Those two words.

You're standing in the hallway, right outside the door to the lounge room where your father is seated in front of the footy match on the TV. It's deafening.

Your palms are clammy, your heart is booming in your chest, your entire body is shaking.

Just because of two words. Two words that you're about to say but you can't be sure whether it's a good idea at all. You've already packed because you know what your father is like. He's cold, and he's cruel, and he's absolutely ruthless. And he would not tolerate that kind of behaviour in his house.

You start to create a mental list of all the places you could go if he reacts badly. At the top of the list is Hannah. Your sister has always been there for you, no matter what. And you know for a fact that there is a bus leaving in an hour that will take you straight to her front doorstep. But, hopefully, that's just a backup.

After an entire minute of breathing deeply, you silently swing the door open to the lounge room. Your father is still there, in his wife beater and shorts, a large beer bottle in hand, yelling at the television. His potbelly shakes with every shake of his fist of slam of his palm on the arm of the couch.

You stand there for a moment, two, three, until he finally notices the disruption in his sanctuary. The elephant in the room. You.

You choke out that you need to tell him something. He puts his beloved TV on mute only to yell out that he didn't hear you and to speak up.

Your palms are starting to burn now, they feel so hot. Your heart is pounding harder than before, and you feel as if you might faint.

Come on, you tell yourself. If you're ever going to do it, do it now.

So you say it. Those two words. Those two scary, damned, but utterly honest words. You stare at his face as you watch it turn livid.

He asks if you're fucking serious. No, not asks, he demands it, screams it. He stands up and threatens to hit you with his now empty bottle and howls at you to leave.

To get out. Go. You don't belong here. That he thinks you're and outrage. That he didn't raise to be like this. That he despises you.

So you run. You grab your bag from the front door and sprint down the steps. You run to town, as fast as your legs can take you, constantly checking over your shoulder to make sure that he's not following you.

You only stop when you reach the bus stop. The bus you planned on catching from the start is leaving in 15 minutes. Then, just an hour and a half until you reach your sister's house.

You climb on the bus and text Hannah that you're coming to visit. That you'll be arriving off the bus in 90 minutes. She agrees that she can't wait to see you and reassures you that she's at home, and then she starts to question you. You ignore her. You try to ignore everything, the bustle of the people around you, the smell of the bus. But mostly, you try to ignore the repeating images in your head of what just happened.

You wake up to the sound of people talking and moving around you. You silently grab your things and make your way off the bus.

You throw your bag over your shoulder and trudge down the path towards Hannah's house, dread pooling in your shoes and rising up slowly, painfully.

What if she rejects you too? What if she hates you even more than your father does?

You're starting to panic when you ring her doorbell. Within a split second your sister is in front of you, and then she's crushing you in one of her famous bear hugs.

You complain that you can't breathe, so she takes a step back, keeping her hands on your shoulders and smiling that so wide that you're sure that her cheeks are going to be sore later on.

Then she questions what you're being so stupid standing out in the cold for. Funny, you didn't even notice. You were too busy preparing for this moment. Readying yourself to say the two little words that would send your life crashing down around you if she reacts badly too.

But you have to stop her anyway. You say that you have something to tell her. She tells you to spit it out.

So you do. Those two words. You say them exactly how you practised them in front of the mirror.

"I'm-"