Forget

First Night M.I.A.

First Night M.I.A In case I forgot to mention before, my name is Lindsay Keefe. I am 15 years old and in the tenth grade. I have hazel eyes and long, black hair. What else? My favourite colour is black and red. I have earned the title of ‘emo’ for myself. But who wouldn’t suffer from depression if they had a father like mine? I smoke marijuana though I don’t see how that’s relevant.

Anyways, I ran around my town for about ten minutes before I reached Sophia’s house. I hadn’t had the slightest clue if my father was on my tail. Seeing his face, glaring at me through the window really made me paranoid. I took a shortcut because if I didn’t it would have taken me twice the time. But still, my father was driving and I’m not the fastest person. He’d guess where I was going so I didn’t have much time.

I hopped over Sophia’s wooden fence encasing her house. I landed on the cement barely making a sound. I walked up to her small, yellow house and went around back. Sophia slept in a shed out back. It was smelly, damp, and was growing every kind of mould. Her father made her sleep there. It made me sick.

I came to the gate leading to the backyard and pushed at it before noticing the lock it had. I hopped onto the ledge right beside me and did my best to be stealthy. It didn’t work so well; I landed with a huge ‘thump’ and awoke the family dog. To my luck, it was only some kind of small lump. But man was it restless; it barked all night long.  I could hear it from my house.

Its short annoying barks were all that was heard throughout the neighbourhood. I begged the thing to be quiet before giving up. I knocked on Sophia’s door.

“Sophia,” I whispered. I heard stirring inside.

“Who is it?” Sophia’s high pitched voice replied. She sounded worried, like she thought it was her father.

“It’s me, Lindsay.” I said. I heard stirring as someone was walking to the door. The door opened and I saw Sophia standing there; her short brown hair in a mess. She was wearing pink pyjamas and was half asleep. What I was about to tell her would definitely wake her up.

“Linds,” Linds was a nickname Sophia gave me, “What are you doing here?”

“Just let me in, we don’t have much time.” I said while trying to push my way in. Sophia moved out of my way and slammed the door in her dog’s face, but that didn’t even shut the thing up.

As I looked at Sophia I noticed fresh bruises covering her arms. “What did he do this time?” I asked.

“Never mind,” She said sadly, “Looks like you got it worse than me, anyways.” She lifted her hand and caressed my face. “Linds, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, I’m used to it.” I lied, how would someone ever get used to being beaten daily?

“Why are you here, Linds?” Sophia asked.

Right when I was about to explain it to her, a light shown in through the window. I turned around and saw one of Sophia’s windows light up. Her parents heard the dog.

“Shit!” I said. “You’re damned dog woke up your parents!”

“Linds, you gotta get outta here.” Sophia said, suddenly fully awake.

“Not without you,” I said, grabbing her arm and heading to the door. “I’ll explain everything as soon as we get out of here.”

“He’s coming to check on me!” Sophia said nervously, “If I’m not here, he’ll kill me. Now, leave!” Sophia pushed me towards the door when I heard footsteps; I looked out Sophia’s window to see her father coming down the stairs.