Star-Crossed

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

SKY

I woke up to loud noises coming from downstairs.

It surprised me because I was such a heavy sleeper that I could sleep in the middle of a war and not wake up.

It took me a minute to realize that it was the screams of Caroline and a man. The screams grew louder the more I woke up and I started to get worried.

When I sat up to look for Alexander, he was already woken up. He was sitting on the edge of the other side of the bed, his naked back facing me. His elbows were on his knees and I could hear low curses from him.

He seemed so caught up in his own zone of anger that I stayed quiet for a bit until I moved to sit beside him with my legs tucked beneath me.

"What's happening?" I asked him, trying not to sound panicked in my voice. When I touched his shoulder, he flinched my hand away.

The screams grew louder and I was anticipating wether or not to go down there, but I didn't want to go without him.

His door opened, revealing Layla outside of it. Her face was flooding in tears, she had a small pink blanket wrapped around her and was tightly holding on to a brown teddy bear.

I watched as she walked over to Alexander and he took her in his arms. She sat sideways on his lap and rested her small head on his shoulder. Her cries soon died down as he held her in his embrace.

He was caressing her arm while looking out the window, his eyes holding so much anger in them.

I wanted to say something but I just couldn't, because of the humongous lump that was continuing to form in my throat.

"My dad. . .he comes to our house drunk sometimes." He explained. "He's a different fucking drunk every time. Sometimes he pretends he wants to see us, sometimes he doesn't remember what happened and just walks in and acts like the old times, but most times he fights with my mom until she gets him away."

I listened to him, looking into his eyes while he spoke with his eyes on the window.

The heavy storm outside made the whole situation even more frightening.

Every strike of thunder crept into my soul, and the rain outside was a perfect comparison to the storm inside.

Both of our heads snapped towards the door when the noises from downstairs hot louder. A screaming match turned into an actually scream from Caroline. I heard noises from a furniture breaking and looked over at Alexander.

He quickly lifted Layla off of his lap. We both watched as he rushed to his closet.

"What are you doing, Alex?" Layla said with her small voice. She rushed to him.

He brought her to the other side of the bed. "Just stay here with Sky, okay?"

I sat beside her and hugged her in my arms and she did the same, only tighter.

I watched as he went back to the closet and took out a wooden baseball bat. His eyes were bloodshot red as he walked towards the door.

He turned around to look at us, me holding Layla as she sniffled and we were sitting on the bed, and then turned to head towards the door.

I sat there with Layla in my arms. Whatever Alex was going to do with that bat wasn't going to be good.

"Layla?" I called her from my shoulder and she hummed. "What's your favourite show?"

"C-Curious George." She weeped. I reached for Alexander's phone and unlocked it, having seen him put the passcode in numerous times and searched up and episode on YouTube.