This isn’t the first time this has happened, and this certainly isn’t the last. We’ll just sit here, holing hands, hoping this one will pass. I don’t dare glance in your direction because I know the tears are on their way. As the screaming gets louder your grips get tighter on my hands. We sit still at the top of the stairs listening to the fighting, the rain outside, and footsteps getting closer so we know when to make an escape. We’ve been sitting here for a while now and the wood floor is starting to hurt me the longer I sit here, and my eyes are straining to stay open. But, I know the longer we sit here hoping for the best. The longer we seem to drift into our own utopias, where we can’t hear our parents’ troubles unravel and a place that we can surely call our own.




Together we can get through this, like we have so many nights before. We hold back the tears long enough that eventually they don’t have a need to appear. When it’s time for them to go asleep and we hear their footsteps below. We’ll do the same, getting between the covers. That’s when all seems right in the world, when the silence rushes over you in pure awe. Even though its sure to happen again, all we can do is dream long enough to forget the last one and move on. Together, just you and me.