Trailer Girl | 1

three

"I'm okay, Miller. Really." The brunette tells him, refusing to look up and meet his gaze. "I shouldn't have said anything. It's my own fault."

"The hell it is." He moves to her side as she opens three cans of tuna. "I should've stepped in. I never should've let him do this to you."

"Look..." She turns to face him. "It might not be my fault that he is the way he is. But if my mouth gets me into trouble, and then you take my beating — I don't need that hanging over me. What's done is done, and I'll heal. Let it go."

"I should kill him." Miller shakes his head as he looks back at her father. "The next time he lays a hand on either one of us is the last time." He says, and she simply nods before returning her attention to making their dinner.

Letty's thought about fighting back a thousand times, and she's thought about smothering her father in his sleep just as often. But she can't stand up to him. And she knows that he can't either. It's not the first time Miller's made some speech about how enough is enough, and it won't be the last. It's easy to talk when her dad's out cold, it's a different story entirely when he's standing over them with his fist raised.

Her father's six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and mean as all hell. They know the job he did for longer than either of them have been alive, and they know how scary the man is. Their best shot at freedom is turning eighteen and getting the hell out of dodge, and they both know it.

—

Letty's laying on Eric's bed the next day when the doorbell rings downstairs, causing Eric to get up from his desk. The teenage boy looks down at his best friend as he walks past her on his way out the door, and he sighs when he sees that she's trying to take a nap.

"I'll get it!" He calls as he makes his way down the stairs. He just wants to get away from his homework for a minute...and try to take his mind off of his worry for Letty.

The brunette sits up once he's gone and she groans as she gets to her feet. She then walks into the bathroom and lifts up her shirt so that she can see the bruise on her side. The purple's fading and it's starting to turn yellow. She sighs and puts her shirt back down. It's still sore and it hurts to move too much or too quickly. It hurts even more if she touches it.

The bruise is actually closer to a couple of weeks​ old now rather than a few days. She was just better at hiding it before the water fight that made her body sore all over again. She's been lying about injuries like this for a long time, and it's been getting pretty obvious to Eric that she hasn't been telling anyone the truth for some time now. But he doesn't know what the truth is, or how to get her to be honest with him.

Letty walks out of the bathroom as Eric makes his way back into his bedroom. Cory's leaving — he went up to their room to change out of his school clothes, but he didn't​ see the bruise on the teenage girl's side because she had the bathroom doors closed.

"Who was it?" Letty asks Eric as he lays down on his bed.

"Lenny, from the store." He tells her.

"Did he introduce himself?"

"Doesn't he always?" He asks, and she nods, mildly amused.

"Yeah, pretty much." The brunette walks over to his desk then and sits down. "What are we working on now?" She asks.

"What does it look like?" He asks sarcastically.

"Don't get smart with me, Matthews." She says as she looks at their homework. She then groans in annoyance. "Math sucks."

"Yeah, do my homework for me."

"Ye— No." Letty shakes her head as she turns back to him. He starts pouting, and she throws his eraser at him. It bounces off of his forehead, and she laughs.

"Ow!" He yells as he rubs the spot where it hit him.

"Oh, come on, that didn't hurt."

"I'm starting to see why they call you Scar at school."

"Big baby." She mutters as she turns back to their work, and he narrows his eyes at her.

Letty gets distracted by what she was doing instead of studying before she went to take a nap, and Eric watches her as she concentrates. He leans back, his head resting against his bed frame as the brunette continues the drawing that she started an hour ago. She's always liked drawing, a fact that he's well aware of, but she rarely lets anyone see what she draws.

"Scarlett!" Morgan runs into the room then, and the teenager chuckles as the little blonde climbs into her lap to look at what she's doing. "Ooh, pretty." She stares wide-eyed at the thin, elegant rose.

She's the biggest exception to Letty's rule about not going through her sketchbook. Morgan has always loved watching the teenager draw, even when she was a baby. It was always the most interesting thing to watch: the way little Morgan would be so captivated by Letty's pencil as it moved along the page. The same Morgan who can hardly sit still long enough for a tea party and generally has an attention span that lasts approximately two seconds.

"Belle."

"Am I that obvious?" Letty chuckles as she starts the dome that goes over the rose.

"You love Beauty and the Beast." The little one says as she hugs her doll to her chest.

"Do you know why?"

"You said she's brave." Morgan's light eyes are trained on the pencil as it moves down the sheet of paper. "Belle wasn't afraid to stand up to the Beast."

"That's right." A sad smile crosses her lips. "You always have to stand up to your bullies. Be brave and strong. You're like Belle, huh?"

"Mhm."

Letty chuckles. "I know you are."

"Like you." Morgan looks up at her, and the teenager smiles as she turns her head to meet the little one's gaze. "I wanna draw like you too."

"You just gotta practice." The brunette tells her. "You can learn any skill."

"I can draw too?" Her eyes widen, and Letty chuckles as she nods.

"Of course you can."

"Cool." Her wide eyes turn back to the paper, and Eric smiles as he watches his best friend with his little sister.

Morgan squeals with excitement when Letty tells her that she can keep the drawing. She takes it and then runs out of the room so that she can go and show it to her mom. The two teenagers barely manage to hear her say that she needs help hanging it up, and the brunette smiles as she turns back and shuts her sketchpad.

"We should probably get some homework done now." Letty takes a deep breath as her gaze falls on her math textbook.

"You're good with her." Eric says as he sits up, and she shrugs as she looks over at him.

"It's easy, and she's the sweetest." She tells him. "It helps that she thinks I'm cooler than I am."

"No, I think she's got the right idea." He argues, and she smiles as her dark eyes stay on his lighter ones.