Perfect Angel: Rest of chapter one

(My computer broke and I've been trying to work on the stuff people have said, so this is extremely late, also this is version two since I didn't like version one. This probably shouldn't be posted since it's a first draft, but I'm tired and acting stupid, so...read?)

Michael

Roxanne made my head hurt.

She’s one of my eldest daughters yet it doesn’t seem like it. She’s the one who needs the most looking after, and, though she doesn’t seem it, she’s the one who’s most dependant on the people she loves. She just can’t seem to put herself on the line though, all too afraid she’ll get hurt. Understandable, I suppose, seeing all she’d been put through, all she’d seen. Yes, it was understandable…but did she really have to go berserk whenever someone did the slightest thing to do with her wrong. With money tight, I didn’t really like it, but I knew it was right that Rox had to be expelled. She’d had fights before but this one was serious - she’d broken somebody’s arm! I knew I wouldn’t want my child sitting in the same room as the girl who’d sent him to hospital.

So, with all that on my mind, was it surprising the little things started to annoy me? Or

even that I took it out on the ones I loved most?

Roxanne

I felt like I was suffocating. I didn’t know why. Sure, there was no room in the house, but there was a door I could use. It just didn’t feel right.

Hmm…Maybe, just maybe, it was because I wanted to see how dad and Shaun’s fight would end. I rolled my eyes at myself in the mirror then sat down on the edge of the bath. I’d seen loads of people argue before, but with Dad and Shaun…it just shouldn’t have happened, I needed to stay to see what would happen. But all your priorities can change very suddenly if the right thing happens.

For me that ‘right thing’ was a terrified seven-year-old coming into the bathroom and just staring at me with wide eyes as though I could save her from the depths of hell she was in. No one should have to feel that way so young. Who cared about my curiosity when my sister needed me?

“Lets go out.” She smiled just a little, so I grabbed her hand and started down the stairs before a thought stopped me in my tracks.

Maybe I wouldn’t come back.

What reason was there for me to stay? It wasn’t like I had a lot of stuff or even good memories in that house, and I already knew a place I could stay… I’d sort of forgotten I was just standing on the stairs holding Christie’s hand, that was, until she started trying to drag me out the door. I crouched down so she could look into my eyes and hugged her before promising I’d get her out - as soon as I’d gotten one thing. I rushed into my room and, as quickly as I could, stuffed as many items of clothing possible into the front of my guitar case. I wouldn’t need much else, just some extra strings and a notebook, which were already in. I’d travelled light before and I could do it again.

Christie was stood in the same spot that I’d left her in…except now she had her hands over her ears and looked close to tears.

I shook my head; why were people allowed to hurt each other like this? A few little words could cause so much pain. At that moment I would’ve happily hunted down and killed the person who’d given anyone this type of power over my little sis…

My parents didn’t deserve to be calm and happy, but even I knew it was wrong to just up and leave, so I scribbled a note on the back of some sheet I found:

Christie’s with me,

I’m not coming back

Rox

If they’d wanted to know more, they shouldn’t have been having a shouting match in the kitchen. I was sure they couldn’t even hear the door slam as we ran from the war zone.

Christie

I can remember running. Running and running until I couldn’t breathe and I had to stop. Roxanne found us a bench to sit on and… I just started crying. I couldn’t help myself, just thinking about my dads fighting… The shouts were too loud; they hurt my ears; they hurt me. They couldn’t care if they did this to me. I didn’t want to go back, I could just run with Roxanne; run away from it all. I’d be safe; she’d protect me just like she always had because she was stronger than anybody else in the world.

I was still gasping and sobbing, but the thought of getting away was calming. I wondered if my first family had been like this, had fighting been the reason I was taken away? If it was, then why had they just put Chris and I in with more arguing people? I scraped the back of my hand across my face, stood up and stopped thinking about the past. None of it mattered since I was going to be happy and stay with my big sis for ever and ever and ever…

Robert

There was nothing to do.

Seriously, everything in town was so crap I’d ended up taking a walk through the bloody park, for God’s sake! Even there there was zero happening, so I started kicking stones about, just wasting time until the gig later on. Unfortunately for me, I had a crap aim, and I hit a little girl. I felt extra bad since her eyes were all red like she’d just been crying, which it was obvious she had just from the way the girl in front of her was acting. I stopped feeling sorry for her, though, as soon as the older one looked up.

Then I almost shit myself.

It wasn’t just daggers. That look made me go ice cold then it threw me into the centre of a volcano. I could just tell that this was a person who’d record herself killing me, bring me back, make me watch the tape then kill me again. And she wouldn’t miss a wink of sleep over it.

Then she just walked off, like nothing had happened... But maybe nothing had. Maybe I'd just seen an extremely hot girl and...freaked out, but I couldn't have imagined that look - I didn't have enough imagination for that. Then I smiled, because no matter how evil the look was, the face that held it was pure perfection. I'm normally a sort of blond, tanned type of guy but this girl...Masses of curly black hair, so dark against her white skin, blood red lips and impossibly green eyes.

I must have looked like such an idiot in the park that day...