What Doesn't Kill You...

1. Save me

She ran as fast as her feet could carry her, away from those men. I don't know who they are, but they killed my sister. Before I knew, I was in front of the police department. I looked back into the dark rainy night...

"AAAARRRGGG!"

"Alexsa? Are you okay?"

"No, Anna I am not okay! I don't know where to go with this mystery!"

"Its due next Wednesday, take a break, you have the time."

"No! No Anna I do not have the time. I have to finish this now!"

I had been like this for awhile, the guidance counselor at school told me that I was trying to fill the void from my dead mother and alcoholic father with work, which is why I was doing 11th grade schoolwork, and holding down two jobs. I am 14.

"Girls! Supper is ready!"

"Be right down mom!" Yelled Anna, "You coming?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Alexsa, you are skinny as hell, please come down and eat, you need it."

"No I don't! Leave me alone!"

I picked up my books, marched out of Anna's room and down the stairs. I wished goodnight to her mother, and walked out. Even in the warm weather of Malibu, the evenings were chilly.

****

I got home 20 minutes later, and walked through the door to be slapped across the face.

"Wher hav y'all been Alex?" My father exclaimed, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me in his drunken state.

"Hi dad, my name is Alexsa, I was studying at Anna's. I told you before I left."

He swung a half-empty bottle of vodka at my head, and I ducked just in time. When it made contact with the wall behind me, it sent an explosion of glass shards into my left arm.

"Look what you've done. Its all your fault. Everything. Since the beginning. Its your fault my beautiful Beatrice is dead. Did she ever tell you you were an accident?"

I didn't know what to say, my father was a scary man, and he was blaming my mother's death on me. I was seven. I didn't know what to do.

"DID SHE?!"

"N-no"

"Well you were, and since you've been here, you've caused me nothing but trouble, with your stupid books costing us all our money. Its your fault."

He was about to strike me again, when I dropped my books on the floor, and running to the only home I've ever really had.

****

Dingdong

"He-ALEXSA!"

I just burst out in tears, as he pulled me into a hug. Once I stopped crying, I pulled away to see the worried expressions of his parents.

"Oh dear! Come here we will get you fixed up." Said his mom in a worried voice.

She was a nurse, so I let her take me to the bathroom, and take the glass out of my arm.

"Who did this to you?"

"Justin Martin."

"Your father? I should've known. I'm going to run this down to the station and see what I can do. Hunter, once your mother finishes healing her, take her wherever she wishes to go for her birthday."

"Thank you Mr. Pryne."

"Alexsa, how many times have I told you? Call me Shawn."

Hunter's father was a cop, and he's been trying to get me out of that house since I was 9 years old.

"There you go dear, you are set to go." His mother said, drying the tears on my cheeks.

"May I call Anna?"

"Of course dear."

I dialed Anna's phone, and she picked up immediately.

"Anna! I'm so sorry!" I choked out between sobs.

****

"Plain vanilla for the birthday girl!"

"Oh oh oh! Wait!"

Anna took a candle and a lighter out of her pocket, put the candle on my ice cream, lit it and began to sing. I couldn't help but laugh as Anna and Hunter were singing happy birthday at the top of their lungs in the empty ice cream shop.

I slept at Anna's that night, I told her what had happened that night in more detail as she braided my long black hair. I went to sleep with the same weight in my stomach as usual, but I felt happy. I was 15 just like my friends now, and I only had 3 more years until I could get out of my house.