While You Were Gone.

Chapter 2

Huge booming footsteps echoed all the way to my room, right through the cheap walls of our stupid house.

 A loud, drunken voice shouted up the hallway, "Ellie, where's my little Ellie? Come give daddy some love?"

 The misleading gentleness in his voice did not fool me anymore.

 Where to hide? I gasped as my door was thrust open, slamming into the wall and making a loud cracking noise before the wood splintered even more. One of these days it was going to snap right in half; that is if it did not fall off its rusted hinges first.

 By now I knew it was too late to hide.

 As he began to approach me I crumpled to the floor and threw my arms over my head, mentally urging him to be different this time. To realize how wrong this is...

 But of course, he did not.

 I could not keep the scream from escaping my lips as his fist made contact with my back.

 In response, he laughed hysterically, like I had made the funniest joke in the world.

 "Aw, what is it honey? Feel bad for making my wife leave me?" He kicked my back again on the same spot and I screeched in pain.

 I tried to cry out to him, my voice cracking, "Daddy, stop!"

 As I heard a pause I lifted my head up, thinking that he had finally realized his wrongs. I was mistaken. As soon as my head lifted up he snapped his wrist, slapping me and digging his nails into the vulnerable flesh on my face.

 As salty tears slipped down my face, making contact with the new raw and bloody gouges, they caused the wounds to sting even worse and I whimpered loudly.

 He laughed again, his voice gleeful despite the pain I was in.

 "Oh, Ellie, your voice is just so beautiful when your in pain!" That was seriously sick. I shuddered from the stinging pain on my face.

 I looked up at him with sore red eyes, a pleading expression on my face.

 He grinned down and picked up a lemon lying on the floor from last time, taking it and squeezing the juice over my wounds as I let out loud yelps of terror. The lemon part was the worst.

 It was although he read my mind and wanted to tease me for it, "I know this is your favorite part. Doesn't it feel so good to know you are paying for the horrible thing you did?" He grabbed me by the neck and hurled my whole body into the wall, like I was some rag doll made for his abuse. As my head made contact with the wall my whole body screeched in pain, but then slowly became almost numb and tingly.

 As darkness started to wash over me I tried to make out the words, explain one last time how unfair this is, "It is not my fault she left you."