Ring of Fire (Completed) Book 1 Vanelzing Series

Alexis Journal Entry 11

Photo by Min An from Pexels

The night grew dark. The stars were beginning to illuminate the skies. Momma came in my room and kissed me goodnight. I kept my eyes shut until I heard the door close behind her. The sound of her bedroom door closing was my cue. The blankets fell to the floor when I throw them off of me.

The window makes no sound nor does the screen when I open them. I quietly climb out and pull the window back down after me. A deep growl behind me gives me pause. I stop and slowly turn around to see Brownie.

"Brownie it's me hush!" I said swatting her away. Brownie takes her leave back to her metal dog box on the back porch. She is a good guard dog and would have probably bitten me if I hadn't of said anything. She almost attacked Daddy one night. We had let her sleep in the house that night while Daddy was out fishing. When he came home, Brownie started growling at him and baring her teeth. Poor Daddy didn't know she was inside and it scared the crap out of him because she was so mean. 

There was no one on the roads.  Everyone was either at home with their loved ones or asleep in their warm beds, everyone except me and Shawn of course. He waved at me as I made my way down the hill to the lone gate that stood in the pasture. He was sitting on the gate with a bottle in between his legs. 

He started sneaking them from his parents that summer. I don't know when it started or why. Maybe he looked at it one day and said I want to try that. No one truly knows what goes on in Shawn's head, not even me. He is a mystery I have yet to solve.  

The stars were brighter down by the gate. Mostly because the flood light didn't reach that far. They were so beautiful. Even though they were thousands of miles away their light still reached us. One day I hope to shine like that. 

Shawn looked at me and handed me the bottle.

"You wanna try?" Shawn asked.

I took the bottle from Shawn and placed it to my lips. I took a little sip then handed it back to him. We sat like that for most of the night, handing the bottle back and forth to one another and talking about things that interested us. The latest movies, books, tv shows, and many other different things.

This became our escape. Escape from drug addicts, crying babies, hateful words and actions, hateful people that wanted to bring us down, and life itself. It became a nightly think for the two of us to sit on the fence sometimes drinking alcohol, sometimes not. When Shawn brought alcohol, we would share the bottle with each other until it was halfway gone.

It was hard for Shawn to sneak alcohol out of the house, so he didn't do it that often. His parents would know that it was missing if he took it. I always worried what might happen if he got caught, but he never did. If his parents asked where it went, Shawn would say that they drank it the night before. His parents were alcoholics and addicts. They didn't even remember what they had for breakfast most of the time and Alexander often used that to his advantage.