On this cool August 29th morning, I walked down the street to my house on the farm. This was the fifth anniversary of my mother’s death; she died in a fire while working at the hospital. They accidentally left the gas on and when she went to light the stove for her patients food, that’s when the explosion occurred. I don’t know who left it on, and I really just don’t care. Somebody had killed my mother, and I hated them for it.
She was a beautiful person. She and I had the same birthday today. I can still see her in the kitchen making me lunch like she always did when I came back inside from playing with the neighbors, and every day she would ask me the same thing. She would say, “Shane, did you bring me a mess to clean up?” My dad’s name is Mike; he hasn’t done anything since the explosion. He receives checks from the hospital, so I guess we get those for the accident. It still doesn’t make things right. Every day my dad goes out after picking up the check and uses it to buy a couple cases of Coors Light. He comes home, sits down, and starts on the first case of Coors. I can’t enforce anything on him because I’m only five foot two. I have brown hair just like my mom’s. She always said that I had the eyes of my dad, calm and blue like the ocean. My build is like my dad’s too, all one hundred and ten pounds of it. Although it’s pretty little for a thirteen year old, I make due whenever I need to. Dad has changed his looks so much since then to. The beer fixed him from looking so nice now. We always got along after that, but that started to change. I never had any reason to be mad at him, let alone hate him, until that night.
We’d just had dinner and I was picking the beer cans off the living room. Dad had already passed out after watching the he and mom’s wedding video for the ten thousandth time. I threw a blanket over his body and pulled the half empty beer out of his grasp. I felt as if I had to do everything around here. My dad started to say something in his sleep, what was it he was saying? Oh, that’s right, it was, “Don’t you dare call the cops, Sophie, or I will beat you ten times harder!” I shook my dad and his wallet fell out of his pocket. I picked it up and a yellow piece of paper fell out of the wallet’s pocket. It was the combination to the safe we had downstairs. Now usually, I would’ve just picked up the paper and put it right back, but this time I thought I might check it out after what I just heard.
I walked down the stairs and pulled the yellow piece of paper out of my jeans. The wood squeaked as I stepped on the last one. I walked over and set the sunflower colored paper on the table by the window. As my hand reaches for the dial, my heart starts to pound. 39-12-76. I feel my heart racing as the last digit clicked and the door started to swing open.
There was only a folder in there. No, a file. A police file. As I pulled it out something dropped from the inside of the file, it was a picture of my mom. My hand trembled as I looked through the horrifying photos within the tan file. My dad had beaten my mom many times. “What are you doing down here!” my dad yelled. “I thought I told you never to look in there!” I searched my mind for the right thing to tell him when I blurted out, “Your hurt her! So many times!” by now my eyes where letting tears fall from them. “I did what I did and if you say anything I will kill you!” That’s when he punched me in the face, so I took off running.
I must’ve ran for hours because when I had stopped my heart was pumping so hard I was afraid that it would fall right out of my chest! Police sirens blared in the distance and I could tell they where coming for me. So I panned around the horizon and ran right at them. I was going to tell them when the thought occurred in my head. If I get my dad in trouble, I won’t have anybody left. I didn’t know why, but I had the feeling that going home would be the right thing for me. Boy was I wrong.

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The week before seemed to become a blur to me and now I’m sitting in the graveyard looking into my mother’s headstone. I got in a whole mess of trouble and was beaten mercilessly when I got home. The last week my dad has also started to hit me more than ever. Feasting my eyes on the contents of the file was the worst thing that I had ever done in my life and I will never forget it. I got beaten when I got home. I felt as if I should’ve let him kill me right then and there, but I knew it wouldn’t change anything. “Mom, what do I do? How can I get out’ve this? Please, help me!” “Who are you talking to?” came a voice. I whipped my heard around to see the most beautiful girl in the world. Her name was Kyra and her black hair and ocean blue eyes made my heart jump out of my chest with every glance at her.
“Hi, my name is Kyra. Your name is Shane right?”
I couldn’t believe that she was talking to me, so I just started out by saying, “Umm, Ya! Sorry, I’m just a little bit it out it right now.”
“Oh, you’re fine, I am to. I just had to come see my mom here since, it’s her birthday. I hope I’m not bugging you too much…”
“No! You’re fine, I promise!”
As we sat there and exchanged words, we found out a lot about each other and how much we both hated being out in the cold weather. I also told her how my dad had met this new girl at the bank when he was picking up some of the money for the day. Her name was Maria and she is the nicest person in the whole world. She doesn’t look a lot like my mom but she has the personality of her. He’s known her since the day after I got in trouble. After that, they just connected.
“Why don’t we come over to my place so we can get out of the cold?” said Kyra.
I thought about how awesome it would be and I knew that I should’ve but instead I told her that I really had to go back to my house so I could do some homework. It was the worst decision of my life.
As I left the graveyard, I made my way back to the house in the cold, snippy September air. I stepped up the cold concrete steps of our house and got the key from the bush but I heard something inside that made me drop the key, “No stop! Please!” As I raced to put the key in the lock I didn’t realize that I was running through the kitchen and tackling my father. “Stop right now!”
“Get out of here boy!”
“Shane leave!” cried Maria!
My father was drunk again because he was swaying from side to side. He punched her in the mouth and her lip blew up like a balloon. I seized my hand around his arm and he tried to get me off of him. I led him to the corner of the kitchen and sure enough he hit his head on the cabinets again. He dropped to the floor unconscious. The next five minutes passed in silence and when she looked at me I knew what she was going to say. “No! I have to tell somebody!”

“Please do this for me!”

“You need to get away from him!”

“You just don’t understand! I’m begging you! Please!”
As she cried through short raspy breaths, I thought about it, I guess that I convinced myself to say ok. But I knew in my heart it was wrong.

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Even then when she was beaten she tried to make the best of it, she went out to find a job in high hopes she could get away from him. But that was a horrible thought. She went to my school in search of finding a job close to him. Shane was trying to warn her when she was talking to the principal, but she ignored me and kept on talking.
“Great! I’ll be here tomorrow!” She about took off running through the school and knocked a book right out of some kids hand.
As the rest of my day passed by, I thought about what was to come, and I shivered at the thought of coming home. But yet again, I had the wrong idea of what was to come.
The steps to my house felt as if death had passed over them while I emerged from the driveway. The bush with the key wasn’t needed this time because the door was already open. But this time, I couldn’t hear anything. I thought when I walked in I might see the horrible sight of Maria being beaten, but when I walked in she was at the kitchen cooking instead.
“Hi Shane!” came from her upbeat smiling face and when she turned around she wasn’t even harmed.
“I thought that he would start beating you again since he told you we wouldn’t need for you to get a job!” I was screaming yet it wasn’t with anger. Yet, it was with surprise and happiness.
“Of course he wouldn’t silly! He just told me to be careful when I’m out.” She was trying to sound normal, but I saw the faintest spot of black underneath her hair.
“Why is your hair down today? Isn’t it a little warm in here to do that?”
She started to reach for her face but caught my little trick way too soon. “Nah it’s alright.”
I couldn’t take the pressure anymore, so I pulled her hair up and saw a gash the size of a battery on her face. “He cut you! Why didn’t you stop him?”
“Well I didn’t know he was mad when he did it. He was so happy so I decided to take a victory nap. I woke up to, him hitting me in the face and I couldn’t stop him! And he didn’t cut me; he hit me with his ring on this time.”
“That’s the final straw!” I felt the blood pouring into my head, and the anger dwelling in my chest, “NO!” I took her hand and held it tight this time. “He hurt my mother for years and I didn’t even know! I won’t let him do that to you!” With that she hung her head and she finally knew that I meant it.

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“I’ll be back, just running up to the bank,” my dad started, “don’t go anywhere.” He dad a look of hatred on his face.
My dad walked out the door and as soon as his car pulled out of the driveway, we sprinted to get away. We hopped into the car and drove for an hour until they came upon a run down motel. “This is perfect,” said Maria, “we can live here for a while. Up until your dad finds us and we need to move. We should be safe.”
I nodded my head in agreement and we walked to the front desk.

7 DAYS LATER
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK! We walked to the door to see who was there and to both of our surprise; Kyra was standing there with a bright blue car behind her.
“Shane! Maria! Open up!”
I yanked open the door and she flung her arms around me. “Thank god you’re alright!”
“How the h*ll did you find us?” shouted Maria, “We are so deep in the city!” Maria was so baffled.
“Kyra,” I started, “Did you walk all the way down here?”
“No way! I took my dads car and drove it here.”
“There’s still one thing I don’t understand, why do you care so much?” My voice had come out shakily but it was still the right thing to say.
“My mom was killed but my dad a couple years back. He beat her to death and I moved in with a foster dad, it’s been a lot better.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I had no idea.”
“But I wanted you to know how she died when I met you at the graveyard, it was one of the things I was gonna talk to you about, but you left.” She started to blush and when she was about to walk away, she leaned over and she kissed me.
The door busted open and there was my dad, with a gun.
“What are you doing?” cried Maria. “How did you find us?”
“I tracked your phone!”
He raised the gun and I jumped in front of her like a human shield. “No dad, you’re not going to hurt her or anybody else ever again!”
A smile busted from his face, and the gun turned towards Kyra. My dad was going to shoot her to teach me a lesson.
“No!” But it was too late; she was on the ground with a bullet put through her arm. He raised he gun once again, but this time to Maria. I jumped in front of him but this time I landed a blow right against his face. We wrestled and finally, the gun and his hand turned back towards him. BANG! The gun fell from our hands and when I opened my eyes my father was laying on the ground with his hand to his chest.
“You shot me,” he said. Disbelief was in his eyes. “I never thought that you could do something like that.”
“Dad I couldn’t let you do that to anybody ever again.” Tears flowed from my eyes.
“No, its ok Shane, you did what you had to do. I’m going to be fine; I can see your mom.”
“Dad no please…” But with those words, he was gone. I stood in shock and said, “Now they’re both in a better place. It’s a place where you aren’t beaten.”