Prologue

I finally finished my last year of high school, graduating at the top of my class and multiple acceptances to some of the best colleges, I am ready to leave this place and my father behind. I drive home on edge not knowing what I'll be walking into. He knows that today was my last day, he will know I'm leaving. It's not going to be a good scene when I get home, I have a strong feeling I should turn around and just leave everything behind. I drive home anyways, I can't leave without my mothers locked wooden box. She left it for me, I'm supposed to open it on my eighteenth birthday. I pull into the driveway of my house, it's in terrible condition. The shutters are hanging from its hinges, the paint peeling of the wood frame, the screen door ripped and always open since my father tried ripping it off its hinges in a rage. It's time to say goodbye to this life and start my own journey. I take a deep breath and go inside, the scene before me stops my in my tracks. Beer bottles shattered all over the floor, alcohol dripping from the walls and ceiling. Pictures had been thrown to the floor, the glass shattered and scattered. I could hear my father tearing the house apart his rage was the most violent I had ever seen. "b***h!" he yells, "I know you're home! I can hear you!" I'm frozen in fear, what is it going to be today? A beer bottle thrown at my head, being slammed into a wall, whipped with a metal hanger? "Clean this s**t up, b***h!" he screams, "You f*****g w***e!" Suddenly he appears from the living room, beer bottle in hand. He lifts it and throws it at me. It slams into my ribs and I fall onto the broken glass. I scream in pain the glass shards piercing my skin, the alcohol seeping into the gashes. "Get up you little b***h!" he screams from above me, I didn't even hear him get closer. I grab a shard of glass and stab him in the leg, he screams and falls the the floor. I get up and dart to my room, locking the door and pushing my bookcase up against the door. I need to grab my mom's box. I grab my duffel bag and throw in a few things, clothes, shoes, my notebook, and my shoe box that has all the money I saved over the years. I can hear him throwing things, everything shattering on the floor. How can he still break everything when I stabbed his leg, I thought. He shouldn't be able to walk. Suddenly, I can smell smoke coming through the air vents. He's burning the house down! If I don't act quick, I'll burn with the house! With all the alcohol on the floors, walls, and ceiling the house is bound to explode. I grab everything that I need, shove it into my duffel bag and go out the window. I go to get into my car and realize I don't have my keys, they must've fallen out when I fell. I ran towards the woods, and I can hear him behind me screaming. I dart into the woods, and I turn around to see where he is in case I have to dodge something, but he's stopped at the tree line. Almost as if he is scared to cross the boundary into the woods. He's looking around, it's like he can't see me even though I'm about twenty feet away. I shake my head, I don't care. I turn back towards the rest of the woods, and run deeper in.