Savior

I stab my cigarette into the burned blanket. My entire room reeks of smoke, but I don’t open a window. I can hear my mom’s muffled cries in the room next to mine, the old walls so thin, I don’t have to strain to do so. There’s banging going on downstairs, my dad just coming home from work. My four year old sister’s feet pad across the hallway to our mother’s room.

“Mommy! Mommy, let me in!” She yells.

“Annie!” I call and get up to let her into my room. “What do you want, babe?”

Its nine thirty at night, much later then she’s used to being up on a school night. She uses her tiny fists to rub her tired eyes. She jumps up onto my bed, and I decided to crack open the two windows that are in my room. She shakes her head nothing, when I ask her if she wants anything. Within ten minutes she’s out cold under my sheets.

________

Friday afternoon and school is finally over. I am walking down the hallway with a few of my friends before I go to pick up Annie at preschool.

“Noah,” Josh says, “A bunch of us are going to go into the clearing tonight, you should come. Ashley will be there,” He winks. In other words, there will be a bonfire in the middle of a clearing in the woods, everyone will be drinking and smoking God knows what, while expecting me to do inappropriate things a girl I am the least bit interesting in.

I shake my head, “As much as I would love to, I’ve got to take care of Annie tonight.”

Nick groans, “When do you not? Its like you raise the girl.”

“When you’re parents are as messed up as mine, and you have a four year old sister, you can tell me whether or not you’ll be there for her.”

I say this and push him as we near her, the only girl who will ever make my heart skip. She’s examining the ends of her dirty blonde hair, when she looks up and makes eye contact with me. She quickly looks away and turns to Sasha, my old best friend’s sister. Too bad the prettiest girl is too good for the biggest jerk.

“Well, if either of your parents get around to coming home tonight, come to the clearing,” Josh says.

I roll my eyes, knowing it won’t happen, “I’ll see what I can too.”

Hours later, its two in the morning, and Annie’s small body is once again asleep next to me. I am not surprised that my parents aren’t yet home. They were both gone when I got home from school, no notes, no calls to say where it was they were, that’s not unusual either.

I am debating on getting up for a cigarette, when I hear it. The front door opening, loud voices, and a slamming door. I hear a chair fall over, and some more feet stumbling across the kitchen floor. I can hear my mom tell my dad to leave her alone. Its quiet for a few seconds before her voice gets a lot louder, telling him to get out of the house.

Next to me, Annie wakes up with a start, and I rub her back to let her know its okay. I can all but feel my dad push my mom into the wall, threatening to slap her. She goes into hysterics, and he runs out the door, slamming the front door the hardest he has ever.

Annie whimpers and I pull her into my lap, while continuing to rub her back. I can only imagine what their fight was about this time. What it was that set the two of them off. I wonder if they even think about the two of us, cramped into my small room, having to listen to them fighting nearly every day. It’s at that moment, that I decide as soon as I graduate, I am leaving and Annie’s coming with me, we’re going far, far away.