brave in your arms | rian & alice
Midnight. Alice hear the front door open and slam as it closed. Great. Her stepmother was back. She pulled her covers closer, curling up, taking the least amount of space possible, until she felt safer. She could still hear her stepmother's drunken groans as she moved through the house, bumping into furniture and knocking over bits of trinkets they had around.
Alice closed her eyes. She could ignore it.
"You fucking piece of shit!" she heard the woman yell from downstairs. Henry. Shit. Not long after, she heard his cries and sobs, yelling "Momma, please, I didn't do it."
The girl immediately bounded downstairs, and saw her stepmom holding Henry by the collar. She could see the handprint on his cheek; and her blood started to boil.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing? He's your son!" she yelled, yanking the eleven-year-old away from his mother's grip.
"He took away my beer. He threw away my beer. Where's my beer? I WANT MY FUCKING BEER!" the woman yelled at her; she could smell the alcohol and vomit in her breath.
"We don't have any," she calmly replied, although her eyes were starting to sting; and she was sure tears were starting to form in the rims of her eyelids.
"Give. Me. My. Fucking. Beer!" her stepmother yelled again; each word punctuated with a slap to Alice's face or a punch to her shoulders.
"I said, we don't have any!" she screamed, terrified. Her stepmother had a tight grip on her arms and kept yelling at her.
"You!" a slap to the face. "You were the reason why your father died!" Alice received a punch to the gut, which made her fall to the floor and double over in pain. The woman then bent over pulled at her hair, which gave Alice the chance to kick her in the stomach. The girl hurriedly grabbed a frying pan from the stove, and hit her stepmother on the head with it. The woman fell unconscious.
Alice immediately took the chance and ran up to her room and stuffed as many clothes as she could into an old gym bag; telling Henry to do the same.
They ran out of the house soon after; all dressed in pajamas and thick sweaters. Alice wondered if she had made the right choice. She did not know where to go. She had no friends, no family--well, there was Rian, but no--she could not face him. Not after what she did.
But after several minutes of walking, Henry still silent beside her, she found herself facing his front door, heart pounding. She rang the doorbell. She had no choice.
