The Only Exception

“You bastard! How…how could you do this? To me? To us?” She screams and there’s a loud crash signaling that she has broken something. I’ll be the one to clean it up later but that isn’t what I should be caring about now. I should care about getting out of here before it’s too late, before they get too angry.

“Bitch, shut the hell up and stop complaining!” He hollers and the sound of his hand making contact with her fair skin resonates through out the house and I flinch because I know that she’s crying. I hate her. I do but she’s my mother and whether I want to admit it or not, I don’t want harm to come to her. She deserves the pain that she gets but I still wish that she didn’t but that’s just it, it’s a wish and nothing more.

“I-I can’t b-believe you,” she cries and I know I need to leave. I need to leave soon because once they’re done arguing he’ll leave. My poor excuse of a father will leave to find himself another whore to satisfy him and mother will be heart broken. She’ll come into my room with a beer in her hand and she’ll scream.

She’ll blame me for the fact that father no longer loves her. She’ll tell me how useless and worthless I am and how much she hates me and how much she wishes she never had me. I’ll have to sit here and listen to her every word and let them tear me apart. She’ll slap me but I won’t do anything back because I know she’s in pain and I love her because she’s my mother but I hate her because she isn’t.

Does that make sense at all? I highly doubt it. But…it’s just the way it is.

So I push myself up off the floor. I put on my beat up shoes and jacket and just as I’m about to step out onto the branch I hear it. The slamming of the door downstairs tells me that father is gone and the stomping footsteps and creaking floor boards informs me that she’s coming this way so I don’t take my time getting out of there.

I need to go before it’s too late. My feet touch the ground just as I hear my door open. I look up to see her standing there and she’s crying, there’s tears pouring down her face and there’s a red mark on her cheek and beer in hand.

She throws it at me and angrily screams, “Get out of here, you filthy little brat!”

She slams the window shut and I hear the resonating “click” of the lock. She has locked me out in the cold, again. I should have known. But I just shake my head because I’m use to it now and I go down to the sidewalk. Just as I’m about to go to Ray’s or maybe even Bobby’s house I hear him…

“Ah, Roy! Mind helping me out?” I look across the street to see Harper with bags in his hands. He’s smiling at me and I feel this string in my chest pinch because I have this feeling that he heard. Fuck…

“S-Sure!”

Harper smiles and I walk up to him and he hands me a couple bags of groceries. He informs me that the door is already unlocked and to go right in, so I do. I go into the kitchen to place the bags on the island and Harper follows. The two of us make a few more trips to get the groceries and when we finish Harper grins and saysmore like orders, “Help me put this shit away.”

“Sure, old man.”

“Oi, oi, learn to respect your elders, brat!”

I chuckle and wave my hand as if to disperse what he had said from the very air we breathe. But I reach for the bags anyways and pull out the contents. Together we put away his groceries, me occasionally asking where something goes and when we finish he offers me a drink, which I take.

Popping open the can, I take a swig of the pop and sigh contently. Falling back into the couch, I let myself sink into the cushions and Harper does the same. The two of us stare aimlessly at our surroundings and when I think the silence is too much to bear, Harper breaks it but when I hear what he has to say I only wish that he hadn’t spoken at all.

“If they get too much to bear, if you feel like they’re going to hurt you, you are always welcome here. There’s a spare key under the welcome mat. Feel free to use it.”

“You heard.” It’s more of a statement than question. It’s kind of obvious, after what he said, that he did. But I still say it, just to check.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t tell anyone.” I say it more like an order than anything else but that’s what it is, an order. I don’t want people to butt into my life. I don’t want their pity or their sympathy. I don’t care because I’m so close to graduating, to finally leaving this hell and I don’t want some stupid villagers ruining it.

“I never planned on it,” Harper says with a reassuring smirk. I glance at him from the corner of my eye and watch as he drinks, more like inhales, the rest of his soda. He covers his burp with his hand and sets the can onto the table. “You seem to be handling yourself just fine…but remember what I said.”

“I promise to hold you to it.”

Harper sighs and stands, stretching his arms above his head, he yawns and I finally notice it, those dark bags under his eyes. I stare at them curiously but don’t ask questions when he says, “I’m gonna hit the sack. You can stay here if you want just don’t do anything weird like…invite your friends over and destroy my house.”

I laugh at that. “Just because I’m a teenager doesn’t mean I party like crazy. To be honest, I’ve never even been to a school dance, let alone a party thrown by some drunken hooligans.”

“So you’re a loser?”

“Hey! I take that offensive!”

Harper chuckles and reaches out for me. My face becomes unbelievably hot the moment his hand comes in contact with my head. He ruffles my hair and I can feel my heart pounding erratically within my chest. Goose bumps shoot their way up my arms and the warmth radiating off his fingers is working its way inside me, heating up my very core.

“Whatever. G’night.” He disappears up the steps and I listen to the floor boards. They squeak under his weight and it isn’t until I can no longer hear said sounds that I turn on the TV, flipping through the channels until I find something that catches my interest.

I curl up on the couch and I don’t realize how comfortable this couch is and how drowsy it makes me until it’s too late. My eyes shut and the sounds of the TV are shut off from my mind. My body goes still and my brain slows down until my world goes black and I fall into a deep slumber.

One of the best slumbers I’ve ever had…