The house in the lake

1

~Raiza's pov~

Bang!

A smack

Bang!

Another smack. When he's crawled up in the corner of the livingroom, protecting his face from the fists of his father, he sees his mother watching from a little distence. In the beginning, when he was young, he thought he saw sadness and pain in her eyes, but now, he sees just a blackness of nothing. Or maybe, thats what he wants himself to see.

Bang!

Another one, and then, he sees from the corner of his throbbing eye his father leaving the room. His mom stands there for a while, and then leaves as well, probably doing everything to make him happy. Slowly Raiza stands up, trying to not move his painful musles too much. He walks to the bathroom, and looks at himself in the mirror. He sees the skin around his eye getting darker. This will be worse tomorrow.. he thought. He puts some cream on, to cool the swelling. He lets himself fall on the bed and looks at the ceiling. How did I end up here? Why is this life given to me? He rolls on his side, looks at his old, dusty desk. And while a tear rolls down his cheek, he falls into a deep, but restless sleep.

When he wakes up the next morning, he inmediately stands up, packing his back for the last day of school. He dresses himself up, grabs an apple and leaves the house before they wake up. He jumps on his bike and rides to school. After a couple minutes he hears a voice. "Hey Raiz! Wait up!" He hears Cenna calling out and slows down a bit till she is next to him. From the side, he sees her black bob moving with the wind, and her bright blue eyes are looking bewildered. "Hey man, why you didn't wait for me?" "I'm sorry, i thought i was late and you already left." Trying to keep the right side of his face away from her. "Ow.. okay" he hears a slight dissapointment in her voice. "Last day of school huh.." he watches her face, which he can't read. "Most people like the holidays you know.. no homework.. no crazy teachers.." "yeah.. or in my case, having no rest from the alcohol filled woman that calls herself a mother." He looks a little bit down. "Yeah.. I understand" he feels her gaze on him and bites his lip. "Raiz, look at me." "Why?" "Raiz, for god's sake, look at me right now!" He turns his head a little and he sees her eyes widening. She grabs his arm and pulls them both to a stop and she drops her bike. "Again Raiz? When are you finally doing something about this situation?!" "I.. I can't. I don't have anywhere to go. I don't have money.. what should i do?" She stays silent. Her arm filled with tattoos is lifting to his eye, and she softly feels the skin around. He sighs softly and pulls his head a little bit backwards. He sees the anger in her eyes and she clenches her jaw. "I don't know.. but you have to do something, call child services." "I'm 17, they will just put me in a random family, which can be completely somewhere else, where I will even lose all of you, plus nobody wants a 17 year old teenager." He can see she doesn't know what to say. "Its okay Cen.. it'll not be long anymore.. when I'm done with school, i will find a job, and find my own place." She nods softly and pulls her bike from the ground. "Okay.." and they cycle to school, both in silence.

When they walk through the halls, they find Lori and Lev and walk up to them. Lori is wearing her long blond hair in a ponytail, and smiles with her bright hazelbrown eyes at them. In summer her freckles double, and they show a lot more then normally. Lev is looking perfect like always. His brown, curly hair is in perfect shape, and his green eyes, which seem to grab all the girls' attention. He always wears the most expensive clothes, and is always in style. Compared to him, Raiza looks like a homeless. Mostly in ripped pants, (which he should repair sometime) and big sweaters, mostly to hide how skinny he is. He has blond straight hair, and his locks are always falling in front of his blue eyes. He wouldn't say that he is ugly, not at all. But next to Lev, he is not noticeable. He stops thinking when his friends are staring at him with doubtfull faces. "What?" Lev shakes his head. "Dude.. you should really do something about that eye.. I know you don't want to call services.. but if you keep walking around like this, the school will do it for you." "Yeah iknow, I will figure something out" Lori gives him a soft but shy smile, and holds her books under her arms. "Let's just sit through this last day, and then we have 2 months of time for each other." So they did. They followed their last lessons and walked out of the building when the day was done. "So we will see each other tomorrow?" Cenna smiles, "definitely" and Lori nods and smiles "I'm looking forward for it" raiza nods too, "it would be nice to get out of the house for a while" they are going to take tents, and camp in the big forest that is next to their town. At least, that's the plan. They dont have much money, so this is what they came up with. They waved each other goodbye, and they went home. When raiza walks in, he hears his parents watching television. His parents don't know hes leaving tomorrow for 1 week, but they don't have to know. If his father knew, he would probably hold him inside his room like a prisoner, because it would be 'boring' if he couldn't show his son all the walls by banging his heas against them for a couple of days. He gives a glimp at the living room, they seem calm, which means that maybe.. he would get through the day, without adding more spots on his collection of bruises.