I’m scared. I peer through the crack between the two pantry doors and I can see him. I can feel him. I can feel my body quiver so much to the point where I have to hold my legs, so that they don’t make noise against the door. Any noise I make and he’ll see me, and then I don’t know what I’ll do. I can hear my mother crying. I myself am trying as hard as I can to choke down the tears. A wave of guilt and fear wash over me as I see him forcefully grab her body. The way she turns her cheek to let him slap her, as if she’s giving in. The way she doesn’t even fight back as rugged nails claw her small ribcage, how she bites her bottom lip to the point of bleeding so that she won’t scream. So that no one will hear. Well I can hear. I want to help, I want to call someone. Yet I’m so afraid that if he hears the dial tone, or me struggling to spit out the words, I might be his next victim. I feel so selfish. I want to help my mother, but what can I do? I'm only ten years old.

It’s raining now. Im trying to listen to it more than the screaming, but it’s not working. I hear a body slam against the floor. My mother’s cry of pain rings in my ear. Silent tears roll down my cheeks. I feel like i’m in the same situation as my mother, biting down to the point of bleeding so that he won't hear me. So that my mother won’t hear me. My silence is out of fear. I can smell alcohol in the air, a scent unpleasantly familiar. How many bottles does it take? One? Two? Three? Four? How many nights have I been in the same place I am now, encountering the same situation? One, two, three, four...

I hear punches, drunken slurs escaping his lips. Forceful fists pounding into my mothers fragile structure. Does my father know? I miss him. I want him here to protect us, but I gave up on that hope a long time ago. “You’re a useless piece of s***,” I hear him shout as his sweaty hands force his way onto my mother’s face. “Your own daughter thinks it too, you’re a terrible mother and you don’t deserve to be alive.” No! It’s not true! Don’t listen to him! I wish I could shout these things out to her, but I know that she has given up fighting now. I watch her sink into his forceful wrists. She believes what he says, and it only makes her hate herself more.

In school we learn that a partner makes you happy. If he’s her boyfriend, why does he hurt her? I’ve grown up to learn that love doesn't exist. Divorced parents...abusive boyfriends... that’s not what it’s like in fairytales. But of course fairy tales aren’t reality. I remember saying to my teacher once, “Why do people get married if it always ends up in divorce?” He laughed at me. Like it was some sort of joke. Like I was just an ignorant child who knew nothing about the world. What he didnt know is that I’ve aged far beyond my years. The innocence that is a childhood was stripped from me a long time ago. No crayons or coloring books, adult responsibilities like caring for myself, caring for my brother. My sweet little autistic brother who lays sound asleep in his bed completely unaware of the alcoholism, drugs, abuse, the real world. Oh, how I wish I could be unaware of the real world. Earlier tonight I sung him one of his favorite lullabies. This one my mom used to sing. It’s funny really, it’s only one world. “Do,” short for dormir, which means sleep in french. It’s the way she sings it though. The comforting sound of her voice, quiet, peaceful, relaxing. It’s so soothing, it could cause you to drift to sleep in minutes. She just repeats it over and over. “Do...do...do...” At least it used to be soothing. My voice isn’t nearly as beautiful as hers, but the protection my brother feels in me is the protection he finds in that lullaby. To soundly drift to sleep. Sometimes he wakes up screaming at night and I run down to comfort him. I’m the best at comforting him. I feel as if the things I witness in reality seep into his dreams. The good part about dreams is that you wake up and you know none of it is true-or at least that’s what you think. I wish I thought all of this was just a dream.

Shrieks blare from outside of the house, snapping me back to reality. But this time they’re not my mothers. I look out of the little crack in the door and I see an innocent neighbor peering into the window. Originally going outside to walk her dog, but now witnessing a violent brawl of fists, blood, and permanent scars. I see her pull out a cell phone and scream for her husband, and I’m assuming she called 911 because moments later I hear men bust open the door and drag out the sweaty mess that is him. One of them forces open the pantry door and they see a child. She’s curled into a ball, holding herself for dear life; trying not to look at her physically and mentally broken mother lying on the kitchen floor. That child is me, it’s always been me, but tonight I’m thankful that someone has finally noticed. No one ever notices me. My mothers’ taken with the police, I’m assuming to attempt to clear up the situation. Calling it a misunderstanding. So he can come back, and do it all over. I’m hoping it’s different this time. So that he never returns, and he’s put into jail for good. The police comfort me. They wrap a blanket around my still quivering body and hug me. They can't stop hugging me. I see them carry down my brother and lay him on the couch, he had woken up from another nightmare. I move closer to him and rub his arm, singing his favorite lullaby. “Do...do...do...do,” I whisper. I tell him everything will be alright, because for once in our lives, it finally will be.