INTRUDER

20 DAYS BEFORE THE INTRUSION

"I could leave."

Maggie's voice speaks loudly into the phone. Garred has left to do some errands so Maggie decided to call one of her friends.

"I can buy the tickets to leave to Florida and we could escape and I could live with a friend there, then I could find a house or apartment we could live in."

Maggie was planning to take Ellie and I to Florida to leave forever. On the other end the woman was speaking about helping my mom out with money if she wanted to. I immediately knew that is was my mom's old friends, Patty. They graduated from college together in 1994 when they were twenty one.

She tells Patty how she will call her later because Garred is about to get home. She hangs up and sighs, slumping into the kitchen chair. When Garred gets home, he goes directly to the television and demands for food. Maggie shoots up and races to prepare something for him. I sit there thinking about how demanding he is to my mom and how I wish he would just stop.

I wish she would stop doing all of this and just leave, just like she has been planning. It would be the best to be away from Garred, we wouldn't have to suffer so much abuse. We wouldn't have to suffer so much hatred.

I walk to my bedroom and after a little while Maggie walks in. She has tears in her eyes while she comes over to sit by me on my bed. I was listening to music so I turn it off so I could listen to what my mom is going to say.

"Did you hear that?" She asked me.

"Hear what?" Was she talking about the phone call or Garred's demand for food?

"Patty."

"Oh, yes, I did hear that," is all I can respond.

"What do you think about it?" She starts to anxiously move around my room in a hurry and when she sits back down I tell her it is a wonderful idea that could work, I also told her that the best ting to do was to not tell Garred nor should he find out that we were going to move to a different place. I told her that as long as Garred didn't know we were really safe and that we should plan to leave at any second.

"Ok, I will ask Patty about all of this.... Claire, I love you."

"I love you too," I lean in and give my mother a big gigantic hug and kiss her on the cheek. She walks out of my room and heads towards her room. I am so glad that my mom thought of this idea because now we can finally leave this place and leave Garred forever. This is my dream come true. It is really strange to think about a girl wanting to leave her father so much. Wanting to destroy her father for good.

I shake that thought out of my head and switch the music back on. I close my eyes and gently fall asleep on my bed... I drift off thinking about how this life has been so difficult and if we could just disappear, it would be the best thing ever.