A Fathers Infliction

Impact

My body slammed against the wall and my vision went black for a moment. Emma attempted to go over and help me but mom gestured for her to sit down. Anyone getting involved you just make it worse, and everyone knew it.

I saw the pain in Natalie's eyes as she stared down at her plate. Emma tried not to look, but her watery eyes couldn't keep away. Mom just sat there eating slowly to avoid any attention from father.

He struck me again across my face and my body hit the wall and I slid down onto the ground.

Finally father backed away from me. He walked angrily to the table, muttering something I couldn't quite make out. He grabbed his glass and whatever type of alcohol he was drinking today, I didn't know what type it was and to be honest I really didn't care. Father pushed his plate of half-eaten casserole onto the ground, shattering it, and then went into the living room and blared the television louder than ever.

"You guys go up to your room, please. I'll pick this up. Take your plates with you and finish dinner. By the way Jayden... This isn't your fault." mom said, obviously sympathizing me. I felt bad for her too. Ever since father got the new office two years ago he's been so stressed, and he's been taking that out on us for the past year and a half. I knew its been just as hard on her as us.

I nodded and picked up my plate. Slowly I walked towards our room, giving Emma and Natalie a chance to catch up with me. I opened the door and sat down on my bed and sobbed. Emma sat next to me and wrapped her arms around me.

"Text Jayce. I'll text Savannah and have Natalie text Mia. They can sleep over tonight. Dad won't know if we lock the door. Okay?" she whispered into my ear.

Jayce was my best friend, Savannah was Emma's and Mia was Natalie's. I nodded, wiping my eyes. Emma walked over to her bed and whispered something to Natalie on the way, probably telling her to text Mia.

We all pulled out our phones and texted our friends. They all replied somewhat-instantly, all within 2 minutes.

I looked at Natalie and nodded towards the door. She quickly stood up and locked the door, along with activating the alarm incase dad found the spare key.

There was a light tapping on the window. It had always startled me when we had people come over like this. After all, someone knocking on your second floor bedroom window from the roof was quite scary. Not that it was hard to get to the roof. Due to it being a decently sized and priced house, there was a ladder leading off of the roof as a type of fire escape.

I slid open the window, letting Mia and Jayce in. Savannah lived a bit farther away. Mia walked to Natalie bed and sat next to her and Jayce sat himself next to me.

"What happened tonight Jay?" he asked, knowing something was up. We only invite him, or any of our friends actually, to spend the night if something really bad happened.

I explained the entire incident during dinner. While I was talking Savannah carefully entered through the window, checked to see if everyone was here and locked it behind her. She sat on Emma's bed and listened to me explain. Everyone looked at us sympathetically.

Within a minute we changed subject to video games and decided to play Xbox. We played a few games for about 3 hours. At around 10:30 we took a break and started watching YouTube videos until midnight.

All was going amazing until one in the morning. Then the perfection jumped out the window with a knock.