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Nine years earlier...

Nine years earlier...

I close my eyes tight. When is it all going to end? I pulled the blanket over my head, acting as if it were shielding me from the outside world. Mommy and Daddy have been yelling at each other ever since Daddy got home from work. He slammed the door shut, and then I heard glass shattering. He started yelling at my mom, telling her how worthless she was and how everything that was happening to them was her fault. I breathed in and out trying to keep myself from crying, if Daddy heard me, he would take it out on Mommy.

I heard shuffling under the sheets in the twin bed next to mine and then a quiet sob. I climbed out of bed, and as I did I felt the cold floor underneath my toes. Winter was usually my favorite time of year because it meant cookies, hot chocolate, and being together as a family, yet this is also the time of year that my mommy says that if we wish hard enough things are going to get better. I wish for my dad to stop hurting my mom, I wish for us to be able to have a better life, and I wish for everything to be good again...but nothing happens.

I climb into the other bed and my sister turns around, her face was red and puffy, she still had streaks of tears running down her face. I push back her honey blonde hair and wipe away her tears with my thumb.

She whispers, "Is Mommy okay?"

I was only six years old and she was two years younger than me, however sometimes I feel more like a mom than a child. Ever since all the bad started happening I had to grow up so my sister wouldn't have to. I have to make sure she did her homework, get her ready for school in the morning, keep her out of trouble and if she was in it I would take the blame. I do all of that, and most of all; protect her from what was happening at home.

"Don't worry Lily, everything's going to be okay," I said struggling to hold back tears; I looked away form her hazel eyes. I couldn't let her see me cry. I had to be strong. I had to be strong.

"What about Nicky?" she asked.

Nicky, was our baby brother Nicholas. Our house wasn't very big; it had a small kitchen, a dining room, a living room, two bed rooms, and one bathroom. My mommy and daddy share one room and my brother and sister and I share another. Nicholas slept in a crib my daddy built next to the window and in front of my sister's bed. My mom argued with my dad about how it was dangerous for him to sleep next to the window, yet my dad said that she should have told him that before he built it. He was right and she was wrong, that was how the game was played and even though he knows he's going to win he still expects her to play anyways. Nicholas has brown hair, brown eyes, and light tan skin. He looked a lot like mom.

"Nicholas is asleep, just like you should be," I said. I hummed mom's lullaby, the one that she sang for us every night to help us sleep.

Once she finally drifted off I climbed out of bed and walked into the hallway. I heard a loud bump against the wall followed by a series of curses in Spanish. I peeked and saw my mom crumpled on the floor with her hair in her face and bruises on her arms. I ran to her, wanting to know if she was okay, when I put my hand on her arm she let out a soft moan. She was alive. I heard a burp and looked up. In the dinning room was my father with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in another. His face was unshaven and his clothes we stained and wrinkled. People say I look just like him. Black hair, and pale skin, yet the only difference between us, was that I had ice blue eyes. My parents don't know how I got it, my father believes that my mom cheated on him but she always insisted that I was his.

"Get away from her," he grunted, "let that skank finally get what she deserves." His words were slurred from all the drinking.