[untitled]

When morning came around, I was pretty tired. I had stayed up all night thinking about everything. How would we even get there? Where would we stay? How could we live? All these things scared me. At first running away to LA sounded like the best idea in the world, but now that I think about it more, the more I don’t want to go. Then again I thought about if we didn’t leave, he would eventually kill us. I thought of how we would have to leave Liza, so young, so innocent, but I knew for a fact he would never hurt her like he hurt us. My stomach did a back flip, when I thought of how we would have to live our whole lives on the run, the cops would for sure be after us, and theirs weirdoes out there just looking for kids to rape. The streets could rip us to shreds, it had no feelings if we lived or died. So the question was, stay home and take abuse? Or push our limits on the streets?

2

 

It takes all that I have just to move along, all that I have.

 

 

 

 

When I got up, I walked out in the living room to find “dad” sitting in his chair. To my surprise he didn’t have a glass of whiskey in his hand. Ashlynne was sitting in the dining room, tapping wildly with her fingers. Something was wrong. I could feel it. I was standing in the hallway wondering what was different, when he looked up at me. His eyes were red and swollen. Was he crying? Then in a hoarse voice.

“ She left.”, I didn’t get it at first so I remained quiet.

“ She’s gone. She took Liza and just….left” his eyes were glazed over and he was staring at the wall. I looked over at Ashlynne who was still tapping away with her fingers.

Now I knew. We had to leave. I adjusted my stance and looked down. I guess Ashlynne noticed my discomfort, because she stood up and walked to our bedroom. I let her walk past me, before I knew what we were going to do. I went to the bedroom to find Ashlynne packing. I guess she thought the same thing I did. She stuffed some clothes in, along with a gun, that she took from our dad. She also put in $200 which we’ve been saving. I put the bag under my bed. We went into the kitchen and grabbed something to eat.

Later that night, he was still sitting in his chair, staring at the wall. I guess this really caught him off guard. This pissed me off. I told Ashlynne to wait outside with the stuff. So without questioning me, she climbed out our bedroom window to wait for me. I didn’t tell her what I was about to do, because I knew she would try to stop me. Any other night I wouldn’t dare to say this to him, but I had confidence tonight.

I walked out of the hallway with both my hands clenched into fists, I knew he would act, so I had to be faster. I walked over to the back of his chair. I gave it a hard kick, to swivel it around. He didn’t do anything, just stared. For a split second I wanted to turn around, to just run, but I couldn’t.

“ Does it make you feel good to push me and Ashlynne around?! Does it make you feel good to see us fall?!”, I wasn’t giving him a chance to say anything.

“Does it really surprise you that she left?! I’m surprised she stayed for as long as she did. Your nothing but a drunk!”. I didn’t notice at first that I was crying, but now I started to choke on my tears. He stood up, with a fire burning in his eyes. He raised his hand to hit me, but I ducked. He was never going to hit me, or Ashlynne again.

I ran over to the door, and fumbled with the lock. He was already running after me, but I got it open just in time. I pushed past the screen door, and grabbed Ashlynnes arm. I guess I kind of slammed into her because she made a groaning noise. I was really running, faster than I thought I could. I had to get out. I looked over my shoulder only to see him still running, he stopped though. He doubled over and put his hands on his knees.

“Domino! Ashlynne! Get your asses back here!”, his screaming started to fade though. I don’t know if it was because he gave up or, if it was because I blocked the noise out. All I knew is that we couldn’t go back, we had no reason to.

We ran for a long time, at least it seemed long. We had to figure out how to get to California; Or we could find our mom, but we weren’t going to do that. I knew that eventually she would go back to him.

It started to get dark, and the stars came out. I looked up at the moon, and wrapped my arms around myself. It was cold. I looked over and Ashlynne was hugging herself to. I took the backpack off my shoulders and sat down with it. I opened it up and pulled out two jackets, I handed Ashlynne hers and asked her if she was hungry. She said no, but I knew she was. I was, but I didn’t want to spend the money just yet. I saw the gun, and wondered if I would ever have to use it, I hoped I never would. I stood up and put the jacket on. It helped, kind of. We started walking again, when Ashlynne asked, “Domino?”

“Yea?”, I wondered what she would ask.

“Where are we going to sleep?”, I hadn’t thought of that. She kept talking. “like I don’t think I can walk all night long, and I’m starting to get tired.” “so am I, so I guess we’ll have to find something.”

I looked around while we walked down a street. That’s when I spotted a couch. Sure it was a little dirty, but hey it was softer than the paved empty roads we would be spending most of our time on. So I walked over to it and Ashlynne followed. I lied down and almost instantly fell asleep.

I had a dream that night, well I guess it was more like a nightmare. We were both asleep when a car pulled up next to us. 2 big guys climbed out and grabbed Ashlynne, I tried to fight them off but they were so strong. They had pulled her into the van, and drove away. I fell to the ground, and started crying. That’s when I woke up, I had been crying in my sleep. Ashlynne was perched on the corner of the couch, hands wrapped around her knees, and just staring at me. I looked around, the sun was barely rising.

“what time is it?” I tiredly asked Ashlynne.

“ I don’t really know, but I woke up a long time ago, you were crying and screaming in your sleep. Did you have a bad dream?”, I didn’t want to tell her, because it’ll make her think of all the dangers, so I lied.

“No, I don’t know why that happened.”

I knew she knew what could happen to us, you could see it in her eyes. She was scared. So was I. we’re 14, forced to grow up at a young age. But for some reason when I was on the streets I felt empty but strong at the same time. The feeling that I could stand on my own without the price of abuse. I sort of glided with every step, but at the same time limping. I wondered if I would always live with that empty feeling, like a hole. I always used to look at the homeless people sitting on the sidewalk, and would think I could never survive like that. But that’s exactly what I was doing. that’s when I got an idea of how to get to Las Angeles, California. We could hitchhike. Sure its dangerous, but so is living alone on the streets, and hey we had a gun on our side.

I told Ashlynne of this and at first she refused, but was giving in with every time I asked. Finally she said she would do it. So we walked to the empty highway. By now it was growing dark, and cold. We stuck our thumbs out and waited a while. It turned from minutes to hours.

“nobody’s going to pick us up” Ashlynne complained. I started to cry with frustration.

“someone will, someone who knows what its like to have nothing, they have to!” my voice was shaking more and more with every word.

That’s when a car pulled over. Two guys were sitting in the driver and passenger seat, they looked about 16 or 17. Ashlynne stood up and hugged the bag to her chest, and walked over to me.

“hey! What are you guys doing on the road by yourself?” one of the guys said, the one in the passenger seat.

“Ummm, we’re trying to get to California.” my voice sounded strange as if it wasn’t coming from me, it sounded far away.

“Oh, well we’re going to Nevada if you want to come with us, and then you can just catch another ride”, the driver explained. At first I hesitated, thoughts were flooding my mind, and I was having a hard time thinking of what to do. Then I noticed Ashlynne grabbed my hand, and started walking towards the car. “Ashlynne? What are you doing? We don’t know them, we can get hurt.” I quickly whispered hoping that the kids couldn’t hear me. She paused for a moment and turned around to face me.

“ don’t you remember? We have a gun, and I’m not afraid to use it if I have to.” She smiled and kept walking, tugging me behind her.

She got into the car, and scooted over making room for me. The guys turned around and smiled, the car started rolling forward. I noticed that there was food wrappers, and empty soda cans burying the floor. The stale smell of cigarettes filled the air, both my parents were smokers so it didn’t phase me much, but Ashlynne was having a harder time. She had asthma, so it was already hard enough for her to breathe, without cigarette smoke filling the place. She was holding the bag to her chest still, as if her life was within it, actually now that I think of it, it kind of is. I scooped her hand up, it was freezing. I leaned over to her, and whispered,

“hey, I’m not tired yet, so you can sleep and I’ll make sure nothing weird happens.” She looked at me, her eyes looked oh so tired, and she smiled and thanked me. She gave me the bag, said she would wake up soon so that I could sleep to, curled up, and quickly fell asleep.

I looked at the two boys in the front. The one driving was concentrated on the road, and the other had headphones in, and was sleeping. I had one hand in the bag, holding the gun, finger on the trigger, and the other was clutching Ashlynnes hand. I looked over at her. Her face was so calm and innocent looking, as if nothing bad has ever happened to her. For that moment I was drowning in thoughts, and memories. And I had a tiny strand of hope that we can make something out of nothing.