Winter

Bella

"Ssshhh," Jade rocked her baby sister back and forth in her thin arms. Jade, being only 13 years old herself, sometimes struggled to hold her younger sister and always had deep purple bags under her eyes.

A few minutes later, her baby sister's cries subsided and Jade placed her back in her cot and threw a pale pink blanket over her.

Jades little sister didn't have a name- not a proper one anyway. Her mother had died giving birth to her and after her mum died, 7 months ago, her dad sort of stopped functioning. He started drinking too much and staying in bed for most of the day. He blamed Jade's little sister, so he didn't even acknowledge her.

So nobody had ever given her a name.

Jade liked to call her Bella, because her mother used to say that "Belle" meant "beautiful" and her baby sister truly was.

Suddenly Jade heard the front door being forced open. The hairs on the back of her neck pricked. Calmly, she looked around the messy room to find something that she could use to protect herself and her sister. She settled on an old baseball bat, rested against one of the walls- it had never been used, it was too cold to play baseball.

Gripping the icy cold wooden bat with both hands she tiptoed into the hall. Another sound came from the kitchen, Jade slowly walked down the narrow corridor, towards the origin of the noises,

"What you looking at." Her fathers deep, angry voice greeted her. She could smell the alcohol in his breath from the other side of the room.

She relaxed slightly.

"Dad where have you been. You didn't come home last night." Jade asked, she didn't drop the bat. Her father was an aggressive drunk.

"None of your business. You sound like my mother." He laughed through tily- or maybe he was coughing, it was hard to tell. In his left hand was a half empty bottle of vodka, he was swinging it around, splashing the liquid into the dirty black and white tiles on the kitchen floor.

All of Jade's instincts told her to turn around and leave her father there in the kitchen but some part of her still cared for him.

"Dad take off that coat and put an indoor jumper on." She said, putting the bat down and reaching to help him take off his waterproof coat.

She touched the top of his arm gently but instinctively her father lashed out, striking her face with the back of his hand. She was thrown to the floor, her head slammed into the tiles. Sharp pain shot through her body.

She looked up at her father in shock but he didn't even notice, he just walked right past her into the hall and a few minutes later she heard him stumbling up the stairs.

Her body was tired and aching. She lay on the kitchen floor, cold penetrating her body. She shut her eyes to suppress tears and at some point, must have fallen asleep.