Close As Strangers - AFI

Chapter 6

'Sabina is that you?' A cold, female voice said as soon as Sabina opened the door of her house. 'Shit.' Sabina knew she was going to be in a lot of trouble.

'Yeah, it's me.' She answered quietly. 

'Where have you been?' Her mother asked as she appeared from the living room area, 'you can't just run from me and disappear like that. I am responsible for you till you're 18! If anything happened to you, I would've been to blame! You know that!' She said angrily as she walked into Sabina's direction, which made the fragile-looking girl back up against the door. 'Why can't you just be a good girl for once in your fvcking life?' Her mother rambled on, getting more pissed off with every word she said. 'What did I do to deserve such a failure like you ruining my life.' As Sabina's mom reached Sabina, her cold hand made contact with her cheek, leaving a bright red mark. Sabina winched in pain. 'I'm sorry.' She whispered, as tears burned in the corner of her eyes.

'I'm sorry?' Her mom replied, laughing sarcastically, 'you are not getting away with a simple "I'm Sorry" Sabina.' She continued as she aimed her fist at the girl's nose, making it bleed. 

'That's what you get for being a failure, and a horrible child, you've done everything to make my life miserable, so the least I can do is to return the favour.' Her mother continued, before kicking her back, making the girl trip which caused her to hit her head on the corner of a table that was standing in the hallway. This caused Sabina to see black spots and she immediately fell face down to the ground, causing a black eye. Before Sabina could do anything, her mother pulled her up, looked at her face and said 'You're a pathetic excuse of a girl. Go to your room and something about that face.' As if it was her own fault her face was now covered in bruises.

When Sabina got to her room and looked in the mirror, she noticed that her head was bleeding, her lip was split open and her eye was pitch black. She went to the bathroom and soaked a face towel, to try and get some blood off. This wasn't the first time her mom had hit her, but it'd never been this bad before.

As soon as Sabina got back to her room, she let herself fall onto her bad and bursted out in loud sobs. She could hear her mother screaming from downstairs to shut up, so she did. She hated her life, she hated her parents and she wanted nothing more but to escape this house she was supposed to call home. So right then, in that moment, she decided to leave. She didn't know where she was going to go, but she knew she had to go. She got up from her bed, grabbed some of her favourite clothing items, as well as her makeup, phone, charger, teddy bear and her earphones. She threw it all into a big backpack and climbed out of the window. She would see where London was going to bring her this time, but she knew one thing for sure, she was never going back home. She knew she didn't need to worry about her mother looking for her, she would be glad she was gone.

The streets of London were busy, it was a Friday night so lots of parties were going on, Sabina didn't feel like partying so she avoided the busy streets and wandered through the more quiet alleys. She couldn't go to Ben's, he would call the police as soon as he saw what happened to her face, and she did not want to deal with that, so instead she walked around the dark streets of London until she couldn't feel her feet anymore. It must be around 2 or 3am by the time she gave up and sat down on a small bench near Victoria's station. She debated sleeping right there, but she knew that wouldn't be safe, a 17 year-old petite girl, all alone on a bench near the station, that's calling for trouble.

So instead, she decided to do the last thing she could possibly try, something she didn't want to do, but it seemed like her only option; she called Ashton. 

'Hello?' A raspy, sleepy voice answered the phone.

'Ashton?' Sabina let out a sob as she tried to speak, her face was hurting and she felt terrible for waking the boy up.