got involved.

"You stupid bitch!" He was shouting at her, my ears suddenly tuned in to every word.

My body went rigid and I abandoned my bag in the middle of the floor as I launched myself at my step-father, throwing him back away from my mother before he could raise his hand to her again.

"Keep your hands off of her!" I shouted at him, stepping back to place myself between them.

"Ty!" Lily pleaded with me, her hand gentle on my arm as she tried to move me aside. "It's oka-"

"Shut up!" Wade yelled, prying himself from the wall and pointing an aggravated finger over my shoulder at his wife, who clamped her mouth shut at the command.

"It's not okay!" In what universe could that possibly be okay?
"You don't fucking touch her!" I shouted back, diverting his attention to me. If he wanted a fight, I'd give him one.

Bloodshot eyes rounded on me, he stank of booze. He hated me with a burning passion. Sometimes I wondered why he still let me in the house, he despised me so. I think it was because of my mother, because without me she'd be worth even less to him. Maybe in some unseen, twisted, way he cared enough about her to keep her happy. When he was sober it was a little more believable, but when he was like that… there was no love there.

"You keep out of this, boy. I've had enough of your mouth." That finger shifted over into my face. It was lingering there, dangling in front of me like bait on a hook. Taunting my rage. A battle of good versus evil ensued. Walk away and avoid making a bad situation worse, or satisfy my desire for revenge.

Evil won.

I reached up and grabbed that finger, snapping it like a stick. The crack was sickening, yet sadistically satisfying, and I could hear my mother gasp from behind me - "Ty!" - as Wade howled with pain, withdrawing his broken finger. If he wanted to smack around my mother, he was going to start losing fingers.

Remember when I said I happened to act without thinking? Yeah, that was one of those times. With his good hand, Wade backhanded me across my temple. My head spun and I stumbled sideways, momentarily stunned.

"You little shit, I'll kill you where you stand!" Wade stepped toward me, his hand raised. Lily lunged in front of him, grabbing onto his arm to keep him from striking me again.

"Wade, don't! Please. Ty didn't mean it!" She begged. That made me even more pissed begging, then the bargaining, then the way she would dismiss me and my actions as rash, unimportant. Maybe they were rash, but they were deserved.

"The hell I didn't! You deserve more than a broken finger. I should break your neck, you filthy piece of shit!" Words spewed from my mouth before I could filter them. I could see the fearful look of desperation on my mom's face as she spun to look at me, silently begging me to stop and back down. I was tired of letting Wade win. She always let him win and I was the dog that had to run cowering to go lick my wounds.

"He's just upset-" My mom continued to try and field my anger, hoping that Wade would take it that I wasn't in my right mind and let it go. I was in my right mind, it was the two of them that weren't and somehow that made me the antagonist. Maybe I was making the matter worse by fighting back, but somebody had to. Lily wouldn't, she never did. She let him beat on her then tried to make better whatever it was she had done to make him so upset. I couldn't stand it. She had her flaws, absolutely, but most of them were Wade's fault and, even so, that was no reason for the abuse she took - that she subject me to as well any time I tried to intervene.

"You have no right to touch her!" I was fired up at that point, ready to make Wade my punching bag so I could take out every bit of my anger and despair over Meghan, and my mother.

"No right," he scoffed like I made a joke, "She's my wife. This is my apartment. You live under my roof. That gives me every right."

I bristled. "You don't pay the bills. You don't work. You don't do anything but drink and gamble away her hard-earned paycheck and sit here like you're the king of some castle when you're nothing but a waste of space and fresh air."

"I am the king of this castle!" His voice boomed as he came toward me again. Instinctively, I stepped back to avoid another blow, but then stopped when I realized what I was doing. I was done retreating. "And you will do whatever the fuck I tell you to do!"

"Yeah, screw you, Wade. You might have my mother groveling at your feet, but I won't. You don't have control over me and that just pisses you off royally, doesn't it?" Of course it did. He could make my mother do whatever he pleased with a little sweet talking, pretending to be the loving husband she somehow thought he was, right before he turned around and beat her into submission.

My eyes turned from Wade to my mother, who looked so torn seeing her boys going at it, except I was her boy, Wade was just the first man she latched onto after my dad left.
"Why do you let him treat us like this?" I snapped at her, using the word "us" because no matter how many men she went through, or how many places we moved, it was me who was going to be the only constant in her life. I was going to be the one she could count on to always be there. And yet, somehow, I became second chair to Wade, who consistently and repeatedly let her down.

She stumbled over her words, whether it was the alcohol or because she wasn't sure how to answer, I couldn't tell, but probably some of both. "It was my fault, Ty. I-I was home late and-"

I shook my head in disbelief. "No. No. Stop trying to defend him! None of this is your fault. He shouldn't be hitting you, no matter what it is you may have done. This is so wrong, mom. How can you not see that?!" Maybe it was me. Maybe I was missing something, but I really thought it was my mom who was somehow blind when it came to Wade. He took her in when my dad left and we didn't have a leg to stand on, living in a motel night by night after she lost her job because she became so depressed she couldn't drag herself out of bed. Wade saved her, in her eyes. He gave her a place to stay and a purpose - to serve him. I was merely the baggage she dragged along with her. Back then I was too young to do anything but keep her alive by making sure she ate and bathed. Now I was old enough to do something else about it. The problem was, she didn't seem to trust me enough to let me.

"If you don't like it then get out, you ungrateful shit. You had nothing before I came along." Wade was back at it again, hailing himself praises he didn't deserve.

I looked from Wade to my mother, waiting for her to stand up for me, to say something in my favor. But she lowered her eyes when we made contact.
"Fine. I'm gone. I'll be at Jason's if you care." I spoke to her, only to her before storming to my room and grabbing my duffel bag to throw in some clothes. When I came out of my room, Lily was trying to tend to Wade's broken finger, saying they probably needed to go to the hospital to get it reset. He argued, of course, because hospitals asked questions and sent bills, very high bills.

I threw a nasty glare at them, Wade returning it.

Lily followed his stare, whipping around to look at me. The reality of me leaving must have hit her when she saw my bag and she rushed over as I yanked the door open.
"Ty! Ty, wait! Don't go!" She ran into the end table as I stepped outside, sending the lamp toppling over in her haste to get to me before the door closed. I slammed it shut before she could make it.