Swing Low

Prologue

"I hate him," she says, ripping the grass from the dirt.

I bite my lip and turn my head to face her, she looks up and meets my gaze. Her green eyes showing sadness that I felt only I could read. "But he's your dad, Remington."

She looks back down at her hand. "I know, but I hate him."

I let my eyes roam to her wrist where it is obvious that her dad has grabbed her arm a little to hard. It showed purple and blue bruises. I could not even imagine mom or dad being so angry at me that they would want to hurt me.

Remi liked being there, though. I think she felt safe with me. Everything was amazing until it came to an end for her. As a child my backyard stretched for miles, at least it felt like that. Of course, as you grow up everything becomes small, even though everything gets bigger. I am not sure if that makes sense? You grow and things that seemed big seem small and things that seem small seem big. You care about other things when your older that didn't matter when you were small. Like back then, I wasn't too worried about Rem being abused, or at least if I was it didn't seem like something that was abnormal. It was just how she was treated.

"I made you something," I say to her, reaching into my left pocket and pulling out a beaded necklace with her name. I tried to stick to a color scheme, her favorite colors are green and blue so I did both and in the middle was her name. It took me a few tries to spell it right.

"Thank you, Ean! I love it!" She smiles and wraps her arms around me into a hug.

"Remington Grace Kiddman." A loud voice wrings out and Rem and I turn our heads to see her dad standing by the fence to my backyard. "Get your ass over here. You were supposed to be home at five for dinner."

She let go of me and jumped up without another word, running over to meet her dad. He opens the gate and grabs her wrist forcefully and they leave.

I wish I had realized sooner what was really going on in her home, but stuff like that comes out eventually. When we were in eighth grade, Remi's brother, Owen, commit suicide. Everyone was questioned about the cause and it came up that Rem's father had been one of the big reasons. I went to Owen's funeral, by this time Remington and I were not really friends anymore. If you asked her, I honestly don't think she would know if I was there or not. I don't blame her, though; she lost her older brother.

Her father served very little jail time, and after he got out he never spoke to Rem or her mom again. Her mom had to go to some sort of rehab, even though I know she never laid a harsh hand on either one of them. You would think after some time that things would get better, and they did, but only a little.