Shrill screams woke me from my light slumber; it took me almost five minutes to realize they were my own. Tears stung my eyes and I looked around my room; this is what hell must look like. I rolled out of bed and rubbed the sleep and tears from my eyes. I looked over at my alarm clock and groaned inwardly. It was only three in the morning.

Thud.

My heart froze and every hair on my body stood on end. There as no way he could have heard that! Suddenly, I remembered my screams from a few minutes ago. At that moment, I loathed my entire existence. How could I have been so stupid? I strained my ears trying to hear every sound.

After a couple seconds, my muscles began to relax; I felt like I could breathe again. That’s when the thundering footsteps shattered my silence. He loved to make me squirm in suspense. As the footsteps approached my room, I ran over to the window and threw it open. The chilling breeze would have been refreshing on my hot flesh if I weren’t running for my life. Before I could even get one leg out, my door flew open.

“Katarina! What do you think you’re doing?” he roared. “I’m trying to get some sleep! If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll give you something to scream about!”

While he was yelling at me, I was frozen. I didn’t want to upset him further, so I just stood there like a statue. One move that he didn’t approve of could be the end of me. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, he quit yelling at me and stalked back downstairs, letting a slew of curses shower over me.

When I knew he was gone, I collapsed and began to weep silently. I wept out of fear and relief. Tonight must have been a good night; usually he was much more brutal. On nights like these, he went out drinking with a couple of his buddies and when he returned he was almost impossible to live with. I could be lying if I said that he never laid a hand on me.

I remembered the first night it happened, it was right after my mother left him. He went out to drown his sorrows in whiskey and left me to fend for myself. It seemed like hours passed before I heard him stumble into the house. Relief coursed through my veins as I ran down the stairs to greet him. “Dad, I wasn’t sure when you were coming home,” I said, wrapping my arms around him.

He glared down at me and shoved me away. “Get away from me, you look just like your mother when you make that face,” he snarled.

I looked up at him, shocked; my father had never acted this way before. “Dad…what are you talking about? I was just worried about you, I didn’t know if something had happened to you or—“ I was cut off when his fist collided with the side of my face.

That was the first night. Three years later, at seventeen years of age, I still had to put up with him and his drunken rages. Several times I tried to get help, but I couldn’t. It was too hard for me to voice my problem. I couldn’t say “My father beats me almost every night.” No matter what, he was still my father, and he was all that I had left.

Until he came along.

It was last year, I’d met a boy named Evan and he turned out to be my savior. When we first met, I knew he suspected something was unhappy about my home life, but I didn’t open up to him quickly. It took several months of poking, prodding, and holding me after I burst into tears before I told him the truth about my father.

Pleading through my tears, I clutched onto his sleeve; I begged him not to go near my father. I made him swear he wouldn’t tell a soul. Although he was extremely reluctant, he agreed. Once he learned the truth, Evan never left my side. We became inseparable. On the nights my father would beat me, I would sneak out once he finished and stay over at Evan’s until the wee hours of the morning. When I could see the sun peeking over the horizon, I would sneak back home to my personal Hell.

It didn’t take long for our relationship to blossom into something more than a friendship. I loved Evan and I knew that he loved me too. After confiding in him for almost a year, Evan broke my heart.

We were out at the park while my father was away, drinking his pain away. His arms were wrapped around my waste and we were watching the sunset. I leaned against him as a smile played at my lips. “Evan, what’re you thinking about?” I asked lazily.

He was quiet for several minutes and then he unwrapped himself from me. My brow furrowed in confusion as I grabbed his hand. With a sigh he pulled his hand away and dug in his pocket. “I have something for you Kat,” he said softly.

I smiled, leaning into him with curiosity. “What is it?” I asked, grinning.

After fumbling with his pocket, he pulled out a small red bottle and held it out to me. I looked at it and gasped, it was beautiful. It was small and red. There was a picture of a horse carved onto either side; the detail given to it was amazing. I’d never seen anything more beautiful. As I looked even closer, I could almost see the smile on the horse’s face as it kicked and bucked wildly, freely. This horse was a prefect replica of my soul; this is how my soul wanted to be free. “It was my mother’s; she gave it to me right before she died,” he whispered. “She got it in India, it was a perfume bottle at one time, but my mom swore this was her good luck charm. Every time she carried it with her, it seemed to protect her and bring good things her way. As she died, she hoped that I would find these things. That’s why she gave it to me.”

I looked up at him shocked. “Why are you giving this to me then?” I exclaimed, panic lacing my words.

“So you won’t forget me,” he replied slowly. “Kat…I have to go away for a little while.”

I felt as though those words had carved into my soul with a dagger. Black spots started to cloud my vision and my breathing began to increase. I was dying; there was no way he could do this to me! He tried to grab my arm to comfort me, but I pushed him back, my face twisted with disgust. “Whare are you saying to me Evan?” I growled.

Evan’s eyes looked pitiful; I could see tears filling them. This wasn’t what he wanted to do, he had to do this. The hate I was beginning to feel suddenly disappeared and was replaced by fear. What was I going to do without him? How in the world was I going to survive?

“Kat, my father is ill. He’s all alone, since my mother died, he never found someone else. No one lives close enough to tend to him, except me. I promise Kat, I will return for you. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone…it shouldn’t be long. No matter what, I’ll come back though. You have to trust me on that,” he cooed, wrapping his arms around me again.

I began to cry softly. This was stupid and selfish, but I couldn’t help it. I was terrified. I had no idea what was in store for my life at that moment. “Do you promise Evan? You won’t forget me?” I asked.

He chuckled, kissing my forehead. “I promise. God couldn’t keep me from you.”

That conversation took place between us nearly eight months ago. He still wasn’t back for me, and I was beginning to think that he wasn’t going to. He called every day at first, and then it shifted to every other day, then every week, and finally, his calls stopped coming. I cried every night as I thought of ever possible reason for this.

I walked over to my dresser and opened the first drawer; the small red bottle was there under my socks. I pulled it out and hugged it to my body, like I often did when I missed Evan. I felt like this small bottle was the only thing that kept me going anymore. It gave me something to hold on for.

As I sat there rocking the bottle, I heard my father wake up again. I closed my eyes tightly and muttered a small prayer to God. I begged that He would send Evan to me soon. As my father’s footsteps got closer, my prayers got louder. “Please no, not tonight!” I screamed as he ripped the door open.

The pain began almost instantly. First, he pounded his fist into my face; I could hear my nose snap. I gasped and tried to kick him away from me. It was no use; he outweighed me by a good hundred pounds. When he sat down on me, all of my air left my lungs. “Daddy stop it!” I yelped as he tangled his fingers in my hair.

Tonight’s dreams must have been especially harsh to him.

When I stopped trying to block him from punching my face and head, he stood and began kicking me in my stomach and ribs. My tears and blood began to mix, and I began to pray louder. There was one thing he wasn’t going to take from me and that was my faith. I couldn’t let go of that, it was the only other thing I had to keep me alive.

I asked God to give me strength to get through this beating, and I asked him to bring Evan. I needed to have Evan back. There was no way I could last much longer. Soon, the life began to leak from my body. That was when I decided talking to God was getting me nowhere. “Please, stop hurting me!” I begged, weakly clutching at his foot.

My blood was staining the carpet. Oddly, I found myself hoping it stained the carpet and it pissed him off.

I snapped back to the present moment, when I was hanging onto my life by a thread. Tonight would be the night that my father finally won the war. He was going to win everything. A deep sorrow filled me as I realized that there was no way to save me now. I had no fight left in me.

With my father’s final blow, and my final breath, I cried out to God. “Why have you forsaken me?”