Blue

One.

"Alex, wait!" The voice of my twin sister calls out from behind me.

"You know I can't, Ari. You know what happens when I'm late," I turn to face her, avoiding eye contact with her because I know that if I do lock eyes that I'll break down.

"I hate this. I hate him. I hate what he does to you," Ariana grabs my shoulders and forces me to meet her green gaze, "Our birthday is next month. We'll be eighteen. You'll be free to leave him and come live with Mom and I. Can't you just come home with me tonight?"

My hands automatically find their way to the side of my torso where the faint ache of healing bruises lingers from the last time I didn't go straight home to him.

"No Ariana, I can't. You know I can't. He'll just come get me and then Mom will get in trouble again," I start to turn around but Ari pulls me into a tight hug.

"One day, Alex. One day you'll be free of him," she squeezes me even tighter before letting me go, "You'll be at the bookstore tonight?"

I nod, "Yes, I'm working tonight."

"I'll come keep you company after I've finished my homework," she says while digging her phone out of her pocket, "Mom wants me home. I'll see you tonight, Alex!"

I watch her retreating back for only a short moment before I start towards home...or hell, as I've dubbed it.

Mom and Dad divorced when Ari and I were three. There was a big custody battle and it was eventually settled that I would live with our dad and Ari would live with our mom. This worked and everyone was at least mediocrely happy. I got to see Mom and Ari on the weekends. Life was good.

This lasted until I was ten years old. That's when my dad fell into drinking. I'm not sure why he started, maybe it was a tough case at work (my dad is Boca Grande's district attorney), or maybe he was lonely. The why really isn't important. The fact that he fell hard is. And it hasn't been the same since.

At first it wasn't too bad. He'd only get drunk late at night after he thought I was asleep and only on the weekends. But gradually it became earlier and more frequent, until the point that he'd come home drunk from work every night of the week. He'd yell. He'd throw things. He never hurt me though, at least not at first.

I was twelve the first time he hit me. And then he threatened that if I told anyone, he would make my life a living hell and who would believe my word against the DA's anyway? So I never told a soul, except Ariana. But I made her swear to me that she'd never tell. And as far as she knows, he's only hit me twice. She doesn't know about all of the times.

I had been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn't realized that I'd already made it home. And there Dad's Mercedes sat in the driveway.

Great.

I try to make as little sound as possible going in through the garage as I can but it's no use. My wasted father was sitting at the little breakfast nook in the kitchen right as I walked in, empty beer bottle still in hand.

"You're two minutes late," he says, his words slurring drunkenly.

I try to scramble up an excuse, "I'm so sorry, I had to..."

Quicker than I would have thought possible for him to do, he launches the bottle at me. It shatters just inches from my face against the wall. Glass shards embed themselves in the right side of my face like shrapnel from a bomb. One piece just centimeters from my eye.

I let out a strangled cry and start to take off towards my room but he blocks the doorway.

"You are a waste of space. You're weak. Stupid. Useless. A pathetic excuse for a son. An honest mistake. Get out of my sight," and with that, he staggers to the living room.

With silent tears streaming down my face mixing with the blood weeping from the glass shards still embedded in my cheek, I run upstairs to my room and lock the door and go straight to my bathroom.

In the mirror looking back at me is a familiar stranger. A pitifully broken boy. I hate this person looking back at me. I wish I could be stronger. I wish I could be something my dad was proud of.

But wishing has never done me any good.

I pull the glass pieces from my skin, which thankfully weren't lodged very deep, and wash the little cuts out until they stop bleeding. I fix my hair, brush my teeth, and pull myself together. I have to be at work in thirty minutes and it's one of my few escapes. I couldn't, wouldn't, be late.

Angie's Vintage Books was a refuge for me. The day Angie gave me a job was one of best days of my life.

I throw on a clean white T-shirt and a clean pair of jeans and shimmy open my window and begin crawling out onto the roof. With a practiced grace, I slid down the slanted metal to the edge where I hang from the side and drop off.

As I glance back up at my window, a thought flits through my mind.

This is the last time you'll have to endure this place, my child.