Jerimiah's Secret [On Hold]

Chapter One: Face down

*Picture of Riley*

"Riley get your ass down here now!" I sit up from my mattress. I don't have a full bed it's only a mattress lying on the floor. I only have one blanket and a flat pillow that lies on the bed. The blanket doesn't help the extreme cold that comes at night but it's warm enough to keep me from freezing to death every night.

The house is two stories but I didn't have a room on one of the main floors. My room is the attic but it's also sometimes the basement if father gets really upset with me. Funny how most kids with two rooms are spoiled brats that get everything they want but for me I have two storage areas that I call my rooms and a dad that's abusive. Everything I ever wanted, right?

I quickly get dressed in some old ripped skinny jeans and a black and white stripped hoodie. I climb down the stairs to the second floor before running through the hall to the stares that lead to the first floor.

Mom had died when she was giving birth to me so I never have to meet her. I see pictures of her and my dad all around the house and I kinda look like her but with a little of my father in my facial features. Dad thinks it's my fault she died. If I wouldn't have been born she would still be alive. I sometimes believe him when he tells me it would have been better if I wasn't born at all.

"Riley!" I hear him yell again. I round the corner to the kitchen. My dad sits at the table with a bottle of brandy in his hand. He's drunk again. He's always drunk.

"Who said you could leave the basement?" He asks. He had put me in the basement a couple days ago but I snuck up to the attic to sleep without drowning. The basement is flooding from all the rain we've had.

"N-no one, sir," I stutter. His eyes are glazed as he glares at me.

"Then why the hell weren't you down there?" He says. His calmness is scaring me. He's too calm.

"It's freezing down there," I say. "I couldn't sleep." He slaps his free hand down on the table and I jump.

"I don't give a damn if you can't sleep! You keep your ass down there until I tell you come back up!" I flinched away at his demanding voice and practically ran to the stairs that lead to the basement.

I sat on the cold, damp basement floor. I hug my legs to my chest trying to keep warm. The only light coming from the small windows the first time I was down here I thought that I could escape through them, but I guess my dad thought that too. He put bars on the windows to keeps me in.

I sat on the floor looking down at the light that shined on the frowned inches from me. I could see the shadow of the bars. I just sat there staring at the light that shined on the ground.

I've been in here many times and the only reason is that my father hates me because I killed my mother. She died when she was giving birth to me. Father was sad for a long time and my Aunt raised me but my Aunt died from cancer when I was six. I came back to live with my father and something in him snapped he blamed me for all the death that has been happening. I knew I wasn't the cause of my Aunt's death but I couldn't say the same for my mother.

My thoughts were cut off when a shadow of a figure went in front of the window and stopped. I didn't want to look up in fear that it might be my father but the figure didn't leave the window.

I looked up to see a glimpse of black hair. Why would someone look at me through the basement window? I knew it wasn't my father because he didn't have black hair like me. I had my mother's black hair but I dyed the tips of my bangs a teal color. I had been beaten the day I came home with my hair dyed.

I got up and walked to the window. I pulled myself up to stand on the dusty table that stood under the window. It's not that I'm too short it's just that the window was too high for me to reach or look through. I pulled myself up and looked out the window. I wiped some of the dust off the glass so I could see through more clearly. The grass was green and the sun was shining. The road was clear in front of the house.

A figure retreats slowly down the road. All I can make out is a head of ink black hair and a gray hoodie.

I stare out the window a little while longer, watching the trees sway in the wind. It's early spring, still cold at night and in the earning morning. Cold seeps in through the cracks in the window and I shiver. I'd really rather be in the attic right now even if it is colder, at least I have a bed and blanket.

I step away from the window and sit against the wall underneath it. This is my favorite spot during the day. The sunlight from the window provides me with the only heat I'm going to get down here. I can hear my dad stopping around upstairs, probably getting ready for work. He won't forget to lock the basement door today, so I'm stuck down here until he gets home. If he comes home, sometimes he goes out after work and picks up some whore from the bar. He usually doesn't make it home before the next morning.

I stare at the far wall blankly. My life shouldn't be like this, I know that but I can't help but feel like maybe I deserve this. My mother is dead because I was born. I lost my mom, a woman I never knew, and my father lost his wife, a woman he'd known forever.

I bury my head into my hands. Sometimes I wish I had been born to someone else. My mother and father would still have each other, and maybe one day I would see them out walking, so happy, and wonder who those people were and maybe I would walk up and talk to them but this is my live, and this is who I am.

I hum softly to myself. It takes me a minute to realize that I'm humming a song that ties so much to my life.

Do you feel like a man when you push her around?

Yeah, he does.

Do you feel better now as she falls to the ground?

He always feels better.

Well I'll tell you my friend
One day this world is going to end

I have no friends and the world isn't ending fast enough.

As your lies crumble down
A new life she has found.

His lies are still strong and my life is anything but new. It's been the same since I came back to live with my dad after my aunt died. I was lost in thought when I heard a click from the door. I expected my father to fling the door open and start yelling at me but it didn't happen. The door stayed shut and the house stayed quiet.