Academy Everlasting

Chapter 1: In Hot Water

Chapter 1: In Hot Water

My feet feel amazing with the soft green grass underneath them. I had taken off my sneakers off and was holding them, just to feel the grass between my toes. I shoot a nervous glance behind me, as I walk through my backyard toward the thick wooded area behind our new house.

Reminding myself that it's safe to be here because she is passed out, I lean back and enjoy the sunshine and the quietness of the neighborhood. It is a sleepy Monday afternoon, all the adults are at work and my peers are doing whatever a typical teenager does in the afternoon, during summer.

Stretching my back, which is still sore from all the packing and unpacking I've had to do in the last two weeks, I shake my head. I wish that my dad had given us more warning than a week before we had to move. Instead he came home, announced he had gotten a new job and that we were moving to Charleston, South Carolina, that weekend. Then he brought in a ton of boxes and ordered me to start packing.

I had foolishly hoped that my step sister, Marie or my step mom would help, but all they did was yell at me to hurry up as I frantically tried to pack up their belongings. Thinking of that unhappy house in Illinois causes me to shudder, I was not sad to see the last of that drab little house full of tears and sorrow.

Looking back once more to make sure she isn't watching me, I take another couple steps toward the beckoning woods. I've often imagined how different my life would have been if Dad had never married my step mom when I was five. What it might feel like to not be despised.

Rubbing my arms briskly, I glance back yet again before scolding myself firmly. I am allowed to be here, I am doing nothing wrong. Besides, nothing I've ever said or done has ever made her happy. Biting my lip, I wonder what I did to make her hate me so much.

Rubbing at my newest bruise I continue to slowly head toward the woods. It wasn't always this bad, I remind myself. For the first few years they were together, my father would half-heartedly protect me from my step mom. He would send me to my room for the evening and tell me not to come out. He would talk my step mom down from her rage.

However as I got older, the hatred my step mom harbored for me grew. My father began taking more and more business trips out of town, leaving me defenseless and alone with my step mom.

Hearing something slam, I whirl around and look around for her, clutching the arm she once broke against the ribs she fractured to protect them. I hadn't meant to let supper burn that night, but was punished regardless. I still worry that they hadn't healed right, as they still bothered me sometimes.

Realizing the sound hadn't come from the house, I let out a relieved breath and turn back toward the woods. I run my hand down my ribs, I swear I can still feel the cracks she had put in them a year ago. She didn't let me go to the doctor, but she had a friend who was a nurse come see me at my father's insistence when he returned from his trip about a week after the incident. I flush with embarrassment, as I remember that I had to tell the nurse I fell out of a tree and that I refused to see a doctor.

I take a deep breath in enjoying the smell of summer, firmly reminding myself of where I am at and reminding myself that when we lived in Illinois, I wasn't allowed to go outside much because we had a lot of neighbors who would see me. God forbid someone see me and know I existed, I think bitterly.

I was so excited when my father told me I was allowed to wander the woods behind our home, but if I got lost he wasn't going to come find me. I almost told him that I was willing to risk staying the night in the woods for time away from everyone at home.