He looked close at my face, and said, "You are leaking red stuff from your mouth. Is your daddy doing that to you?"
"No...this can't be happening..." I thought to myself.
My dad threw his belt out of the door, down at me, and, for the first time, noticed the little boy standing there in front of me.
I gulped and panicked. "Run...!" I yelled at the boy as I started to get up.
The boy stood there, and looked at me, probably wondering why I was telling him to run. He glanced up towards my dad, and his eyes brows started scrunching up as he started yelling at my dad. "You leave her alone, mister! You don't need to be hitting her like that!" he yelled.
My dad leaned over to the passenger's side.
I stood up, and lightly pushed the boy aside to where I was standing between him and my dad. "Get out of here, now!" I yelled at him once more.
"Why do you want me to leave?" the boy asked, almost in a hurt tone.
"I just want you to be safe, okay?" I told him.
"Okay..." he sighed, and started to run off towards his house.
My dad grumbled something, but I couldn't hear him. He slammed the door shut, and speedily drove off.
I sighed, and started to head towards my house. I stopped and thought for a minute, and decided to go over to the little boy's house, just to warn his parents of the danger of my dad maybe coming over and killing him because of what he saw. "I can't have someone be killed by my dad because they saw what he did to me," I thought to myself. I walked over to the house where I saw him playing with his ball earlier that morning. I walked up the stairs, and started knocking on the door.
I heard someone yell, "I'm coming!" from inside the house. After a few seconds, the door opened to reveal a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties. She has semi-long brown hair that was pulled back into a pony tail. She also had tan skin, light brown eyes, and she looked nice by the way she was smiling when she opened the door.
"Hi, I'm Elissa. I just moved here yesterday," I answered.
"Why, hello, Elissa! It's nice to meet you. Did you need anything, or did you just come by to meet us?" she asked sweetly.
I saw the little boy come up behind her, and a smile started to grow on his face. "Mommy, mommy...! he chanted.
"What is it, Ryan?" she asked him, bending down to him.
"That's the girl I told you about! That's the girl who smiled at me," he informed.
"Oh it is, is it?" she said, smiling back towards me. "So you're my son's new friend. Would you like to come inside?"
I shook my head no, and said, "I just need to tell you something that's really important about your son..."
"Oh, what is it?" she said, the smile on her face falling when she heard how serious I was. "Ryan, why don't you go inside, okay?"
He started pouting, and said, "But I want to stay here with you and the girl, Mommy."
"But Mommy needs to talk to the girl for a minute, okay?" the mother said, patting the boy's head, and turning him around. "I'll be inside in a little bit, okay?"
"Okay..." he pouted, and went inside.
She shut the door behind him, and said in a low voice, "Is it what my son told me? Is it about how your dad hit you?"
I looked at her with wide eyes, and nodded my head, slightly.
She sighed, and said, "I guess he was telling the truth. I didn't believe him when he came home saying that I need to go out there, and beat up a girl's dad because he was hitting her. I'm so sorry."
"It's...fine. I'm used to it," I said, but then muttered the last sentence.
"After he told me, he went to my oldest son, Matt, and tried to convince him as well. Why don't you come inside, and we'll get you cleaned up, okay?" she offered.
I shook my head, and answered, "No thanks...I need to be getting back home. I just came here to tell you that you need to look after your son. Make sure that he never comes anywhere near my house, okay?"
"But...why?" she asked.
"It's because...of my dad. He just gets a little territorial, that's all. He's not too much of a people person," I laughed, covering up the real reason.
"Well, okay, you need to take care of yourself. If you ever need to come over here, and talk, or play with my son, he'd like it," she smiled, and waved goodbye as I started leaving.
