𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 ;; 𝒶𝓊𝒷𝓇𝑒𝓎 𝓍 𝓀𝑒𝓁 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉𝓈

↳ 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕪 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕞𝕖 ( 𝕤𝕠𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕣𝕖𝕢𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕥 ) ・❥・: ̗̀➛

₍ ᐢ.ˬ.ᐢ₎˚୨୧

ᴄʜɪʟᴅ ᴀʙᴜꜱᴇ, ᴘᴀʀᴇɴᴛꜱ ᴀʀɢᴜɪɴɢ

𝒾 𝒹𝑜𝓃'𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝓃𝓉 𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝑒 𝒶𝓁𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝓃𝑜𝓌...

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊

ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡᴀꜱ ʏᴇʟʟɪɴɢ. So much yelling.

It took Aubrey a second to realize that the yelling was first coming from her father, then more came from her mother. It was so loud, and her ears were starting to ring. She wanted it to stop.

But she was too scared to go stop them. Instead, she stood at the stairway, peeking into the kitchen to watch them argue. Both of them looked so mad—so mad that they didn't look human. Didn't look like anyone she knew. But, then again, they raised her. Was she really raised by them, though?

Her father's arm pushed lots and lots of dark bottles onto the ground. Aubrey flinched at the sound of glass shattering against the ground; dark red liquid spilling out in a large circle. She couldn't tell if it was wine or blood, but she couldn't think at the moment.

Her mother shouted at him, using words that made no sense to her, before her father slapped her and exited the front door, slamming it behind him so loud that the noise rang through the entire house. For a second, her mother stood in silence. Then, she held her face and started screaming. Aubrey's breathing quickened at that, and the only thing she could hear was her heartbeat. She wanted to go upstairs to the safety of her room, where she could lock the door and have no one come to hurt her.

But when she put her foot on the first step to safety, the floor creaked beneath her weight.

Aubrey froze in place, feeling her mother's eyes on her. She risked turning her head to take a look behind her, and her mother was behind her. She had a part of a broken bottle handle in her hands, and she raised it—and it came crashing down.

_________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

ᴀᴜʙʀᴇʏ ꜱᴀᴛ ᴜᴘ as fast as she could, panting as she looked around. Her fist, clenched around her blanket, slowly uncurled when she remembered she wasn't at Kel and Hero's house for a sleepover, not at home—if it could even be called that anymore.

Her mother never hit her. She knew that, but she didn't know why she kept having that nightmare. Maybe it was because her parents were arguing more—well, more than they normally did. Her mother was drinking more, and her father kept leaving the house and wouldn't return for hours, sometimes days. The longest he stayed away was for a week, and she was terrified that he wouldn't come back. If he was gone, that meant all her mother's attention was on her, and that wasn't always a good thing.