If I Don't Have You

January 22 1975

My dad hit me. I don't know why, but it hurt. I now have a big, red mark on my face. Dad hit my sister to. He hits Leslie all the time. But this was the first time he hit me. He got really sad after mom died. Sometimes I can hear crashes and screams in my sister's room, I don't know what he does to her. I always see bruises all over Leslie and she's always breaking down into tears after Dad leaves her room. She's older than me, she's turning 13 in a few days. I try to help Leslie when Dad beats her up, but I'm too scared to help. I never get to go out, but I do my best to sneak out so I can talk to my best friend, Axl Rose. I decided that I wanted to see him that day because I'm really shaken up on what my father did to me. I climbed out of my bedroom window which my sister and I have to share, then grab on to the closest tree branch. I shimmied slowly down the tree and ran off towards Axl's house. His house isn't too far from mine, but a few streets over. He lives in a real small house. When I got there, I could hear screaming and a loud crash. I hid behind a tree because the crash started me. "Is he getting beat up again?", I whispered to myself. A few minutes later, he came running out of the house followed by his Dad screaming out the door, "Don't fucking come back till' you learn to respect me, bastard!" His father slammed the door and I saw Axl running off to the park that we usually hang out by. I soon followed him and saw him on the swings when I got there. I sat on the swing beside him and stared at him. "Axl.. what happened? Did he hit you again?" "Yes he fucking hit me. Why the hell does he keep doing this shit?" He looked at me and started examining my face. He touched the mark on my face and I twitched from the pain. "What the fuck is this? Did your Dad hit you?" I stared off into the distance and refused to answer. "Skye." I kept my head down and didn't answer. "SKYE. DID YOUR DAD FUCKING HIT YOU?" I started tearing a little and answered slowly, ".. yes. ". After I answered, he looked REALLY pissed off. He turned and walked off, but I grabbed his arm. I know what he was gonna do. "Axl! Don't, please. You'll just make it worse." He looked at me with pure anger in his eyes but his eyes seemed to soften after a few minutes. We went back to the swings and sat in silence. After 10 minutes, we started talking about things. We spent probably an hour there. We were having a nice time talking, until I felt somebody pulled me off the swing by my hair. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE SKYE? DID I NOT TELL YOU TO HANG OUT WITH THIS BOY?" I immediately knew that it was my Dad. His eyes were bloodshot and I knew that he'd been drinking, which isn't rare at all. He drinks everyday. Axl walked up to him and said, "Why the hell are you doing this to her? SHE DID NOTHING TO YOU." My father yanked me off the ground and held me up by my hair. "You better leave if you know what's good for you." Axl was about to punch my Dad, but he took a hard blow to the face by my father. I started crying and my Dad dragged me home. When we got home, he threw me down on the floor and kept hitting me. After getting kicked in the rib cage, I finally blacked out.