Before You Start Your Day

Stay Alive

Bri's POV
We just left Taco Bell. It was perfect. Just not perfect enough. What would make this better is if Tyler was mine, if I could hold his hand in mine, play with his messy brown hair, hug his slim but muscular body. We drove to his house in silence which is okay with me, I turned to him and before I could say what I was going to say he turned to me. "Thank you." "Oh no problem, I like driving." I smiled in return. "No. Not only for giving me a ride home, but for everything." I looked ahead at the road but took my right hand off the wheel to put on his shoulder. "It's no problem, I like you Tyler. You are a great friend. Well, my only friend." "Same here. Turn right here, and my house is the blue one on the corner." I turned into his driveway, but before he got out he gave me another hug. I was about to pull away but I heard a faint sob. "Tyler what's wrong? Is it something I said?" He looked at me and wiped away his tears. "No of course not. It's just that I really don't want to see my dad. He's uh not the nicest guy." I rested my head on his left shoulder "I know exactly how you feel. I live with my sister and mother. My dad had a drug addiction and was a verbal abuser. When he started hitting my mom and I, we ran away and moved here. My mom was pregnant with my sister at the time, we think that's why she has a disability. We love her all the same." He looked at me then back at my hand. He entwined his fingers with mine. "I'm so sorry Bri, nobody deserves that. My dad was drunk driving when he killed my mother. I miss her so much, you wouldn't believe it. And now he just is... Sorry for my language a dick." I rubbed my thumb up and down his palm. "Tyler, you are a strong kid you know that? And I'm glad you made. Im glad I know you. I've known you for two days and you are the most perfect person I've met." He smiled at me. It was a beautiful big smile. His eyes squinted up and then he let go of my hand. "Bri, I'm glad I made it too." I grabbed a pen out of my bag and wrote down my number. "Call me sometime, okay?" We should hang out before I have to go back to school. Bye Tyler. Oh and thanks for the tacos, they were awesome." He got out of the car. "No problem, thanks again, see ya." I pulled out of his driveway but looked back to see if he made it into the house. He opened the door. Bam. He was punched in the face. I stopped my car making my body fly forward. I honked the horn at him, Tyler turned around with a finger motion saying to hold on. All I could hear was his father "you piece of shit, where have you been. I needed someone to buy me some more beer. Get your ass upstairs." Tyler ran to my car. Stopped at the door, turned around to his dad "I love you dad." And got in. "I'm sorry you saw that Bri. Can I-I come with you?" His eye was already bruised up. "Tyler! What was that?! Are you okay?!" He threw his bag in the back of the car. I looked out the window to see his ukulele was broken to pieces. "I'm fine. Just please take me somewhere else but here." "Of course I can, you're coming to my place. We need to clean up your eye." He turned up the radio to the song Violence in my Blink 182 cd. How ironic.