…Life…

A word with many meanings and none are wrong. It means something different for every person because everyone has a different life. To some life is happiness, laughter, friendships, and love, but to others it is yelling, crying, broken hearts, and broken dreams. To some it is dark alleys and broken down apartments, and to others, life is full of huge drafty rooms, filled only by immaculate furniture, shadows and their own fears. The word can bring tears of joy or tears of heartache.

Still, no matter what definition we give it, we are all on the same plane. We were all blessed with life and now we have only to find out where it is going to take us.

“You don’t have to stay here, no one does. Everyone can leave from where they are!”

“No, Chris, they can't always!” A small girl stood shaking in hercramped bedroom. Her face was turned away from the desperate boy who was reaching for her.

“Yes! Everyone has choices and right now you have the choice on whether to stay or not! Make the right choice! We have money; I sold my mother’s necklace. You put that together with the money I’ve been saving up and we have a few hundred.”

“You sold the necklace! That was you last connection to her,” she spun on him threateningly, “and how have you been saving money.”

He faltered slightly, “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, “because a couple hundred will get us nowhere. Then we’ll both be homeless and no better off.”

His eyes showed the fear he was feeling as he grasped her shoulders. “Please do this for me just as much as for yourself. I don’t want to be alone anymore and you don’t either. We can do this, we can leave!”

She shook her head, her eyes wide with terror. Her lips were trembling as she spoke, “But what is the price I pay for leaving?”

He bit his lip and stared at her for a few seconds. He slowly looked out the window toward the black sky as if the answer would be written somewhere in the starless night. She thought he wouldn’t answer her when suddenly he looked back down into her pale face. His eyes glistened with tears. “Everything.”

There was a petrifying silence that followed, in which the boy fiddled nervously with something in his jacket pocket. His eyes refused to stay put in one place as he looked around the small room. The air in the room was stale and he could smell the remnants of cigarette smoke and alcohol.

“No I won’t! I can’t give that up!” She snapped suddenly sending Chris a few steps back. He quickly regained his composer though and stepped back toward her.

“Why not?” He asked motioning around him. “You think this is life? You think you are leaving something that actually matters? None of this matters! This life you are living in is nothing!”

“How can you say that? How can you call it nothing? It is everything, it is my life. My life is not nothing,” she whispered the latter dangerously.

His features softened the anger dropping from his face. “It will be if you stay here with him. I don’t want your life in his hands anymore. Eve, please. All you have to do is take me hand”

“No! No, no, no,” she muttered the word shaking her head. Chris grabbed her shoulders and with atrembling finger he lifted her chin so she was looking at him once more. Tears were streaming down her face and she choked out the words. “I can’t leave him. He’ll chase me down. You know it and I can’t take that chance! I won’t let you take that chance for me.”

“We’ll go so far away; he won’t be able to find us.”

“We could never go far enough, we can’t escape him and he knows that.”

“Then let’s prove him wrong,” he pleaded giving her an insane smile.

She shook her head her eyes glued to her shoes. Chris leaned forward as she whispered something under her breath.

“What?”

“Just go.”

“No! I will not leave without you,” he vowed. His feet were planted firmly as he stared her down. “You are coming with me or I’m not going at all.”

She stepped forward, shoving his shoulder in a desperate attempt to lead him back out the window. “Go, he’ll be back soon.”

His body turned, but his feet stayed as steady as his convictions. “I mean it,” he whispered sharply, “I’m not going. If you won’t stand up to him, I will.” His arm reached into his jacket and she let out a sob as he pulled out a pistol.

“What are you doing,” she hissed. Her eyes were glued to the sleek silver device that was gripped tightly in his hand.

He ignored her comment, brushing past her on his way to her draws. With the gun still clenched in his hand he began throwing her clothes onto the small cot which was pushed into the corner of her room. She watched numbly from the window not knowing what to do or where any of it would get her.

“Get a damn bag or something.”

She gave up resisting; her brain had shut down at the first sight of the gun. Silently she walked to her closet and pulled out the small duffel bag she had brought the day the social worker had dropped her off at the steps of her father’s house.

Setting it on the bed, she stepped back and watched as he stuffed the bag full of clothes. She couldn’t seem to make any connections as she watched him work.

It wasn’t until the front screen door slammed open and shut that she was snapped from her trance. His eyes flew around toward her bedroom door and his hand tightened around the pistol.

“Don’t!” She whispered hoarsely, grabbing his hand and loosening his grip on the gun. “Go before he hears you.”

“I won’t leave you here.” He pushed her hand away and tightened his grip again. “I won’t let him touch you again, not this time.”

She heard the footsteps coming down the hall and she wished she had simply died with her mom in the crashten years ago.

“No,” she moaned desperately as the footsteps stopped in front of her door.

“Who’s in there?” His fist pounded the door shaking it and the two young children in the room.

“No one!”

“Lying bitch, open this door right now!”

“No one is in here,” she repeated.

“Open the door.” The words slurred together as his fist cracked against the weak wood. With one last attempt the man threw his weight against the door and it crashed open and swung into the wall with another crack.

The hand that held the gun rose slowly and he pointed it straight at her father’s head.

“What’s going on in here? What the hell do you expect to do with that?” He cackled throwing his fist at Chris’s face.

She watched in horror as he fell to the floor, the gun sliding away from him. Her eyes snapped back as she saw her father’s shadow approach her.

“You lying lazy little--,” but he was unable to finish as the gun flew up and cracked him in the skull. He swayed slightly before whipping around and seeing the boy holding the gun at him once again.

“Get the hell out of here and I won’t shoot,” Chris declared.

“Put that thing away, boy.”

“No,” he stuttered, motioning with the gun as he spoke.” Now, get away from her.”

“Her?” Her father slurred motioning at a pale Eve. In one swift motion he had her pulled against him, directly between him and the barrel of the gun. "You aren’t going to use that boy. Put it down.”

His eyes flicked between her and the drunken face of a man willing to lose anything. Slowly his hand began to move down and he reluctantly placed the gun on the floor at his feet.

“Oh no,” her father growled, “I don’t trust you; kick it over here!”

Grinding his teeth, he obliged, and in a flurry of motion her father bent to pick up the gun and he sprung forward, grabbing her by the shoulders and shoving her to the window.

Behind him, she saw her father grab the gun and swing it toward them. Her eyes widened as her father’s finger moved to the trigger.

“Run,” he cried hoarsely.

“No!” She screamed, as his hands roughly pushed her out the window. She heard the gun shot resound in the night as she crashed to the ground. For only a second, she laid in the wet grass beneath the window before standing quickly.

“Run,” she muttered to herself and she did just that.

Behind her she heard her father’s screams. “Never come back or I’ll kill you!”

Still she didn’t break her stride, not until she had found what her brain had subconsciously been seeking.

She ripped off the small sweater she was she wearing and wrapped it around her arm before throwing her right side into the only window in the old house which wasn’t boarded up. Biting her lip, she felt the shards shoving into her palms as she climbed into the decrepit house.

Inside she crumpled to the ground curling into a corner along with the rats. She closed her eyes and fell asleep there, trembling in the cruel moonlight.