Saving Lily

Mason

One day, my seventh birthday to be exact, I was allowed to spend some time outside which was really a treat for me because I was never allowed out. I found a red ball in our yard. As I bent to pick it up I heard a voice behind me. 

    "Hey, there it is." I looked up to find a little blonde haired boy staring back at me.

 "Is this yours?" I asked him, holding the ball out to him. 

"Yes, but you can play with it if you want." He said with a smile.

"Are you here to play with William?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No I was just looking for my ball."

"I'm Mason, I live over there." He said pointing to the big house down the street from mine.

 "What's your name?" He asked.

 "I'm Lily." I said shyly.

 He thought for a moment. "Like the flower?" 

 I shook my head.

"Do you want to play?" He asked with a huge smile.

 "Sure."

 "Tag you're it!" He said, touching my shoulder and running away. 

     I stood there for a moment watching him run in circles.

 "What's the matter?" He asked, stopping to look at me.

 "I don't know how to play this game." I admitted, a little embarrassed.

 "Oh, well you just tag a person to be it and then you have to run from them." He explained. 

"To be what?" I asked.

 "It." He said again.

 "But what is it?" 

 "Anything you want it to be! A dinosaur or maybe a dragon or a monster, but you have to run as fast as you can." He said enthusiasticly

"And what happens if it catches you?" I asked.

 "Then you are it! And everyone has to run from you." He said smiling. 

"It's called tag."

 I bit my lip, a little embarrassed that I didn't know what a game of tag was. 

     In my defense, I hadn't had a lot of time lately to just be a kid. I was busy learning how to cook and sew and clean.

See, the Mahoney's didn't adopt me because they wanted another daughter to love, and constantly reminded me that I wasn't their child, only a charity case that they chose to let into their home and that I should be more grateful

 But really I was a pawn in their sick game, someone they could take their anger out on.

I was their personal punching bag, and warned over and over that if I ever told, they would kill me. And it wouldn't be until later when I discovered their true motives for adopting me. I was playing my own real life game of tag, and my new family was it, the monsters that I tried so desperately to out run.

     "We can play something else if you want?" Mason said, pulling me from my thoughts.

 "Well." I said looking down at the grass.

 "Tag you're it!" I said enthusiastically as I ran away from him, dropping the ball. 

"Hey, that's cheating!" he laughed as he chased after me. 

 "You can't catch me, you can't catch me!" I teased as I ran just ahead of him.

 "Oh yes I can." He ran laughing.

 I looked back for a moment to see how far behind me he was. That's when I slammed into someone and fell down. I looked up to see Grace standing over me with a disgusted look on her face.