Anthem

When I woke up that morning I stared at the dirty glass, fogged from the condensation coming from my mouth. A shiver went through my body and I pulled the blankets closer, taking a deep breath. They smelled like cigarette smoke and sweat. I stayed like this for a matter of minutes before sitting up and popping my vertebrae back into place from laying on the hard wood. Rubbing my temples I tried to remember why I was here. The cigarettes... I recall. My father had come home to find me smoking a pack of his Cadets. He'd thrown open the door with a half empty mason jar in his hand. I don't know where he'd gotten it, last time I checked no bars sold anything that strong. The fight that had ensued hadn't been pretty and resulted in a red mark across the cheek on my side and a hangover on his. Snores ripped through the house coming from my bedroom.. He'd taken my bed advocating that he needed it for his sore back and left me with the couch he usually passed out on when he came home after a long day of "working". His working usually entailed drinking, buying cheap cigarettes from street vendors, and poor attempts at securing a job. I usually spent my hours working at the Express Mart down the street and ticking down the days until my seventeenth birthday when I could enlist at the recruitment center and leave. Hopefully to somewhere better than here but more likely than not I would be stuck in some kind of boot camp doing paperwork or a job equally tedious. It doesn't matter though, anything would be preferable to this.
There's an abrupt stop in the snoring and a loud groan.
"Jill...!" says a scratched voice. My fathers awake. I get up, taking my time to get another stretch in, and pull myself up. As I'm about to grab the handle I hear
"GODDAMMIT JILL HURRY UP!" dreading another fight, I slowly open the door and glare at him. He's in his mid fifties. He has worn skin covering a gaunt frame from years of alcohol abuse. We have the same dark hair and dark blue eyes. It appears as though he hasn't shaved in at least a week.
"What do you want?" I ask angrily. He drops his head back down to the bed.
"Be a good girl and go get your old father a glass of water." he says with a mocking smile. I can't tell if the booze and moonshine has worn off yet. I stand still for a few moments, staring at him as I decide whether or not to get him water or not. I give in eventually.
"Okay." I mutter under my breath, barely louder than a whisper. I leave the room, shutting the door quietly behind me. The kitchen is just a few yard to the right, past our front door. I grab a cup and fill it with tap water. The water is fairly clean but a layer of minerals and dirt clings to the inside of the glass cup. It too, like most of the glass in our house, is covered in scratches and dust. I bring it back to the room. I feel bad about our fight. I pull a few strips of meat out of the fridge and put them in a frying pan on the stove to cook it for breakfast for the two of us. I set the plate on the counter and grab the glass of water. As I go to set it on the bedside table, his hand suddenly shoots out, grabbing my wrist. I let out a stifled scream and drop the glass. It falls to the floor and shatters, fragments scattering. My heart speeds up. He gives a chuckle that turns into a hacking cough and jerks me closer to his face.
"Come sit with me for a while." he requests. As he exhales I gag from the overwhelming smell of tobacco and liquor. Our father daughter bond ceased to exist when I could understand what he was saying to me. I begin to panic and yank my arm from his grasp, falling backwards in the process. He lays back down and sighs.
"Don't be angry with me. You know what I had to do." He says, stretching.
My hand strays to the swelling red mark across my face. Silence. I get down and pick up most of the shards of glass.
"I'm sorry too." I respond unable to keep the steady quake of fear from my voice. I turn around to leave, unable to face him as I close the door. I burned our breakfast. I chew on a piece of tough bacon. I go back into the living room and curl up in the space between the couch and the wall.
"Two weeks." I promise myself.