UNEXPECTED LOVE AND SECRETS

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER V

ELIZABELLA

"Ok go partner up." Jordan said.

I stay seated on the edge of the bleachers and watched everyone else start to talk to each other. Then once they get their partner they go up to Jordan to get the song and dance that they would be doing for this dance project. Within just a couple of minutes everyone in class was partnered up and surprisingly there were no fights over who got to be with who. While everyone got started on their dance routine I just sat on the bleachers watching what everyone else was doing. After a while everything started to calm down and people were getting into working on their projects.

Some of the groups are getting a little close for my comfort so I decide to move over a little bit, but I shift on the bleacher to fast and my foot slips on a puddle of spilled water causing me to fall on my side with the fresh bruises. I cannot wait till I can leave and not have to live with him anymore. I think that I would like to move out of the hills and mountains and into the city, which the closest is Sacramento. I go to get up and the pain is still there, making me realize that Sacramento is not far enough away from the awful person that I call father. Maybe San Diego would be far enough away that he could not get me, but he once said that no matter how far I go he will always be able to find me whether I want him to or not. Chicago might work-

"Hello?" asked the person that was standing right in front of me snapping their fingers in my face. Before I can say anything Jorden starts talking again. "Do you have a partner for the assignment?"

Slowly I look up at him and am shocked that he has come up to me and asked me. "N-no," I stuttered in a scratchy voice and then I look back down at the floor. I didn't really pay attention to the rest of what he said but it had something to do with me coming to see him after class if I didn't get a partner by the end of class and then he walked away back over to Mr. Blackwell to talk to him.

Weird... anyways Chicago might work, it's in Illinois which is just over half way across the United States which might be far enough away from here. I don't want to be anywhere close to where Robert is so that I don't have to worry about him coming and finding me. I know that if I leave and then he comes and finds me then I will be in big trouble and he will be really mad. No one should see him when he is mad. Yes, when he is drunk he gets violent but when he is mad AND drunk he is even more violent. I have only seen him like that one time and I NEVER want to see it again.

It was a couple of years ago and I had come home a little late because I got stopped by a teacher asking about some buries that were on my stomach and were seen when I was playing on the playground and my shirt came up a little bit. I said that I fell out of a tree when I was climbing it and I hit some branches on the way down. By the time I got home he was already drunk and was beyond pissed that I didn't get home before him so that I could make him something to eat and get his beers. Now I have a constant reminder when I look in the mirror to never be late home from school. That night after I made him dinner and got him the beers he wanted he came up to my room with a horse whip and beat my back till there was not one place on my back that wasn't covered in blood.

I can feel the scars on my back sting with the thought of that memory. After that I have always made sure that I make it home right after school so that it doesn't happen again. Right about that time is when I stopped talking also because the school had called him and told him that they saw the buries and that I said I fell out of a tree hitting some branches on the way down. He was also really mad that they saw the buries and my punishment for talking about it, even if I told a lie that they believe, was getting punched in the stomach 25 times because that was how many minutes he was on the phone with the school when they called him, and he told me that if I ever talked to a person besides him I would get an even worse punishment.