Bruised by Time

When The Dawn Comes

When I woke the next morning, the man was gone. I never learned his name. Good riddance.

When I checked the clock it was 3:17 in the afternoon. Why did I sleep in so long? My parents usually wake me up by now.

I pull myself from my bed and drag myself to the shower. Scrubbing everything away, I clean until my skin is red. Once I feel clean again, I tug on jeans and a long sleeve.

Making myself downstairs, I find my dad passed out above the toilet bowl in the bathroom. My mom is in the living room with her eyes closed. No doubt on something. Not wanting to wake them, I head for the kitchen.

I don't want to do any actual cleaning, so I make a sandwich and grab some chips. On the plus side of my sucky parents, we always had good food for when they got the munchies. Idiots.

I head up to my room and pull out my laptop to work on classwork. Despite living in this hellhole, I still have good grades to maintain so I can leave one day. My parents are too controlling to let me go to an actual school, but I stole my moms credit card and signed up for online classes. They still don't know.

Despite the fact that I am technically a senior in high school, I already almost have my associates degree. The only reason I haven't left is because I'm not 18 yet.

I used to go to elementary school, but once my parents started getting worse, I was taken out. All my teachers told my parents I was basically a genius, but my parents laughed it off.

I work on my English essay, writing about Shakespeare. Not Romeo and Juliet, though. I hate that one, there are so many better works of his.

Once I finish my essay, I work on my math and history work. Before I can finish, I can hear movement downstairs. My parents must be awake.

"Ali! You better not be fucking sleeping!" My dad's words still slur a little, showing that he is still hung over. "Get down the stairs. Now!"

I get up and make my way down to the kitchen, where I find him leaning on the table.

"I thought I told you to clean the kitchen?" He looks pissed, and I can tell this won't be good for me. "Do you want my friends to think badly about me?"

"No, sir." I start picking up dishes and food laying around. I actually had cleaned yesterday, but they had made it a mess again.

"Good girl." He comes over and pats me on the head like a dog. Then, he pulls his arm back and slaps me across the face. "That's for not doing it the first time I asked. Now get it done."

He leaves me in the kitchen to clean, heading to who knows where in the house. Once I'm finished, I find that it is already 7 at night. There goes my day. I heard my mom leave a little while ago, and I haven't seen my dad since he yelled at me.

Suddenly, I hear the front door opening. I can hear men chattering in the living room, so I poke my head out and find around ten guys. Half of them seemed to be going towards the office, while the other half were heading towards me.

"Ali! Come here!" My mom yells out to me above the chatter of the men.

Frozen, I wait for the men to pass by me towards the kitchen table before I head towards my mothers voice. When I walk out there are no more men in the living room.

"What do you need?" I ask softly.

"Tonight is very important, ok? I do not need you screwing things up for me. So listen very closely. You are going to go upstairs and get dressed like usual. Then, you are going to pack a bag of your things."

"What? Why?" Panic fills my voice. She's never asked me to do that before.

"Those five men will be spending the night with you. If they like you, they will be buying you. Then, you will go with them tomorrow. No fucking this up, got it? If you don't, you won't be alive to unpack your bag in the morning." She scowls at me and points to the stairs. "Go. Now."

I grimace and head towards the stairs. There is no way I am going with these men. There is no way I will do what she says. I am tired of this. I am tired of them.

I am leaving.

Tonight.