Help Me

Chapter 1.

Riley's POV

"Riley Evans, why do you have a hunk of metal in your face?" My step-mother, Sue, asks me, her face the color of a fire truck. This is one of the many reasons I avoid coming home since my mother passed away.

"It is a piercing," I reply and sit down on the barstool trying to seem confident even if I am nowhere near it. I learned a long time ago that it is better to seem relaxed and confident around her, if I don't she continues to bait me into saying something that will piss my father off, which never ends well for me.

"Harold, come see what your son has in his face," Sue yells up the stairs. She turns to me with a smirk. I resist the urge to yell profanities at her but refrain knowing it will only cause more problems for me.

Harold, my dad, stomps down the stairs angrily. I already know he is going to hit me, all I can hope for is that is all that happens to me. Not a month after my mother died he married Sue. God only knows what he sees in her. When Harold reaches the bottom of the stairs and sees the lip piercing he looks at me in disgust.

"What the hell do you have in your lip?" Harold shrieks. It would have been funny but I know not to anger them anymore than necessary. Sue has given Harold her habits since she moved in when my mother died.

I stay silent as Harold drags me down the stairs into the basement. The metal handcuffs slide around my hands as he chains me to the wall. He reaches for one of the knives he has laid out beside me on a table. He cuts my shirt off me and it falls to the ground beside me.

The blade slices through the skin on my stomach like it is butter. I bite my lip to keep from yelling out in pain. Harold gets off on pain and I refuse to give him anything if I can keep from it. There are shallow cuts across my stomach and legs. Blood is oozing out of the cuts and running down my body. I can hear the blood dripping onto the floor. The blood is forming a puddle on the floor and stains from the previous times I was in this very same position.

Harold gets tired of the knife and grabs the whip from the same table. The first time he hits me with it, I feel like the bone in my arm shattered, not just the skin. The loud snap of the whip makes my ears ring. Time after time he hits me with the weapon. The whip leaves a trail of blood down my body. Tears burn at the back of my throat but I refuse to cry out. I bite my tongue to keep from making any noise. I can taste the bitter blood in my mouth. Great, just what I needed was more blood loss.

I can't help but think back to the time when my mother was still alive. Harold had never touched me and had argued with my mom over slapping my butt for punishment. Since she died two years ago Harold has started blaming me and it slowly escalated between physical abuse to mental to sexual. Though lately, Sue has seemed jealous so he has stopped with the sexual abuse as much. I never thought I would be grateful for that woman.

I had decided that since I never got to tell my mom I was gay I would tell him. That is when the abuse went from physical to sexual. I didn't want something to happen without me telling at least one parent. Harold isn't religious by any means but he still goes to church just to keep up appearances. No one knows I am gay mostly because I pushed all my friends away except Rachel. The only constant in my life right now is track and it is the off-season since it is almost Thanksgiving I skip lunch most of the time to avoid my old group of friends. I know they feel sorry for me and I can't take that. I don't want their pity. Sometimes I wish I had guy friends though. I love Rachel but she constantly wants me to go shopping with her and I can't help but feel like she suspects I am gay because she always asks my opinion on fashion. Which I have no interest in at all. Gross stereotype. To say my life went downhill from that night a year ago would be an understatement.

The abuse goes on for about an hour before Harold finally decides he is done for the night. I watch as Harold walks up the stairs and through the basement door. I sag in relief and take a second to gather myself before I look around myself trying to find something to pick the lock of the handcuffs binding me in such an uncomfortable position. Finally, I see a screw that is almost all the way loose. I smile and stretch myself and fiddle with the screw until it is out of the wall and twist and turn in the cuffs until they open and I am free.

I slowly go up the basement steps and put my ear to the wall listening for Sue or Harold. I don't hear them so I quickly open my door and run to my room as quietly as possible. I cannot stay here any more. He is going to end up killing me, or he will do much worse than he did tonight. I get one of my old track bags and throw in some clothes I like the most. I put in my computer my mom got me before she died and my phone. I cram in the chargers and grab my school supplies and put them in my backpack. I then gather my track stuff because I have no intention of ever coming back to this place again.

I am eighteen but I have no job because Harold knows everyone in this damned town. Before I leave what is considered my room but is small enough to be a closet I grab the first aid kit I found in Harold's bathroom one morning before school. As I walk back downstairs I head into the kitchen and notice that Harold's wallet is laying on the counter. I open it and pull out all of the cash and shove into my bag. Maybe he will be useful for something now after all.

I scurry out of the house and sneak through the back yard and into the small area of forest that will lead me to the back entrance to the school. I learned this path when I was walking around aimlessly looking for a reason to not go home. I stumble a few times over the rocks and branches in the pathway. The blood running down my stomach and arms has slowed and is starting to dry. If I don't shower soon it is going to be a pain to get this much blood off. I glance around the back entrance of the school and watch for any form of movement. Getting caught like this now would not be the best thing for me.

I slowly lug myself and my belongings into the one place I have ever felt at home since the accident. The track building. I open my locker and stuff my backpack into it and close it. I pull out a change of clothes and lay to the side as I head for the showers. I lay the first aid kit to the side knowing I am going to need it when I get out of the shower.

It takes me about half an hour to get all the blood off without vigorously scrubbing against my skin. I gently pat the area dry with one of the towels I had in my locker from the track season. I pull out the alcohol spray that I had mixed a while ago and spray the cuts and lashes. I would rather it hurt now than to have a weird infection from them later. The white bandages that are wrapped around my body make me look like a snowman. The bruises that are on my face mean I won't be going to school tomorrow.

I slowly drag myself over to the mats that had been stored in here since the cheer squad had gotten new ones and begin moving them around to somewhat resemble a bed. Anything is better than getting beaten again when I wake up. I double-check the locks on the door and make my way to my bed for the night. As soon as my head hits the mat I am asleep.

What would you do if you were Riley?

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