Faded Lines

Chapter 21.

* Eva *

I watched Aiken leave the room. I probably upset him, but I was done being quiet. He needed to know that bottling up everything inside only hurts you and the people that care for you. It tears you down, eats you up inside and makes you want give up. I fought back. Now he needs to. He fought against his dad. But now he needs to fight back for himself. Just like Michelle told me to do.

The door slowly opened before Michelle came rushing in. "Oh baby girl, she threw her arms around me, I knew you could do it. I'm so proud of you!" Tears were streaming down her face.

"I don't want to do this alone," I whispered. "Talk to the cops I mean. I want to get it over with, but would you stay with me please?"

Right on cue there was a knock on the door before it was opened again. In stepped two officers, one male, and one female. The woman was the first to talk, "My name is Officer Bailey,  and this is my partner Officer Kent. We are here to talk about what happened and ask you a few questions. The doctor said you were up to talking now, but we understand if you have changed your mind, you did just wake up from being in a coma in less than 24 hours."

"No, I'm ready, but I want her to stay," I said pointing at Michelle.  Looking over at her, she grabbed my hand and nodded her head.

"Alright, that is fine. Now if at any point this becomes too much, just say the word and we will stop. Your parents have already been convicted, so this isn't absolutely necessary, but with your statement, they could be put away for longer. Now how long has the physical abuse been going on?" She brought out a notepad to write and handed it to her partner to write the answers down. Pulling up the second chair in the room, and setting it by my ned.

I liked her, she didn't have judging eyes. She was a little older, maybe late thirties. Had her brown hair cut into a bob, and her hazel eyes looked trusting. If I had to guess, I'd say she was a mother, by the understand, and hurt look residing in the depths. "It has been going on since I can remember. But it never got this bad until this year."

"What do you mean by this bad? What changed?" She urged.

"Well, my parents didn't ever let me have anyone over. They never wanted someone to see the house. But this year, my homeroom teacher assigned a 'get to know your partner' project. Every week for at least an hour you had to go to that person's house, and then the next week they would come to yours," I lowered my head, "they didn't like that very much."

"Continue please, if you can," Officer Bailey pushed.

"Well, when I brought home the paper, they were mad. Then told me to make enough dinner for guests.  I got excited, we never have guests. But then they told me, I was not going to be eating with them, the guests didn't know they had a kid," I felt Michelle squeeze my hand in encouragement. "The didn't let me eat all week. My friend Kelly was the reason, I was able to keep going until Friday. She would give me some of her lunch, and make me eat. Then Friday I went to Aiken's house, and ended up passing out. I lied to Michelle and them saying that I just hadn't eaten that day, so she snuck food into my bag for me. When the next Friday came, Aiken came to my house. They threw a surprise birthday party. I didn't even know it was my birthday, no need in keeping up with it, of you never celebrate, right?" I shrugged but continued.  "When Aiken left though, I got another pretty bad beating, then they yelled and said that it was horrible to have to pretend to love me. That I was worthless. My father threw me so hard into the wall, I knocked out. My mother later woke me up by kicking me in the ribs, saying we had company again. And not to look forward to eating in at least over a week or more. " I wiped a tear that fell. I don't know what I ever did that was so bad for them to hate me.

"Eva, how did you survive?" Officer Kent spoke up for the first time.

Looking him over, he looked younger than Officer Bailey.  Maybe middle or late twenties. His blonde har cut military style, and brown eyes that were watering slightly.