The Story of Us (Editing in progress)

Chapter 5

I ignore the person for as long as possible until I couldn't take it anymore. I turn around and see Gabriel smiling at me. I hide my shock and fear before Father noticed.

"What?" I say with the nastiest voice I can muster. He looks surprised at my attitude, but I honestly wanted to run away before Father saw us together. 

"Hey, I thought it was you, Izzy." My eye twitches.

"Do not call me Izzy. I don't know who you think you are, but you are not my friend. Don't talk to me outside of school, if you see me, ignore me. I have to order. Goodbye." I turn and ordered the food, making sure they got the burgers right when they have it ready. I walk out and ride back to the house. 

"That boy, I recognize him. He was in the infirmary when I went to pick you up. Why was he talking to you?"

"I don't know, Father. Maybe because he has a free will." I regretted what I said after Father slams his hand on the table. I flinch, knowing that I will be punished for what I said.

"I know that this is hard, having to do everything for me in place of your mom, but you will do it. Without question, without attitude and you won't mention what I do to anyone. You remember what happened last time you disobeyed me. Do NOT make the same mistake again. Is that clear, Isabella Marian Pickens?" My middle name was chosen by Mom and Dad had chosen my first name.

"Yes, sir." I answer, my head bowed and trying not to anger Father anymore.

"Good. Now clean up the mess in your room." I get up and gather all my unfinished food.

My room is clean, just a few things that need to be straightened up. I hear banging from the kitchen, then glass shattering. I run to the kitchen and see that Father has thrown several cups at the wall. His face is red with anger and he holds Mom's favorite cup in his hand, ready to throw it against the wall. I jump in and take it from his hand. It shatters in our hands and glass imbeds itself in our hands and in my face.

 I scream in pain, physical and emotional. Mom's favorite cup is gone, my brother's is gone, my favorite cup is gone. All the cups that are left are plain blue glass cups. I try to get the large pieces of glass out of my hands and large rivulets of scarlet blood run down my arms. I look at Father's hands and they have small pieces of glass in them and smaller cuts.

"What the hell do you think you were doing? Now my hands are cut and I'm going to have trouble at work!" Father yells at me. 

"So what? You barely have any glass in your hands. I have glass in my hands and in my face." I was angry and didn't care at the moment that I would be hit. "You broke Mom's and Daniel's cups. Why would you do that?" I yell at him, more angry then I have ever been with him.

He slaps me across the face. "They left me such an idiot child. That's why. Now clean my hands, clean this up and finish in my room. I want you to go to work tomorrow and work an extra shift. Now!" I jump and quickly reach for the first aid kit. I realized that I had pushed Father too much and now I was going to pay. I don't know why I had such a bad attitude today, but if I had to take a guess, It would be because I had to deal with so much at school.

 I take the tweezers and pick out the small pieces of glass. I clean them as gently as possible and wrap them with a fresh bandage. I ignore my feelings of anger and resentment towards Father and try to minimize the shaking in my hands. I try not to cry and head to the cleaning closet. I sweep up the glass and ignore the throb in my hands and face. I clean Father's mess that he made. He was in the room and as I cleaning up his dirty clothes, he would push the pile over for me to clean up again. I went through the process a couple of times until Father decided he had enough. 

He hits the back of my head so hard, I could see black spots dancing in my vision. I topple over and Father hits me, over and over. He didn't care that I was going to have bruises on my face. He didn't care that I have deep scratches from the glass earlier. I hadn't cleaned myself up, just washed off the blood as best I could. I still had glass shards in my hands and face. He kept hitting me until I was nearly unconscious. He takes me to my room and tells me to clean. 

My room is no longer clean. My books have been knocked off the shelf and my clothes have been thrown everywhere. I try not to cry in frustration in front of Father. I didn't want him to destroy any of the pictures I had stored away. I start cleaning, beginning with my clothes. I sort them by color and by type. I put away my clothes and try to smooth out my books. I alphabetize them again and place them on my shelf in a neat way. At this point, I do this by memory. I have gotten used to cleaning and organizing so much that I do it unconsciously. When a teacher's room is a mess, it takes me a bit to not fix everything in the middle of class. The reason why some of my teacher's bookshelves are organized is because of me. Finally, I finish and I decide to stare at the pictures I have before taking a shower and dealing with my injuries.

The first one is of my parents. Mom is smiling at the camera and Dad is smiling at my Mom. My older brother, Daniel, was the one behind the camera. This was taken before I was born. Father had just divorced his first wife, Eliza, and had married my Mom. He had taken in Daniel, his son with his first wife, because his mother was crazy and had a certain fondness for the bottle. Mom loved him as though he were her own son. I remembered how happy Father and Mother were and how concerned they were when Daniel started going out more often. 

The second one is of the whole family together. I was in ponytails, Daniel was holding my five year old self up and Father was holding Mom's hand. It was at my party. I wanted to go to a waterfall for my birthday so we did. I look at Daniel and wonder how he decided to be friends with the wrong crowd. I wish he was still with me. I wouldn't be as miserable and I would have someone to run to when things got too tough with Father. This was the only picture of our broken little family. Father burned the rest of them. 

The third one was another picture of my family, only it's just Father, Mom and I. It was a year after Daniel had died in a car accident. People say it was just a car accident, but I knew that he was drugged and whoever was with him forced him to drive. Daniel knew too much and his "friends" killed him. I only knew this because I read Daniel's journal once I was older. I still remember how Daniel comforted me when I had a nightmare. That year was hard on me because I didn't know where my brother was. Not until a teacher asked me if I was okay now that Daniel had gone to heaven. 

The last one was a picture of Danny and me messing around at the mall. We were both standing at the edge of the water fountain and pretending that we were about to fall in. Adrien had taken that picture. We had been together for a couple of months and I was head over heels for him. I missed Adrien so much, but I didn't know how to contact him or how to apologize for something that I didn't even do. I feel a sharp sting in my face and realize that I still haven't taken out the shards from myself. I try to take out as many as I can and I hop into the shower. 

As the water runs down my face, I think about Daniel. I'm angry at him for not thinking of his little sister before getting involved with the wrong crowd. I was angry at Mom for leaving me alone with Father five years ago. I remember the exact day she left. the Sixth anniversary of her leaving was in two days and I didn't want to go home that day. I picked up an extra shift at the café so I wouldn't be home until after Father goes to sleep. I still couldn't believe that I have been living with Father for six years in a couple of days. Six years ago, he was Dad. He wasn't afraid of anything and he was a kind man. Sure, he had a temper, but it was never this bad. 

I step out of the shower minutes later and toss and turn on my bed before giving up. I was uncomfortable because I still had small shards in my right hand that I couldn't get out and my bruised body wasn't letting me lay on my side. I had to lay on my back, but I was uncomfortable. Eventually I drift off thinking of my family before it was shattered and everything fell apart.