Tough Girl

13: My Blood

Monday was fine. Tuesday was okay. Wednesday...could of been much better. Thursday was the day it all fell apart. Thursday was the day Andrew came home. It was a little after school let out; my mom was in the kitchen and Marie was...somewhere...and I was in my room, doing my homework. Because even though I would rather not be, the homework needed to get done. It unfortunately could not do itself.

A car pulled into the driveway. It belonged to Andrew, whose feet smacked against the pavement as he neared the house. The door crashed open and banged against the wall. It was shut in nearly the same manner. I cringed. What had made Andrew so mad? I crept downstairs, quietly peeking in the kitchen where my mom was at. Andrew stormed up to her and gripped her arm harshly.

I bit back a gasp, which would have been much like the one that fell from the lips of my mother.

She dropped the jar of peppers she was holding. It crashed to the ground, shattering to shards as the peppers scattered around their feet. "Foolish woman!" Andrew yelled. "Look what you've done!" My mother started to cry, wriggling in his tight grip. My eyes widened. Why was Andrew acting like this? "Stop crying and call that runt of yours to clean it up!"

"Andrew," she whimpered. He shoved her harshly against the counter. I storm into the kitchen. "Leave my mother alone!" I shout. I couldn't bear to watch anymore. He had done enough damage. Andrew drops her and smirks at me. Mother slides to the floor, barely missing a pile of glass shards. I glance at Andrew, my fists clenched.

"Well, now, darling. Look at this. I never heard you call for her." I growl. My mother looks up in alarm. Was she surprised that I interfered? I couldn't help but notice a tint of something else. "You know, it's bad to eavesdrop. Do you know what that makes you? It makes you a bad child. Bad children get punished," He says, growling out his last word. I swallow but do not move. It was fear- the tint in my mother's eyes.

Andrew lunges at me and grips my arm roughly, in the same manner as he did my mother. I could smell the faded scent of alcohol on his breath. It dawned on me; Andrew was drunk. Andrew was also insane.

"Let go of me!" I say, as confident as I can without shouting. His grip hurt me, but I didn't want him to know that it did. It would make it worse. "Oh, poor child. Am I hurting you?" I kept my mouth clamped shut. "I asked you a question," Andrew growled. I didn't say anything.

He tightened his grip and I shut my eyes, waiting for the sound of his hand on my face, waiting for the sting of his palm, waiting for this to be over. But the sound never came, my cheeks didn't burn; Andrew's grip slipped away from my arm.

My eyes flew open. Andrew stumbled, for a moment, before he was falling. He landed on a couple of the shards, which scratched at his face and head. His head hit the tile floor and then he was out cold. Was it bad that a wave of happiness rolled over me? My mother began to cry harder as she looked at his limp form. She pulled out her phone, and looked up at me with playing eyes.

"Sang," she whispers. "Call the police. Now. Don't tell them what you don't have to, do you hear me? Tell them we need an ambulance." She handed me get phone, her shaking fingertips brushing my own. I quickly dialed. "Hello, what's you're emergency?" A woman said on the end of the line. "We had a kitchen accident, we need an ambulance, please," I beg. "Name and address." I fill in the details.

When she asks me what the accident was, I quickly make up a story. I tell her that my mom was making dinner when her fingers slipped and she dropped the jar of peppers, which shattered. Andrew walked in to talk to her, help her cook, but he slipped and fell. I hoped that when they arrived they wouldn't smell the alcohol on his breath. I hung up and waited. My mother began to move, to squirm a little. But the glass was too close; it cut into her too. I started to cry, hard. She was losing a lot of blood.

My shoes crunched on the shards as I walked to her, careful to be close enough without touching the floor. She grabbed my hand. "Stay tough, for me? I'll be alright. You'll be fine, too. We'll all be fine," She murmured. I stroked her pale hand, which trembled against my own. Her fingers were frail and wrapped right around my own and I was scared that if I squeezed too hard, her hand would evaporate, leave me with nothing to hold onto.

No one to hold onto.

The sirens wailed as the ambulances approached our home. The door was still unlocked and so many people rushed in, people dressed in white with stiff faces. People with stretchers and first aid kits and people that removed me like they removed the glass from the floor. I was sitting by myself in a chair, just barely away from the commotion. It was frantic.

I wondered where Marie was. I didn't really care, though, I needed a distraction. From the lights in the windows, and the stern faces, and the white uniforms. Footsteps made their way to me; people, maybe, that wanted to ask me questions, or tell me to leave, or tell me they would die. There was a lot of glass on the floor, and a lot of blood. A lot of my blood. They were family, no matter how much I despised that.

They. Were. My. Blood.

But it was a man that came to me. A man that I knew, that I had seen before. A man with blonde curls, and green eyes, and a kind smile. A man that held me as I cried and told me it would be alright.