Second Chances

1: Billy

There was no telling how long Billy was locked in the apartment for. She never started keeping count and in all reality, it was only a month. She had locked herself in the bathroom a few weeks prior because of the noise from the street. With her, she had brought a few cans from the pantry and a box of crackers that had gone stale. There was not much food left other than that and she knew, even at twelve, that she would need to leave soon. But every day, she pushed it back further. Every day, she considered her final day locked in this god-awful bathroom.

And of course, out of all the places to be, it was her father's. She combed over his things for the millionth time: a razor, toothbrush, a few pill bottles, some soap. There was not much left of him besides the stains covering the walls, bathtub, and sink. She had not realized how dirty the house was itself before she was locked inside for so long.

She picked at the crackers, taking small bites. She was unsure of what had gone down outside. Her father had never returned from his night out and she had remained inside after that. The news blared for hours before the power had finally shut off. And she had only began locking the doors and windows after she could hear people outside. It was not much but nobody had tried the knob to her knowledge yet.

Billy played with her shirt, the cold of the tile pressing into her thighs. She had no desire to look for her father. It was a strange feeling and one she had never considered before. To her, life did not exist outside of him. Life was him. It was getting up and making him breakfast, it was coming home at night from school and cleaning, it was making sure he was breathing when he came home and passed out on the couch. He was not a bad father. She simply had no desire for him to return especially to this place when all she wanted was to leave.

Then again, Billy had a considerable belief that this was all a big joke. That she was all scared and hiding and the rest of the world was fine. In her mind, there was a fair chance that she was just confused. She was smart. But she didn't know everything.

She stood up from the tile, packing up the box of crackers and shoving it into her backpack. In it, was a notebook from school, a kitchen knife she had grabbed and one more can of soup. She thought about anything else she could bring if she were to leave and came up empty. A jacket maybe? Would she need a jacket in this heat? There was no telling how long she'd be gone once she left. The idea of this was petrifying.

But somehow, at the same time, she enjoyed it. She'd lock the door with the spare key. She'd tuck it in her pocket just in case this in fact was all a little game. And she'd leave.

Billy looked at herself in the mirror, smoothing her dirty-blonde hair down which hadn't grown at all if anything since the last month however she felt it had grown tremendously. She had felt she had been aged years, grown into an adult overnight. Then again, there was not much she did that was little-kid like especially a little girl.

She considered this many times throughout her life and came up with the idea that her father just wanted a boy. Her name was Billy after all. But now, it seemed, at least in his absence, that he did not want a child at all.

She braided her hair into two long strands that sat at her side. This was all the preparing she could possibly do. That, and grab a jacket once she finally left the safety of the locked bathroom. She took the knife from her bag, clutching it in her right hand.

She was scared. But not terrified. Not scared enough to spend the rest of her life locked up in some dirty-ass room. She twisted the knob and opened it slowly. To her surprise, her father was not on the coach, half-knocked out. To her surprise, nobody was there. Silence buzzed in her ears. Still, she held the knife tightly. Quickly, she grabbed her jean jacket from her bed and tucked it in the backpack along with her water bottle. After a final scan of the room, she slipped on her baseball hat, slipping any hair that fell into her face under it. And moved on to her father's. She was never allowed in there much prior and she relished in the idea of an unsupervised look inside. She knew he had a gun somewhere and although she barely knew how to work it herself, she knew it would be useful if needed. The bed stand had an array of empty beer bottles and an ashtray along with a jar of marijuana. She had come to love the smell of the bowls her father would always smoke and he had even let her hit one before. Her eyes that night had become a deep red and she fell asleep almost instantly. Her father was sitting on the couch, laughing. She felt good to make him laugh. She slipped the jar along with the bowl into her bag. The gun was tucked safely under the mattress unfortunately however, Billy was unable to find it and left the room. She closed the door softly behind her.