On the Streets

On the Streets Prologue

Life wasn't always like this. My life didn't always revolve around the dread I felt before I came home.

Home. I couldn't call my house a home. My house was simply a place where severe beatings took place at. My house contained the beast known as my father.

But no, my life used to be normal. I had a life filled with laughter and friends.

It all started back when my mother left us.

       I had just come home from a friends house when I noticed a yellow cab outside our house. I didn't think much of it, I thought she would come back. My mother looked at me with those eyes, those eyes filled with sorrow, and whispered goodbye.

The cab driver had asked where she was going. I could scarcely make out what she said, but I heard her small voice say, oh so faintly, "far away from here".

Those words stuck with me, and haunted me in my sleep.

I waited for days, weeks, months, and years. Eventually I gave up hope. My mother wouldn't come back for me.

About a month after my mother's departure, the alchohol came.

My father found that if he drowned himself in booze, he would lose the feeling he got whenever he thought of my mother.

Soon after that came the abuse.

It started with a smack across the face whenever I screwed up big. But it kept building up to the fact that if I so much as looked at my father in a way he didn't see fit, I would be in for a lot more than a small tap.

The beatings came nearly everyday I was at home, but I put up with it. Never once fighting back. Never complaining.

In my father's eyes, I was weak. I was somebody who needed to be pushed around.

All my father wanted was order. That's all he would say.

"There's no order in mah house," was what he'd slur.

We then moved, to a town of decent size, but a neighbourhood that everybody avoided.

The house was small and cramped, and perfectly located as to not raise suspicion.

The people on that street were used to hearing screams in the middle of the night, that's why my father moved us there.

I started school up again, and soon had to keep a book of excuses for my bruises and cuts, so I would never give away the secret I had been keeping.

I avoided getting close to anyone, and my trust issues showed.

I was known as the quiet freak who everyone had to avoid. Those who tried to befriend me got a taste of my attitude and thought better of it. But there was one.

One person broke through my barriers, one guy whom I had learned to hate now. I was young and foolish. I hadn't had the simplist taste of life. My father's beatings was only a fraction of how cruel life could be.

But that is a story for another time.

I had finally had enough. I started to run away.

Six times.

Six times I had jumped out of my window, backpack at hand. Six times I tried to escape my fate. Six times I had run down the allies of  the town, and six times I had been caught.

The first time I had been foolish, wandering around too close to my house. I lasted three days.

The second time was better, but I still lingered around places familiar to me. I lasted six days.

The third time somebody recognized me, and told my father. I lasted twelve days.

The fourth and fifth time I was caught out of bad luck, and those times I lasted sixteen days.

then comes the sixth time I tried to escape. I don't know what exactly what happened. One minute I was alsleep, then next I was on my couch, new found bruises on my body.

Not this time, I thought to myself as I slid the window open. It was a good thing my room was on the first floor, if it wasn't, running away would be so much harder.

The window creeked as it slid upwards, letting the cool night air into my room. The sound of crickets was distant while I pulled on a few different sweaters and socks.

I sat on the window ledge, testing the small distance, before jumping out.

I was gone. This time I'm not getting caught.

I continued running down the street with nothing but my switchblade, a couple bucks, and the clothes on my back.

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So this is a story I've been planning on doing for a while now. Let me know what you think.

Song for today: Lost in Stereo- All Time Low. Because I was just listening to it, like, not even a minute ago xD

The cover is by the lovely Pepsi2aa :D I am so happy, aren't you happy?