I'm afraid to love you back...

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The next few days are especially difficult for me. After that night three days ago I haven't made it to school. I worked for the whole day Wednesday. Thursday and Friday I stayed home to take care of my father. I had more bruises than normal. He got angry at me for the tiniest things.

It is Friday night now. I was sitting on the floor while Camille was on the bed above me reading. She became good friends with Josh's sister and she would go to their house while I worked. She wanted me to talk to Josh but I refused. She hated me for rejecting him. She said that I needed to be happy but I couldn't afford to be happy. Not when so much of my instincts relied on me being unhappy.

"Georgia you need to go back to school," Camille says sitting next to me. I look at her.

"I have been working Camille," I tell her a little confused on why she was bring this up.

"No you haven't. You are avoiding Josh," she says simply. I rub my eyes. I didn't want to talk about this.

"Tomorrow I have to work all day. Are you coming along or do you want to go to Amy's?" Amy was Josh's sister. She sighs a little.

"I will go with you. We are out of food by the way," she says and I nod my head in acknowledgement. I was tired and she knew it. Every time I moved I wanted to wince. I was covered in bruises but I knew I would survive. I would survive for Camille. I don't know where I would be if it weren't for her.

I often thought about running away with her but I didn't want to take her away from school. I didn't want to make her live on the streets. In some ways we still needed our father. He was our legal guardian and technically he owns this house. Yes I deal with bills and taxes but technically he owns this very broken down place. He is still our father despite his actions.

"Go to sleep," I tell her while standing. It was cold in the house right now.

"Where are you going?" She asks and I sigh.

"I'm going to steal you a blanket," I tell her and she starts to protest but I leave the room. She knows better than to follow.

My father normally doesn't care about what we do but the things he does care about is me taking his blankets. He has a stack of blankets in his room that he doesn't even use but when I try to take one he says I deserve to freeze. Sometimes I agree but Camille doesn't deserve anything like what she has gotten.

I hear his drunken snores as I creep in. The light outside is the only thing preventing me from tripping over everything he has spread across the floor, as though he was lying traps out to keep me away.

I keep each step in rhythm to attempt at keeping the wood from creaking loudly beneath my body. Normally I feel completely weightless and small but now it felt as though every time I was putting a foot down I had weights tied to them. I was terrified my dad would wake up.

I open the closet door slowly and untangle the brown small blanket from his stash. I turn around slowly and start to make my way to the door when something tosses me into the wall. I cry out in pain and drop the blanket.

"You don't deserve it!" He roars picking me up by the hair and punching me repeatedly in the face. I whimper in pain.

"It was for Camille," I cry and he throws me once more out into the hall.

"Camille can get it herself next time," he growls before slamming the door shut. I feel blood pouring from my nose and the top of my head was wet. I quickly crawl to the bathroom in order to be sure Camille doesn't see me like this.

Not that she hasn't before.

I turn the water on in the sink tenderly dipping my shaking hand into it. The water is freezing and I almost cry out at the shock. It was hard to see straight and I knew that I probably had a concussion. I didn't work this weekend luckily.