Internally Dead

For years after my eleventh birthday, two people had the audacity to call themselves my parents. But Robert and Nellie Ambrose were far from parent material.

*Flashback*

"Danny! Where the hell is my beer?! Didn't I ask you to make sure it was in the fridge waiting for me when I got home?"

I heard my father yelling at my brother and as usual I didn't hear Danny's quiet reply. I did of course, hear the loud smack of my father's hand hitting poor Danny's cheek.

I winced. I hated it when my brother got in trouble. I hated it almost more than I hated getting in trouble myself.

I quietly peeked out my bedroom door. Danny was on the floor from where he must have fell from the impact of the hit. He was holding his right cheek and his eyes were downcast. When I opened the door though, he must have heard it because he made instant eye contact with me.

He was pleading me to close the door. I should have listened.

"And what the hell are you looking at, you little piece of crap?" My father had turned his hateful glare on me and was making his way down the hall.

There was no sense in trying to close the door or act like I wasn't peeking, but of course Danny would try to defend me.

"Dad, she was just seeing what the commotion was about. She wasn't spying," he pleaded.

"Shut up Dan! Now!"

By that time he had made it to me and fiercely grabbed my arm and yanked me closer to him.

"I asked you a question. What. The hell. Were. You. Looking at?!

His dark eyes were boring into mine and I was in tears instantly. I couldn't help it. When he was sober and mad, he was the scariest.

"I'm waiting," he said.

"I was just...I was....I," I tried my hardest to make sense.

"You were just spying."

The first hit of the night and it was a doozy. One minute I was in his grasp and the next I was back on the ground, cradling my stinging face.

"Now the next time you wanna spy, you will remember what will happen if you do."

He stormed down the hall into the kitchen, to no doubt find his precious beer.

Now, one would fully expect a mother to come in and comfort her newly bruised fifteen year old, but my mother was somewhere in the house to doped up to function. So, later that night after everyone went to bed, my brother came into my room and got into bed with me.

"Bug? You okay?" He whispered, in fear my father would hear.

"Of course, Danny. I am always okay," I replied my back still facing him. I was, in fact, not okay.

Sensing this, my loving brother wrapped his arms around me.

"I promise you Sophie, I am going to get us out of here. If it is the last thing I do," he whispered in my ear.

*Present day*

That next morning Danny left for college. I knew he was going only so he could get me out of there. I knew he was going to come back as soon as he could.

And yes, it took awhile, but he finally did.