Losing Abi

Chapter 2

"Mark?" the voice seemed to come from all around. "Mark, wake up!" It was a girls voice, and it sounded familiar. "Mark! Get up already!" I finally opened my eyes to see a younger Abi staring at me. "Bout time, Mark!"

"Huh? Abi? But...but..." Abi rolled her eyes as I stared at her in confusion.

"Oh, stop your blabbering and get up already! Don't you know what today is?" When I just stared at her, she sighed loudly, slumping down on the bed. "Mark, I can't believe you forgot! Its my birthday!" I felt my eyes widen, and suddenly it was almost as if I couldn't control my own actions.

"That's right! I'm so sorry I forgot, I was still half asleep," I said, laughing. Abi hopped down from the bed and laughed as well.

"Oh, aren't you so happy, Mark? I'm finally seven! We're the same age again!" I felt myself smiling and laughing and talking with her, but I didn't understand it. I wasn't controlling myself, and somehow....this seemed familiar. Could it be...was it possible...that this was a memory? Was I reliving my time with Abi, getting a second chance?

Abi took my hand and solemnly said, all traces of laughter from moments before gone, "Mark, I'm going to show you something, and you can't tell anyone, okay? Its going to be our secret." I felt myself nod, I got out of bed and my feet seemed to follow her of their own accord. I followed her down the stairs, through the front hallway, and out the front door. As she led me across the street to her house, I took a moment to wonder why she had been in my house in the first place. Had her parents always had that little amount of control over her that she could just come over to my house whenever she wanted? Strange, I didn't remember that.

Abi interrupted my wonderings when she tugged on my hand to lead me around her house to the backyard. "Shhhhhh," she hissed at me, even though I wasn't making any noise. "I'm supposed to be in bed right now, but I snuck out do I could show you this." Well, that answered that question.

"But wh--" I started, but Abi cut me off with another "Shhhh!" She shook her head at me as we walked around to the back of her house, where I immediately saw a cardboard box. I was about to ask what the box was for when I heard a light snuffling coming from inside it. I shot a confused look at Abi, then walked over to the box as Abi stayed a few feet behind me. I walked around the box, then slowly knelt down. I looked to Abi, who nodded her head at me to let me know it was okay to look underneath it.

I lifted the box, and underneath, I found--a dog? I turned to Abi. "Abi...whose dog is this?" I asked slowly. Abi smiled at me and said, "Mine."

"But Abi," I said, squinting at her. "You don't have a dog." Abi just shrugged. "What will you do when your dad finds out?" At this, Abi's face fell and her shoulders slumped.

"That's why I brought you here," she said. "I wanted to make sure it was okay with you that I kept her in the tree house." The tree house wasn't actually a tree house, just a little hut in the woods that Abi and I had found accidentally when we were five.

I shook my head. "Abi, you know that it gets cold there. There's no way a dog would be able to survive there." Abi crossed her arms and blew a strand of hair out of her face while glaring at me.

"Why do you have to always be so logical?" she asked grumpily. I was just about to reply when we both heard something from the front if the house. Someone was calling Abi's name. We looked at each other, and at exactly the same moment that he came around the side of the house, we knew who it was. Abi's father.

I had never actually seen Abi's dad hit her, but I knew he did from Abi's bruises and from what she told me. I wouldn't have believed Abi--her dad was always so nice to my parents and me--if it weren't for the bruises. Ugly, purple, black, blue, green--they were very noticeable, but Abi just told everyone that she fell off her bike a lot.

Now her dad was there, and I could believe very much that he hit Abi. "Abi, why are you outside so early in the morning?" he yelled at her. "And in your birthday, too! You don't know how worried your mother and I--" then his eyes fell on me and the dog. "What's this?" he asked, suddenly deadly calm. "Why is the neighbor boy and his dog at our house this early?"

Knowing I shouldn't say anything, I just looked up at him and said meekly, "I-it's not m-my d-dog, sir." He looked at me, then turned to Abi slowly.

"Not his dog, eh? Then whose dog is it, Abigail?" He was the only person that ever called Abi Abigail. "If it's not his dog then whose is it?" His voice began to rise, and both Abi and I flinched away. I knew what was coming, and jumped to my feet as I first heard her father's large, strong hand come in contact with Abi's face. I dropped the dog to the ground and ran, leaving the sound of Abi's cries behind me as everything faded back to black.