Chapter Four.
1368 Words
Lola
My day had started just the same as every other day.
I was tiptoeing around the small house that I shared with my stepfather, George, desperately trying not to make a sound and wake him.
He had spent the previous night in his usual drunken stupor, hurling insults at me as I cleaned the house and cooked his food.
It hadn't always been like this, though.
When my mother was alive, he had been the kindest person. He would take me out on bike rides and trips to the movies. We had been so happy.
It was just the three of us, except for once a year when we used to go and visit my aunt. I can't remember much about her though if I'm honest, except for the fact that her house always smelled rather strange to me.
George was the only father I had ever known. My father had died when I was a baby, and I could see how much it affected my mother when I asked about him, so by the time I was nine, I had stopped asking.
It didn't matter anyway.
I had all the family I needed.
That all changed when I was eleven.
My mother was driving to collect me from a dance class and her car was hit by another car, which caused her car to flip over a cliff and she was killed instantly.
They never found the other car or the person responsible, but for some reason, George decided that it was my fault.
" She would never have been on that road if it weren't for you." He would tell me angrily every day.
At the age of eleven, my entire world collapsed, and I blame myself too.
George is right after all.
A floorboard creaked under my weight, and I paused, holding my breath, waiting nervously to see if George would wake up.
A loud snore came from his room, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Drunk George was bad and hungover George was no better.
Picking up my bag, I opened my bedroom door and crept past George's room.
As I started to make my way down the stairs, I heard the unmistakable sound of George's foot hitting his bedroom floor.
" s**t, he's awake." I thought to myself.
I stood frozen halfway down the stairs.
I didn't know what to do for the best.
If I ran now, I could escape him until later, but the noise would piss him off, and he would be even angrier when I got home from school.
As his loud angry steps approached his door, I made up my mind and started to run the rest of the way down the stairs.
"LOLA." George's voice boomed through the house, and I stopped paralysed with dread. I knew better than to ignore him.
" WHY CAN'T YOU BE QUIET. I AM TRYING TO SLEEP YOU USELESS b***h!" He roared at me as he leaned over the top of the stairs.
" I am so sorry sir. I didn't mean to wake you. I stepped on a creaky board, it wasn't my fault." I knew that I had made a mistake as soon as I opened my mouth.
His face contorted with rage and he flew down the stairs and grabbed my arm roughly. I could smell the alcohol on his breath and knew he was still drunk.
" NOTHING IS EVER YOUR FAULT IS IT?"
I didn't know what to say so I kept my mouth shut.
He must have taken my silence as obstinacy as the next thing I knew his hand had balled into a fist at his side and he punched me hard in the gut.
I fell to the floor and instinctively curled into a ball to protect myself.
" Get out of my sight. You dirty tramp." He snarled at me before he turned and stomped back up the stairs.
I heard his door slam and wanted to get up but I couldn't move. He had knocked the wind out of my lungs when he had punched me, but more than that was the shock of what had just happened. I was used to verbal abuse. It had been a constant in my life for years now, but having George hit me? That had never happened before.
I lay there trying to compose myself and finally managed to haul myself up.
I made my way outside and took a few deep breaths. My stomach was throbbing, but I had no choice but to start the long walk to school.
Our house was a few miles away from the school. In fact, it was a few miles away from anywhere. A small cottage set in a clearing in the middle of a vast pine forest.
We had moved around constantly for my entire life, never staying in the same place for more than a few months. My mum had always said she liked to be free and not tied down to one place, but even after she died, we moved again but George seemed to be satisfied with our current home. We had been here longer than any place before.
When we found it and moved in I thought about how much my mother would have loved it, the isolation would have been perfect for her. She loved it being just us.
As I walked towards school, I struggled to process what had happened.
George had never raised a hand to me before and if it wasn't for the pain in my stomach I would have possibly been able to convince myself it hadn't happened.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't realise I had reached school until I felt myself bump into someone.
I was about to apologise when my blood ran cold.
Fuck. Of all the people I had to walk into, it had to be her. Ruby Knight.
She already took great pleasure in shouting mean insults at me, but now, as she looked at me, I knew I had awoken something else in her. She grabbed my hair and yanked hard. I felt my hair being torn from my scalp, and my head seared in pain.
" Watch where you're walking, Freak." She screamed at me, and after what had already happened this morning with George, I knew I had to get away from there as quickly as I could.
" I'm so sorry," I mumbled and then turned and ran into the school.
I could feel the blood running down my head, so I ran towards the girls' bathroom.
Checking my reflection in the mirror, I could see I was right.
There was a patch of my hair missing and blood seeping from the gap.
I spent the next forty minutes attempting to stop the bleeding and clean myself up.
I didn't want to go to class looking like this. They would send me to the nurse's office, and if they examined me fully, they would find the large bruise that had now formed on my stomach. There was no way I could tell them what had happened at home.
The bleeding finally stopped and I looked somewhat presentable I was walking towards the door when I heard the loud sound of heels clicking on the hall floor outside.
The shrill sound of Ruby's voice permeated through the door and I made a run for a stall.
I wasn't quick enough though and as Ruby entered with her plastic entourage they all scowled at me.
" What are you doing in here? This is the girls' bathroom. No freaks allowed" She said as the rest of the girls laughed.
She grabbed my arm and shoved me hard against the wall.
" You embarrassed me in front of Jacob." She leaned towards me her face just inches away from mine.
" Go and crawl back under your rock and die. No one wants you here."
She dragged me towards the door and pushed me out with such force that I landed hard on my ass.
I could hear all her friends laughing, and it all got too much. I picked up my bag and ran.
- Writer
