This is how it ends

EMILY

Time's up. The small clock on the bookshelf strikes ten with an annoying tune, as I run my fingers through the numbers. I hold my sweater loosely while I stare at the minute hand, as if memorizing every single time it moves. All my hopes. All my heartbreaks. All my sleepless nights. I reach for the chair to my right, but it remains as it was when I came into the room. Empty.

"Don't you want to be the best you can be?" I told myself. The words came out harsher than intended. A voice behind me. My fathers.

Our most recent conversation was about my attending to college. "Look what happened to your mother, Emily." he'd say, as if I haven't counted the days, hours, minutes since Mom's accident. "College took everything from her. No daughter of mine is going into that. Not if I can stop it."

So he does. He tries to stop me — every day. With Mom gone, who's going to stop him? Not from drinking. Not from hitting me. There's no one to keep our family from falling apart.

I grip my crumbled sweater. My brother would tell me that words are truer than I think, that the world is at my fingertips and it's up to me to make my future the best it can be.
I tried that and I lost. Now I'd rather escape.