One

PART ONE: PLANS

Will

Mornings are probably the most peaceful time of day in my house when no one is awake, but me and Clair. One morning, when we were six, we pounded down the stairs, and laughed loudly at anything and everything as we poured our cereal. We were so excited for our first day of first grade that we hardly noticed the mess we were making or how loud we were. It wasn't until our father walked into the kitchen and smashed his beer bottle against the wall that we silenced and realized our horrific mistake: he had fallen asleep in the living room, which is right next to the kitchen, drinking beer and watching sports.

That was when we learned to never be loud in the morning, when we first learned true pain, when we first limped to the bus stop, barely able to move because every step caused us utter agony, when we were first asked questions.

We learned pain before.

We knew we couldn't upset daddy, we knew we couldn't disobey him because then he'd hit us or, in Clair's case, slap her across the face. We'd gotten questions before, but that was only for one bruise and most of the time they were easy to hide. Now we had more than one. And our teachers caught on straight away. They called our parents and when we got home that night our father told us that if we ever spoke once more about what happened inside the walls of this house, then he would kill us.

"Family secrets stay behind these doors," he warned us.

And too scared to do anything else, Clair and I only nodded.

Nothing much has changed in the past ten years. Dad still loves slapping her across the face and beating us both for any reason we give him, no matter how insignificant it might seem as well as inventing his own reasons when he's too drunk or too bored to care. Not that he ever does.

When I wake up this morning, I am more sore than usual from last night. I know Clair is probably sore too, but she's not nearly as sore as I am. I saw to that. I always see to that. I provoke dad when he's going after her, so that he goes after me instead. He doesn't have the largest brain. He only knows what must happen and what mustn't. He knows that we must keep our mouths shut for him to stay out of jail and he knows that he mustn't beat us too often or our bodies will do the talking for us, though, considering how many questions we're asked each day, they do this anyway.

I stretch, wincing as I do so and images from the night before flood my mind.

"Stupid b***h! You f*****g ruined my goddamn dinner!"

The sound of skin hitting skin.A cry of pain. Angry breathing. I rush to the living room.

Clair lying on the floor. She's holding her cheek. It's bright red. Dad's standing over her, breathing like he's run a marathon.

"Leave her the f**k alone!"

The words come out of my mouth unbidden. After having protected her for so long, insults to keep him focused on me instead of her are more of a habit than anything else.

"Will?"

There's a soft knock following the soft voice and I open my eyes that I didn't even noticed were closed to see my older twin sister, standing, looked scared in the doorway to my bedroom. She's dressed in a baggy t-shirt with a button up shirt over it and jeans with her backpack slung over one shoulder. For the most part, Clair and I look alike, but that's mostly due to the fact that we're twins. We both have straight golden blonde hair, only hers goes to her shoulders and mine barely covers my ears, my bangs occasionally obscuring my eyes that are green and brown like hers. We're both pale and thin, but I'm tall, while she is short and I look more like my handsome father, while my sister looks like our beautiful mother.

"We have to leave if we don't want to miss the bus," she says in a voice barely above a whisper. She barely talks to anyone, but me. At school, she never says a word. I think that if she talked more her voice would be more than a whisper.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes tightly, trying to wipe away the last of the sleep and images from the night before from my eyes. When I look up again, Clair is still standing there, looking at me anxiously. I try to smile reassuringly at her, which is nearly impossible, since she's afraid of nearly everyone, and say, "I'll be down in a minute. I just got up late. I'm sorry."

I start dressing the moment she leaves, wondering if she remembers last night, but it's really a stupid thing to wonder, especially since the look on her face tells me everything I need to know and as I pull on my own pair of jeans that are slightly too big, and a long sleeved t-shirt mom picked up at the secondhand shop, I wish, for the millionth time, she didn't.

I wish I could drive, I think as I pull the too long sleeves of my shirt down over my fingers, trying to keep them warm, as we walk to the bus stop. I gave Clair my jacket, since dad doesn't seem to think that she needs one, and repeat those five words in my head over and over again as we march down the street. I wish I could drive. I wish I could drive. I wish I could drive. And it isn't just because then she and I would be warm, it's because then we wouldn't have to endure the stares and questions on the bus as well as at school.

This mantra is still racing through my mind when the bus finally pulls up to the curb. She hands me my coat as I climb up the three steep steps behind her and I follow her to the only open seat towards the back of the bus. I can see her shaking as she sits down. The back of the bus is where the jerks hang out. The ones that get drunk or high on the way to school and the bus driver doesn't even care.

When we first started high school, no one noticed us, but that changed almost immediately. It was the jerks at the back of the bus, who noticed our bruises first and decided to comment on them. I'd gotten in several fights with the ringleader, Jacob. Each time dad had made sure I paid dearly for my stupidity. This year though, my junior year, I am trying hard to keep my anger under control. I don't want to give them more reason to say awful things to, not only me, but Clair as well.

"Hey Christian," Jacob shouts as I sit down next to her. "Where did you get your clothes? The homeless shelter?"

It's an outdated retort. They've used it so much over the past two years, it has little to no effect on me. I pretend they don't exist, but I feel her hand close around mine. I return her grip, squeezing her hand, trying to reassure her.

"Still wearing daddy's bruises then?" Jacob says, leaning around his seat slightly to see my bruised face. I stare straight ahead at the seat back in front of me. All Jacob's voice is, is annoying fly I can't seem to get rid of, but not really worth my notice. That is until his next words reach my ears.

"And what about your sister?"

I clench my hands into fists, my temper rising dangerously. The hand around Clair's grips her fingers more tightly and even when she flinches I don't let go. I'd rather bruise her fingers than beat this guy up and have us both suffer the consequences. That isn't entirely true, but if beating him up didn't have and repercussions, if dad never found out, if she wasn't in danger, then things would be completely different.

Don't you dare say one more word, I think as he smirks, seeing that he has upset me for the first time in what probably feels like a lifetime to him by mentioning her. I will kill you if you say anything else.

"Isn't she your daddy's little w***e?"

That's it.

I reach around the seat and push the guy into the aisle, making the entire back of the bus go silent for a split second before roaring for a fight. And I want to give it to them. I pick Jacob up by his collar and hit him hard across the jaw. I love the stunned look on his face. I can't help, but smirk and think, This is what you wanted isn't it? Well now you f*****g got it.

I want to hit him again. I want to make him bleed for saying such an awful thing about Clair, but when I look over my shoulder at her, she looks terrified. Of me. Immediately, I drop Jacob, but I'm not finished with him. I lean down next to him and say in a treacherous voice, "Don't you dare say one f*****g word about my sister. She's none of your f*****g concern and really, neither am I."

I know that if we didn't live ridiculously close to the school and hadn't arrived at exactly the moment I finish talking, I would have been pounded to pulp. And then something probably would have happened to Clair and it would have been all my fault.

I rush off the bus, pulling her behind me, wanting to get her as far away from those people and to our advisory classroom as fast as humanly possible. I only let her go once we are safely inside the school and Jacob is staggering off the bus, the entire right side of his face red, his lip split and bleeding. I smirk to myself, wondering if the teachers will bombard him with the same questions they do with Clair and me every day. If they do, he'll surely tell them it was me and when I get home I'll be punished. But it was worth it, I think as I race up the stairs, still dragging her behind me.

"Will let go," I hear her whisper when we get to our homeroom. "You're making the bruises on my wrists worse."

I let her go immediately and she hurries off to her normal seat in the far back corner of the classroom. I sit down next to her. She has about as many friends as I do, which would be zero. No one wants to be friends with kids that wear ugly clothes and black and blue bruises all across their bodies.

Clair

I don't think, despite all the beatings, Will has never learned true obedience or that there are consequences for the things you do wrong in life. That's why he almost got into a fight on the bus this morning. Not that I really think what he did to Jacob on the bus was wrong. If I had the guts, if I wasn't afraid of everyone, I would have punched Jacob myself, but violence frightens me and I'm afraid if I ever give into it I will become like dad: an angry, lost soul, who can't find any other way to show my emotions.

I know it's not dad's fault he gets so angry and frustrated that he doesn't know what else to do besides hurt us, but I don't think Will understands that. He's always looking at dad with such intense hatred, especially when he gets angry at me. I think that's why he provokes him into going after him instead. It's a way for him to protect me as well as letting dad know what he thinks of him. I'm sure he's thinking the whole 'kill two birds with one stone,' thing when he does that.

If you were to look at him from the outside, you'd just see some really pissed off kid that is covered in bruises because his father beats him and his twin sister.

I know differently.

Maybe it's just because I live with him or because he's my twin, but I know that the anger, like with dad, is just a cover up for the pain and anguish he feels inside. I wouldn't believe this if it weren't for the fact I've heard him crying in his sleep or that he looks constantly tired and worn or that, when he just can't handle it anymore, the pain burns brightly behind his eyes, making him look more broken than ever. If anyone were to ask which one of us has it worse, I would say my brother every time. He's the one dad goes after most often. He's the one, who has to keep up a façade to keep anyone from questioning us too much. He's the one that cries in his sleep at night. He's the one that has the pressure of protecting his older sister as well as himself. He's the one, despite what he says when I'm unable to keep my tears at bay that knows there is no longer any escape.

I'm not sure if this is accurate, but lately, he's seemed to have a death wish. He seems to provoke dad when he's at his angriest, as though trying to find a day when he'll just beat him until he dies. Mom wouldn't do anything to stop him. Will wouldn't try to get away. And dad wouldn't stop unless he had good reason to.

That's why I've got to do something before it's too late.

The only thing is I don't know what I'm supposed to do to make dad stop hurting Will. Every idea I've come up with so far has either been impossible or something that would make dad just sneer at me and go after him all the more eagerly. I spend my entire study hall and most of my other classes trying to come up with an idea, but most of the time �"

"Clair Christian, are you paying attention?"

�" I'm interrupted.

I jump, nearly falling out of my desk. Most of my English class snickers. I turn bright red from the chuckles still echoing about the classroom as I nod at my teacher and turn back to the book we're discussing in class, flipping through the pages, trying to find which one it is that we are reading from.

I'd much rather read depressing song lyrics than depressing books. Songs lift me up no matter the subject. They always make me feel better and right now the song that's stuck in my head is one mom had me listen to years ago when I still existed to her, when she still loved Will and I enough to take us out of the house when dad was in one of his rages.

What a day you had today.

It took your smile away.

Under the Sky by the 80's band Heart.

I think we ought to get away.

Let's run away.

When I listen to this song now, it makes me sad. It makes me want to cry. It reminds me of what was and will never be again. I pretend to be intently reading the page �" or what I think is the page �" we're currently reading aloud in class, but I don't even see the words. My vision goes double as I think back to that happy time of me, mom and Will in the car, laughing and singing Heart songs, forgetting what lay behind us, what we had to return to eventually.

Smiles and flushed cheeks from laughing, till we're unable to breathe. The smell of Christmas permeates the car. Snow falls outside the windows. The car moves slowly. Not that we care that much. The longer we're in here, the farther away we'll get from the place we're trying to escape. We know we have to go back, but that doesn't have to be quite yet.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine," Will yells in tiny four year old voice, smiling.

"You make me happy when skies are gray," I add, before turning to mom.

"You'll never know dear how much I love you," she sings, looking at us, a happy expression on her face, but there is pain burning like wildfire behind her eyes.

We all ignore it though because it doesn't belong here when it's just the three of us and sing the last line together. "Please don't take my sunshine away."

When I come out of the past, I see big wet spots on the pages of the book below me. It takes me a moment to recognize them as tears. It takes me another moment to recognize them as mine. I am resting my chin in my hand and I sit up straight, turning from my teacher and the rest of the class to wipe my tears. I know the entire class is completely insensitive and if they saw tears in my eyes or falling onto the pages of the book we're reading they'd ask me why I was crying, despite the fact, if they've ever looked at my face or my arms it's blatantly obvious. They're almost always bruised. Don't the teachers wonder why some of their students are covered in bruises? And are the students they teach really so stupid that they have no idea what's going on? They all took health class in tenth grade, didn't they? If I remember correctly there was a whole unit on child abuse. Apparently, no one paid attention to this subject. It didn't affect them, so it wasn't important.

I turn the pages in my book, scanning the words, trying to find where someone is reading aloud from. When I find it, I space out again, trying to come up with a way to distract dad again, to keep him from going after Will. I know, like I said before, Will is trying to protect me, but I'm tired of it. I'm tired of watching him suffer because of me. If he hadn't been a twin, I might not exist and if I didn't exist, maybe dad would be happier. Maybe he and mom would have an easier life just looking after my twin.

There's nothing you can do, I tell myself. No matter what you say or do, dad will go after Will because he knows how to provoke him and keep him preoccupied. I'm inexperienced in this area. I've only ever just watched as dad rushes from the room on my brother's heels. I've only ever just listened as he hurts him in the other room and he tries to fight back, even though dad is bigger and stronger than he is and he has no hope of defeating him.

"Stupid b***h!"

Dad's words come back to me loud and clear. I know they're so true. I am a stupid b***h. I don't deserve to be alive. Unconsciously, I raise my hand to my cheek where he slapped me. If I hadn't been hit there so many times, I would be thinking it'd be starting to bruise now, but it's not. However, my mind isn't on my raw cheek, it's on what I did when dad went after Will.

Nothing.

I've never done anything before now. I've never tried to stop dad or help Will. I've just watched as dad wheels around, racing out of the room after Will. I've only listened as they yell at one another, until finally I hear skin slam against skin and the feeble attempts of someone trying to fight back, even though they know it's useless and there's nothing they can do no matter what they try. I cry during those moments, but I never go to save Will. I never go to stop dad.

Things are going to change, I think, flipping to the next page in the book along with the rest of the class, since my teacher is giving me the evil eye as though she knows my mind isn't on her carefully planned lesson. What she doesn't understand is her lesson is nowhere near as important as what I'm trying to think up. Nothing is. Not my education. Not any war. Nothing is more important than me trying to find a way to save Will.

No matter the cost.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

The pain become harder when it is transfer to a brother. I like the change in her attitude about her brother. Seeking a way to protect him. Thank you for the excellent chapter.
Coyote

[eeoopig]

can't wait to read the next chaper - this is sooo good. Keep writing :)