Even If Saving You Sends Me To Heaven

I was walking around, just around the school. There wasn’t much to do, so I settled on walking through the neighborhood, and looking at houses and gardens. I know; it was a pretty weird thing for me to do, but I like looking at other people’s homes, lives, hobbies, styles; just other people all together. Our garden and house at home was nothing to brag about. The house, that once was white, was now almost grayish-brown, because most of the painting had peeled off, and the wood was pretty much rotten. The grass in the garden was long, and messy, with a lot of wild flowers. The garage wasn’t much of a garage, just some wood put together. The house, which probably was around twenty years old looked like it had seen way too many days, and like it should have been gone a long time ago.

I had walked around the block for a while, and I could hear the faint ringing of the school bell, telling me the day was over. I waited a few more minutes, before I slowly made my way home. He couldn’t know that I skipped school. He would kill me if he did.

As I now saw the little dirty house on the end of Fredburg’s street, I could feel the dread creeping into me again. The sight sent shivers down my spine, and my breathing automatically got quieter. I slowly made my way to the three steps leading me on to the door. I opened it a little, only a few centimeters, and peeked in. I couldn’t see him, so I opened it a little further and squeezed my thin body through the crack. I couldn’t open the door further because it would make a horrible creaking noise and alert him of me being home. I slowly, and very carefully, closed the door behind me, before even slower, and more carefully, making my way to the stairs.

I sighed in relief as I reached the top, and opened the door to my room. But the surprise, fear and shock that ran through me as I noticed that George was standing right in front of me, made me let out a little scream, of which I muffled with my hand. “Skipping school, are we?” his raspy voice said, looking at me, as he watched my reaction; an ice-cold shiver ran down my spine, and I froze to the spot. I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped as well. How did he know? I quickly recovered from my state of shock however, and just stood there a while. I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there. George slowly walked towards me, raised his hand, and slapped me, hard.

Surprisingly, I couldn’t smell the alcohol on his breath, meaning he was sober. Another shiver ran down my spine. This wasn’t normal. He must have stayed sober on purpose, just for me. I took a few steps back, but he quickly grabbed my arm, definitely leaving marks, and shoved me to the nearest wall, pressing me to it. We stood like that a few seconds, me facing the wall, and him pressing it to it, using his whole weight to hold me there. Soon, I felt his breath on my neck. “You don’t ever skip school. You’ll have to pay now.” He whispered, making me find strength I didn’t know I had, and push him roughly away. I didn’t know why I did it, and I didn’t know how. All I knew was that the look he gave me one I turned around, could only be described with one word; evil. And it scared the shit out of me.

Notes