I'm not perfect.

Im not perfect. Second Sunday

Next Sunday I went to church hoping nobody would see my split lip and my black eye. Normally my dad hits me on my body where nobody can see it, he's just careful enough not to get caught, but something was different about last week.
I move to open the door to the church and I step through and the air conditioning hits me immediately, shielding me from the heat of the world outside.
The room is completely empty, For now this little world is mine. This is the only place I can be me. The place I can be alone with my thoughts.
I sit down and grab a book I left here last time. "The Great Gatsby" the only book I actually own. My parents don't know about it, they would never allow me to have anything of my own. I've read it over a hundred times now.
   I was too wrapped up in thinking to even notice that there is somebody else in the room until I hear a soft voice.
   "Oh sorry, I didn't think anybody would be here." She said as she turned away.
   " You really don't have to leave on my behalf " I said and my heart sped up as she looked at me again.
She hesitates just a moment before nodding and heading over to the seat opposite of me in the room and sits down with her hands in her lap.
   I couldn't bring my eyes away from her. She sat there the entire hour just staring in front of her. I couldn't help but think she looked like a statue. She was peaceful and perfectly calm. We sat  with me watching her and her just being there.
  We stayed like that until right before everybody had showed up, then she looked at me with a calm look on her face and said to me something you wouldn't deliver calmly.
"There is nothing I wouldn't give to just be here all the time. This is the only time I get to just think about what's happening to me." Was all she said.
She turns her head back around and never gives me another look. I hold my gaze just as the doors to the church burst open and people flood in.
Afterwards everyone leaves and I can't even bring myself to move. I don't wanna go back to that house anymore. Fear was along over my body.Pretty soon I won't be able to take it. I don't know how long I can go on with the constant beatings.
   So I sit,  my head down, gripping the chair, I sit with my knuckles gripping the seat so hard they turn milky white and my eyes are glued closed. I felt as if I could've breathe. As if the world was on top of me pushing me down. My grip tightened and a tear ran down my cheek, breathing was nearly impossible.
    It wasn't for a while that I realized somebody next to me. Somebody who had there hand on mine. I opened my eyes and released the chair long enough to wipe the tear only to see who it was next to me and it was her, sitting next to me.
   She looks at me and waits for me to calm a little before she speaks."If there is anything I've learned it's that you can always make it if you have a friend. I don't know what your going through but there is always someone who has it worse off." She smiled and moved away leaving me alone.