The Stars In Your Eyes ✩ Tim Shepard

The Shepard Family

My eyes sprung open as I heard something smash downstairs. At first, I wasn't too fazed by the sound, thinking I had imagined it but then I jolted up in bed, the memories of the previous night coming back to me. I didn't go home last night. I was still in Tim's room– his bed, and he was nowhere to be seen.

I heard a few more objects clatter under the wooden floorboards and muffled yells, and foolishly decided to get out of bed. I was still in the same jeans and hoodie I was in the day before, only my flats were on the ground, so I quickly pulled them on before leaving the room. As I started down the stairs, the yelling and banging became louder and clearer.

"All you do is whore around!" A man yelled. He was Tim's stepfather, or at least I assumed that.

I got a good look at him before I had to duck out of the way of a plate that smashed just above my head. He was tall and stocky, and his hand was wrapped around the neck of a half-empty beer bottle, although it couldn't have been any later than ten in the morning.

"Whore around?! Whore around?! I work to support this family! What is it that you do?!" A woman, who looked very much like the Shapard siblings retorted as she took a glass cup from the cupboard and hurled it across the room.

A small shriek was heard from the direction she threw the object, and a second later a scared-looking Curly Shepard ran out from behind the couch and in my direction.

The boy almost ran into me before scampering behind me like I was some sort of shield. "What are you doing here?" He gasped, looking at me as if I had just come back from the dead or something.

Before I could answer, the beer bottle that was once in the man's hand, came flying in our direction. I froze, and a memory flickered across my brain.

It was a few years ago that Dad had just started drinking. When he was drunk, he wasn't aggressive or violent, more sad and mopey. But one day, he came back from the bar in a bad state. Mom was furious, and I was scared out of my mind, frozen to a spot on the carpet in front of the television set. Mom was yelling at Dad, and Dad was yelling right back. One thing lead to another, a beer bottle got thrown, and I ended up in the hospital with a piece of glass sticking out of my palm. I still have the scar.

I shook the thought from my mind, quickly pushing Curly out of the way, as the bottle smashed into a million pieces on the wall behind us. A pain shot up from my arm, making Curly gasp as he scurried onto the ground next to me.

"Connie, your arm." He grabbed my upper arm, making me whimper. I pulled out of his grasp, yanking the glass shard from my arm and letting it fall to the floor.

"You don't seem too bothered by the fact that you just got cut." He said shakily, watching as I pressed my hand over the bloody wound on my upper arm. Before I could speak, his parents were yelling again.

"You bitch! I work too! I work every day for you and your ungrateful children!"

"They are your children too, and I recall you making a commitment to me, along with them!"

By then, Curly had pressed his back to the wall at the bottom of the stairs, his hands over his ears, he was paralyzed. Honestly, I was shocked. From what I knew, Curly was tough and fearless. I didn't think he would be the type to hide when his parents started fighting, if anything I thought he would be yelling and throwing things right along with them.

But then I could see the other side as well. His parents argued like that all the time, he had a right to be scared. I mean, know I was. But I was mostly confused, as I sat against the wall across from him.