Letters To My Mate

Chapter Twenty-Two

I stumbled up, onto my feet but before I could process anything his fist was speeding towards me. I doubled over in pain and clutched my stomach when he kicked me. I landed on the ground again and squeezed my eyes shut as I felt agonising pain. A loud whimper escaped my lips because of the brute force which caused him to growl and kick me harder. I whimpered again; another kick; another kick; another kick. However, I refused to let the tears spill as it would only encourage him to hurt me further.

When he had decided he had enough he grabbed his beer and disappeared from the room. I heard the front door slam noisily, signalling that he had gone out. Hopefully he would not be back until tomorrow…

As I try to stand up, my legs are shaking as they try to hold my weight. The pain is so unbearable. As soon as I managed to stand tall, a sharp pain attacked my stomach and I collapsed onto the ground again. I groaned, leaning my head against the wall as I felt breathless. After catching my breath again I knelt down onto my knees before going into a crouching position, leaning against the wall for support. I closed my eyes and pushed against the wall while trying to ignore the pain. I opened my eyes and looked down; I did it! That’s when all the pain came back full force. I let out a loud yell as I took a step towards the kitchen where I had hidden another first aid kit. With every step I took I felt blood flow down my skin from the many cuts my father had created. Why does this happen to me? Do I really deserve this?

After much excruciating pain I had managed to reach the kitchen; I leaned against the cabinets for support and opened the cupboard, pulling out the first aid kit. It took a lot longer to tend to my wounds as every time I lifted an arm there was severe pain. When every wound was no longer bleeding I packed up the left over bandages and set the first aid kit back into the cupboard before making my way up to my room, struggling at every step on the way.

A few hours later I woke up and sat up on the mattress in my room – I must have fallen asleep. Most of my injuries were not as severe and as far as I could tell, the bleeding had all stopped. I felt around under my mattress and my hand came into contact with the phone that Seb gave me; I refreshed the messages on the phone and my heart seemed to stop when it said I had one new message. I opened the message to discover that it was from Freya – Seb probably gave her my number.

‘Hey, it’s Freya. How are you doing? xx’ it said.

I clicked on a button that opened the keyboard and replied, ‘Hey, I’m okay. I think. I don’t know… xx’

Almost immediately, I received a reply; ‘Have you heard anything? xx’

‘No… I’m thinking of going to the hospital later xx’

‘Do you want me to come with you? xx’

‘It’s okay; I think I should go by myself xx’

‘Alright, good luck xx’

I opened the message but did not reply – I didn’t know what to reply. Things were still slightly awkward between me and Freya but we were slowly become best friends again. I never pried into why we became distant as I know she will probably tell me in time… Well, I hope that she will. We started talking again in the past week and once she found out about Ethan she has been very supportive and always tried to make sure that I’m doing okay.

I was still scared about going to the hospital and finding out how severe Ethan’s injuries are. I know that he is still alive – I don’t know how I know, I just have a gut feeling that he is. I got changed into the clothes that I had hidden under my pillow and pulled on some old converse before rushing to the bus stop that was at the end of the street.