Every Kind of Blue

Chapter 1

A purple bruise blossomed on my shin immediately after the harsh blow. I reached quickly to clutch it with both hands and I winced. It happened every time like this, harsh words followed by a consecutive harsh blow.

Rick smirked at my pain. He was standing up tall in front of me, shadowing my crouched and weak body. “Hurt you did I sweetie?” His mocking tone cut through my sobs like a knife. I kept my eyes to the tiled floor I was sat on and refused to meet his cruel stare.

“Please don’t-” My voice wobbled between a loud sob.

My step-dad crouched very suddenly down in front of me. I recoiled slightly,

“Don’t what?” He reached out and pulled back my hair from its position blocking my face. “Don’t hurt you more? Oh, I would never hurt such a pretty little girly like you.”

This was how he did it, at first he would be so cruel and ruthless and then, so suddenly his tone would change – he would be so nice, yet…there was always an obvious bitterness in his voice. He would always act so pleasant in the final few minutes of my mental and physical torture.

I sniffed in reply.

He inhaled and exhaled both equally deeply before standing up, using my shoulder to push himself. His weight seemed to make the bones click. After nine years of the near constant crap I took from him I became too fragile for my age – 17. My mum didn’t even notice, yet to be honest, when I saw myself in a mirror I could have sworn I was anorexic.

“You know the process, don’t tell anyone, blah, blah. ‘Cause if you do Aleana… well, you know the rest,” Rick turned and ambled towards the stairs, whistling as if nothing had happened.

Well, I did know the rest and the first time he told me what it was seemed to reverberate around my brain.

‘That Timmy, it would just be so sad if he were to hurt himself wouldn’t it? Or someone else hurt him…perhaps?’ His eyes glinted in the darkness and his icy smile played his thin lips.

‘You can’t hurt Timmy!’ I screamed, my small voice barely coming out.

The smile didn’t waver and he stood up. My eyes widened in shock as the sun coming in from the window shined down onto a long metal blade as he pulled it from his pocket. I pushed myself back against the wall, trying to get as much space between him and me but to my surprise he didn’t come any closer. He took small steps towards the stairs, never taking his eyes off mine.

The stairs groaned under his weight as he backed up them. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and sighed in relief that he didn’t come for m. Then, suddenly I sat bolt up straight. I had heard the ever so familiar creaking of my little brother’s bedroom door.

Then the scream.

I covered my ears and my cries became louder in and unconscious try to overcome the sound, the memory seemed so real, and it seemed as if it had come into my reality. Everyday I was reminded of that moment; it came in dreams and most often: a backdrop to my worst nightmares.

The sound slowly drowned away and in it place was a low buzzing sound. I grasped onto a nearby shelf and pulled myself up, hoping the whole thing wouldn’t fall down on top of me. Luckily it didn’t – it only wobbled. My leg throbbed but I was used to having bruises littering me and so it was only the emotional pain which got to me.

I walked slowly up towards the stairs; thankfully Rick had retreated to his and mum’s room and his TV was blaring some sort of game show nonsense. My bedroom door creaked when I pushed on it and eventually clicked against the wall beside it. I stared sadly at my small and cluttered room. Bleak paint lined the walls and shadows were cast all over them. When mum re-married we all moved. My two brothers (Alex and Timothy) and I were all taken from our friends and lives to live with Rick in Wales. His house was big, I could grant him that fact, but it wasn’t a home – no comfort or friendliness – just dark corners and ivy tapping on the windows in the wind.

But what made me loathe this place even more was the isolation. Rick ‘home schooled’ us. Well, that was what the authorities were told anyway. But to be honest, I don’t think slaving around the house and being treated like servants was home schooling. My step-dad unfortunately gets away with treating us like this because mum’s job keeps her away for weeks on end abroad – and her absence feels like I had lost two parents forever, not just one.

A tear sprung to my eye and I yawned to cover it up even though there was nobody around to see. Every time I thought of my dad I couldn’t help but cry, it was a natural reflex. But life had to go on, hopefully without moist eyes and what I used to say as a child ‘The Sniffles’.

I pursed my lips and looked repeatedly around the room – clothes hung from the bed and a sock seemed to be stuck in the ceiling light – it seemed that after cleaning all of the rest of the house, my room had no time to be tidied. A deep sigh escaped my partly opened lips and I started to walk across the floor towards the window. I thought to myself, ‘Start at the window and make your way in.’ It was a phrase my dad used to say when he helped us tidy our rooms – he didn’t have reasoning for it, and it didn’t make sense, but I liked it.

I tidied in silence for what felt like hours, which it quite possibly could have been. I would have listened to music, but of course, it was something Rick forbade. My brothers and I didn’t have any electronic items at all, no CD players, no TVs, and no phones! And so our entertainment was limited to books and revision – seeing as

Rick didn’t teach us much there wasn’t much to revise – but occasionally mum would bring back textbooks and workbooks.

The sun began to set over the rolling hills that could be seen from my small window and cast an orange glow against the whitish-grey walls. A small smile pulled the corners of my lips up. That time of day was my favourite, as I could be away from Rick. I walked over the newly clean floor and rested my hands on the window ledge. A small bird tweeted from the ivy trellis that grew up the side of the house and I could hear the distant sound of a sheep. This place could have been my heaven, and before my dad died we had plans to move to Wales. But my step-dad ruined it. So it was quite the opposite of heaven…hell.

I spread my fingers wide on the tiny ledge and used all of my force to pull myself up onto it. With a bit of tricky manoeuvring I managed to squeeze onto it and bring my legs up so I was just balancing sideways against the glass. I reached up to the small latch on the quarter of the window that could be opened and with a hard tug it finally gave and I pushed it open as far as it could before latching it on the hook to keep it in place.

The fresh air swept through the room, cleaning it further for me. I took in a deep and relieved breath, the day was almost over and I couldn’t wait; the day’s tasks of cleaning, cooking and more cleaning had worn me out and so when night drew near I could finally relax. I believed that Timothy and Alex would have had the same thought too. They, instead of cooking and cleaning all day worked in the huge and tangled garden or in a nearby farm which was owned unluckily by one of Rick’s close friends and so he is in a similar sort of mind frame: Rest and let those lot do the work.

Soon enough they would come walking if not running over the moor back home. And the only welcome they would get would be cold dinner in the fridge and quite possibly a few curses from our step-dad. I could never cope with going down there to greet them, to see their worn out faces and cut hands. In some ways I could have said that I had it easy…but in others, I had it worst of all – and that was the way Timothy and Alex saw it, that even though the work wasn’t half as bad, what Rick puts me through mentally was wearing me down to almost nothing.