Your Guardian Angel

“When I see your smile,
tears roll down my face
I can’t replace”

I sat in my room again just knowing it would happen. My dad would come home again and he would be pissed he was always pissed. I knew that it wasn’t my fault but I always found it easier to blame my self. When I was younger I really did think that it was because of me but now I know so much better than to take it to heart that I am the reason for my fathers foul moods. But even knowing that doesn’t give me the strength to make it stop like I know I should.

Plus it was starting to take its toll on Kenneth I couldn’t keep letting him go through the routine of climbing through my window and tending to my injuries. This had been routine since we were sixteen and he had seen my dad beat me. He had took a first aid course and taken it upon himself to be the person to patch me up even though he had only just moved here. He could have been popular but because he was friends with the needy girl who always kept to herself and flinched at the loud noises and the hustling and bustling he had alienated himself. But I would never be able to bring myself to let him go.

I don’t know exactly when the beatings started but somewhere in between the start and me turning nine years old my mother left and didn’t take me with her. She left me with this monster who would only ever hurt me and never show me any true love or affection and of the two that I was shown only ever came from Kenneth. That was the main reason why I didn’t push him away and make him leave, with Kenneth here I felt loved.

“VICTORIA! Get your fat ass down here right now you worthless slut!” Dad yelled as the front door slammed closed. I bolted up from my position and ran down the stairs as best as I could with my sprained ankle. I took a quick glimpse at my face in the mirror my black eye had faded and the grazes above my eyebrow and the one on my cheek had completely healed over leaving only the faintest of scars that no one would notice unless they were looking for them.

“Coming dad,” I responded meekly as I hobbled my way into the kitchen. He sneered at me and looked me up and down in disgust. I tried to keep the bile out of my throat as I approached the coffee pot on our counter top and made my dad his coffee while he read his paper. I knew he was drunk as well as pissed off but this was routine, just as much as Kenneth strapping me up was. I put the coffee in front of him and walked over to the grill to get the plate of stake and baked potatoes that I had made him earlier out and reheat it. When I was done I placed it in front of him and he almost inhaled it. I could tell that today he was eager to get to his favourite hobby and that scared me.

“Get to your room Victoria and stay there and if that good for nothing piece of shit Kenneth is there when I get up there I’ll fucking kill him,” Dad slurred as he stood up and walked out into the back garden to have a smoke. I hobbled up to my room which faced the front knowing that Kenneth would be there. I walked in and shut the door to see Kenneth laying on my bed looking worried.

“He hasn’t hurt you yet good, the grazes and cuts have healed nicely but I fear what he’s going to do with time. Tori please report him. It hurts me to keep this secret from my dad. He would have so many squad cars here in a matter of seconds to keep you safe,” Kenneth pleaded like he did every time. I shook my head and pushed him of my bed and towards the window. He knew what my dad had said to me but he would let me say it anyway it was all part of our routine and it brought me some strength to stand the pain.

“Kenneth go please. He said if he catches you up here he’ll kill you!” I whimpered the tears already forming in my eyes. He pulled me into his arms and pressed my head into his chest. Again it was routine but this wasn’t mechanical it was just something that felt right to us it came easy.

“Babe as if he could catch me. I’ll be back in an hour, I promise you that,” He whispered before kissing me once on the forehead before disappearing out of my window. I shut it behind him and started to pretend to be doing my homework. I heard the familiar thud of his footsteps as he walked up the stairs. I almost put my work books down but decided it would be better if I kept trying to work. I always tried to pretend to ignore it. I would always try to pretend that he was going to walk straight past my room but I knew he never would he would always come in and it would always be worse than the last time, always.

My door slowly creaked open and I knew he was trying to make me scared. But the truth was I had stopped being scared of him a long time before now. Like everything else in my life the beatings I received were now just part of the routine and if that routine ever changed it would throw me right off balance for a life time. He strode towards my bed using a cocky self assured swagger that you see the quarter backs use in those cheesy American romance comedies when they approach the head cheer leader. But that’s what my dad would always be cocky and self assured that he was above the law and every other person on the world.

I braced myself for the first blow that I knew would come at any second. And then it came the ringing sound of the slap as his hand met my face. It stung but I didn’t let my tears flow. I was pitched sideways and I fell ontop of my books. I knew that Kenneth was watching from his room and I knew he was grimacing. He would always watch and I didn’t know why but I assumed it was so he knew what supplies he would need to bring with him to treat me this time.

Before I could even right myself his hand was in my hair and he was dragging me off of my bed and onto the floor. I couldn’t hold it in any longer I started to cry from the pain. He kicked me repeatedly in the stomach and ribs to stop my sobs and I started to splutter and cough instead. His face was looming before my own as he punched my next to my eye and I knew there was going to be another black eye. He dragged me around my room by my hair leaving friction burns on my back and stomach. Before he finally left me on my own he spat in my face. I heard the front door slam and the car peel out of the drive way like it did every other time and just like every other time in our routine he had gone to get himself to drunk to wash away his memory of the heinous things he had just done to me his own flesh and blood. I managed to crawl my way to my window to open in before collapsing with the effort. I lay there gasping for breath waiting for Kenneth to arrive. He came about 1ten minutes after my father originally left and rushed to my side. I smiled weakly up at him in an attempt to be brave, He shook his head as tears rolled down his face and I felt confusion at his reaction rise up in my body and anger at my father for hurting me rise in me to.

“Kenneth why are you crying?” I whispered my voice hoarse from the beating. I let him clean my cuts and grazes with surgical spirits and the stinging didn’t faze me. It felt like home, like anything around Kenneth felt like home. He looked away from me and wiped the tears from his face.

“That’s because if he hurts you to much threes no way to replace you and honestly Tori I don’t know how I would cope,” He said as his voice cracked. I pulled him into me when he had finished fixing me up as best as he could and just hugged him. Kenneth needed comforting more than I ever would, after all hurt and heart ache were kind of a big part in my life. It had never really be real to him until he met me.