A Step Too Far

Chapter 4

Walking from her dance class with her closest friend Stephanie, Annie was physically exhausted, but still bursting with energy and excitement. Stephanie was just selected to represent their dance school in the under fourteen national championships! A long way from the shy, awkward girl Annie knew from primary school, in the last couple of years Stephanie stood tall, with look of pride in her eyes and a smile on her face. It was good to see, after so many years of sadness and tears. And now, she was reaching to truly realise her potential!

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Life had been hard for Stephanie. Losing her mother to cancer at just six years old, and her father to alcohol soon after. Alternating between angry and violent, and frightened and sorrowful, he struggled to keep himself going, let alone take care of a young daughter. Annie never saw Gary at school, he never picked Stephanie up, or came to any school events. She first met him when she was ten years old, and Stephanie nervously asked if she'd like to come over and play before her dad got home from the bar. Annie never knew her own father and her mother paid her little heed, so she knew she had nothing to worry about getting home late, and happily agreed.

They played for hours in Stephanie's room. Talking, drawing, dancing, it was the first time Stephanie had a friend at her house in years and Annie felt a little honoured that Stephanie asked her before anyone else to open up to. Her father rarely came home before midnight - especially on a Friday - so there was no need to hurry. Annie felt she would like to meet this mysterious man she'd heard so little about and seen nothing of, but she knew Stephanie didn't want it, so didn't press the matter.

But on that night, at just 8pm there was the sound of a car pulling into the driveway and Stephanie suddenly went rigid. "Quick Annie, run out the back! You can climb over the fence and get out that way." Annie wasn't scared exactly, but she could feel Stephanie's fear, as if it pressed around her, making her uneasy. She shook off the feeling and calmly said "Okay," then quickly made for the back door, part of her worrying what made her friend so frightened, part of her not wanting to betray her trust by insisting on staying. "See you tomorrow... Call me if you can, we can still talk tonight if you want," she said with a smile, then turned out the door and ran to jump the side fence and time her exit so she wouldn't be seen.

She glimpsed Stephanie through a window, running into her room and quickly putting things away, clearly to hide that anyone else was there. "This isn't right," she thought to herself. It's one thing to respect her friend's wish not to meet her father, but to run away from her when she was clearly afraid? Annie read enough books and though she mostly avoided the nonsense in newspapers, she read enough to know about the world. She suddenly felt a pang of guilt. She rarely thought about the bad things in the world, there was just so much to do and so many things to interest her, it seemed pointless to dwell on the bad. But she did know of it. She knew children like her and her friend were abused in all kinds of ways. She knew parents sometimes hurt their children, she knew a child doesn't become as introverted and nervous as Stephanie without reason. And all she did was say a few nice words to her, stand up for her when she was being teased, help her a bit when she fell behind in school. For a moment Annie felt hollow inside and the bright spark that seemed perpetually in her eyes clouded with the hint of tears.

She stopped and turned. Then crouched by a window to watch, and listen.

The man who walked in seemed almost like a beast Annie would draw or write about. Not so much in his size, though he was large enough at six foot tall and over two hundred pounds. But his eyes, the way he clenched his fists, the way his face looked like it was about to burst with anger, Annie couldn't help jerking back out of sight, and just sat there listening.

"Those fucking cunts!" He yelled, almost screamed, "They keep me back two hours to finish a job, then they thank me by telling me I'm fucking fired!" "To hell with them, I should burn down the whole God damn place and see how smug they...!" The sharp sound of glass breaking disrupted his sentence. But the sound didn't come from him, it came from another room. A moment passed in silence, "What the hell did you break?" Gary roared, his voice now coming from there as well, the living room. "You fucking stupid bitch! How the fuck do you walk into a giant God damn TV without seeing it?!" "That's the only bloody thing in this house worth it's weight in shit and," he paused and in the silence Annie could clearly hear Stephanie's sobbing. She should go to a neighbour and call the police... "Stephanie would hate her." "He might hurt Stephanie," the thoughts came thick and fast. "If I leave to get the police, he might do something before they get here, I can't just leave her!" She couldn't get this wrong.