One Of These Days

Chapter 3

As the days turn into weeks and those weeks turn into a month later and I'm finding it harder and harder to avoid Harry and not allow him inside my walls. I have to hold him off at least until I'm 18 years old and hopefully that will stop Mark from trying to find me, if he even is. If my father is trying to find me, he's not looking to damn hard.

When I ran away last year, I had only ran until I had gone four towns north of him. As the months tick by I'm becoming more confident that he isn't looking for me any more; that perhaps his drinking is by far more important than me being his punching bag.

Harry doesn't show at my flat any longer after that one Friday night but he still tries to have conversations with me during class and to make matters worse, he and three of his friends that he's made at this school sit with me during lunch. No matter where I go to eat my lunch in peace, they find me. So after about two weeks of this, I've given up and sit with them.

So, now at the lunch table is myself, Harry, Liam Payne, Zayn Malik and Niall Horan. They all seem nice but if I'm being honest, all four of them are very funny and friendly but I'm drawn Niall and I could see him and I being really good friends if I had a normal life. When they sit with me at lunch, I listen to their conversations but don't participate even when they try to pull me into the topic.

Being that we are about two weeks from a holiday break, I'm excited but yet saddened; I can work more hours during the two week holiday but I won't have anyone to celebrate my 18th birthday with or Christmas Eve and Day with other than Carson and I don't get to work to those days to help me forget that my mum has been dead for thirteen years; she died in a car accident on my birthday.

Mum had gone out with me in the car to a Christmas Eve program in town and on our way home she had hit a patch of ice and hit a power pole head on and she died instantly. When the paramedics and firefighters pulled me from the backseat of the car, I managed to come away with many scraps, a broken arm and due to the shattered glass, a limped right leg; a piece of glass had severed a muscle in my leg.

About a year after mum's death is when dad started beating me and became an alcholoic. I had learned at a young age to lie about my bruises and also learned how to cover them up with makeup that I found in the bathroom that used to be mum's.

"So Louis, do have any plans with your family for the upcoming holiday?" Niall asks in his cute Irish accent.

I can feel all the color drain from my face at his innocent question as I start to shake thinking about Mark and on my birthday and Christmas, my gifts from my father were either being tortured, raped or broken bones by him or a friend of his.

With wide eyes I stare at all four lads who are baffeled by my reaction to his question. I can't stay here with them staring at me trying to figure out why I am reacting this way. Grabbing my stachel and my trash which I throw away before making a run for it out of the cafe' and into the nearest bathroom.

Locking myself into a stahl, I sit on the floor with my back to the door and sob into my knees. I hate my life, I hate that mum died after taking me to that damn program because I wanted to attend; I hate my father who instead of loving me became a horrible person.

I hate that no one paid attention to all the bruises and broken bones and took me away from my father. I hate that I can't have any friends and be a normal teenager. I hate that I can't afford to live in a better flat or have more food, I hate that I have to work all the damn time to pay my bills and barely keep myself a float. I hate that I can't trust anyone to enter my life without fear; or that I will never find someone to love me because who wants a broken human...no one that's who.

I hear the bathroom door slowly open, holding my breath and trying to stay still so I don't attract attention as the tears silently run down my face. Four sets of feet walk inside the room and shut the door before I hear the lock clicking into place.