00:06 October the 27th, 2008

I saw it, I saw it all. From the top of the stairs.  My mother and father. Their relationship slowly picking itself up and then throwing itself at a brick wall. I did this, I broke up my parents.

I had seen my father sneaking out at night after my mother had gone to bed, this happened very often. His light blonde hair and skinny silhouette gave it away. I asked my Mum if she knew about it, stupid stupid stupid mistake. She didn't know obviously, and she definitely wasn't happy about it. So she bottled it up inside of her until she properly knew and caught him in the act. That night, her mother fell asleep waiting for her husband to arrive and I stayed awake sitting on the staircase for him.

Two hours had passed since Mom went to bed, and dad's car had pulled up in the driveway. I watched him try to sneak his way to the backdoor, but I caught him. I jumped out from behind the corner. He jumped, he had planted a look of guilt on his face that he tried to mask with his all familiar look of concern.

"What are you doing out of bed so late, Quin? I will meet you upstairs, please go to bed." You could hear the desperation in his voice as he spoke in a quiet but strong whisper. His voice verging on the edge of confession. 

"I want to know where you were," I replied shakily but mustered as much confidence as I could. But he could tell that I was nervous to ask and my intelligent and dirty father used it against me. He smiled as if he had already won this battle, he was cunning.

"Oh sweetie, I was working the late shift at the hospital, a man had, umm, accidently fallen off a bridge and, umm, needed to be treated." I looked at him with disbelief. His smirk was automatically wiped from his face as he was just outsmarted by an eight-year-old. "Get to bed" he pronounced with so much force that my ears rang for a good two seconds after he had said it. He was cruel, so I showed him who he was.

"Dad, you sick creature! How dare you sneak out without telling your wife or your daughter? I will not, I WILL NOT, go to bed." And at that, everyone in the house woke up and my dad became desperate. 

"Go to bed, Quin, Please."

"No, tell Mom where you were last night." My confidence had built up inside me and was all ready to burst. 

"No," he said sadly, "I am sorry, but no." I stared him straight in the eye with what I hoped was a look of disappointment and disgust. I prepared to scream for Mom before I noticed that he had drawn his left hand back and wipe it right across my right cheek, the piercing feeling of force and then the pain. The pain that felt as if someone had just cut a singular, deep cut in my face. He had slapped me. I put my hand to my face and could feel the warm blood against my cold skin. This time I had no guilt. 

"MOM! Wake up!" 

I waited enough for my Mother to see what her husband had done to her own daughter. Once I saw the look of shock and dread come from the tired woman's face, and saw her eyes dart up to her beloved husband and then back to her daughter's face, I bolted upstairs, not wanting to be in the middle of this, which in fact, I had no choice but to be planted right in the middle. Of a fight between Mother and Father. 

1422 December the 19th, 2008

Dad has cheated, not like in a game of cards, although life may seem that way, but has cheated in a game of love. He cheated with a woman named after the devil, Scarlet. Usually, this would just affect Mum with sadness, but Scarlet was no ordinary Scarlet. Scarlet is an Adam. Scarlet and Melanie Adams. Scarlet was my auntie and My Mum's older Sister. Scarlet stole everything from my mother. Her parent's attention and affection, her job and position in society, and now, her beloved husband. And now, besides the constant feel of sadness, anger and dread, there was revenge. Stronger than any other sibling relationship fight ever. Mother hatred for Scarlet burned so high that Scarlet became a mere brick in the way of her happiness, they didn't even consider each other siblings anymore. 

This fine day, I arrived home and she was gone. I presumed she was just out to get a drink. Minutes went passed, then hours. Dread filled my stomach like a weight. A weight that an eight-year-old couldn't lift. It was six o'clock and she hadn't yet come home. I sat on the doorsteps patiently waiting. I am literally an obedient golden retriever. 

I awaited another hour before I heard it. The screech, the scream. It was deafening. The poor soul in that car, I thought. Then the car turned the corner onto our street. It was something different, something I should have seen coming. My naïve little self didn’t believe it. It was Mum’s car, and Mum’s scream. The whole neighbourhood had come out of their home, to watch, not to help. The car shakily steered its way down the road, I could see it coming. Whether it be a metre or a mile away. I saw it. Mum steered the car into the garage door, smashing it to pieces. It was like it was played over and over in slow-mo. Mum didn’t stop driving and didn’t stop. Until the whole house had been driven through. My home had been shattered, the second most important thing to me. The first was my Mum, and the car wouldn’t protect her from rooms on rooms of bottles and furniture. I ran to the car, not caring about my safety. A million things ran through my head, the main one being MUM! And the other being MY HOME! I ran in front of the car and it came to a sharp stop that didn’t look healthy. My feet took off without my consent and I ran towards the car door not bracing myself for what I will see. I wanted to believe that my mother was still alive, and she crashed because she was drinking and not because she was drunk and wanted to die. But my dreams shattered. I opened the car door and saw her, head hanging loose as if it was about to fall off her neck. Her back leaning forward and blood. Gosh was there a lot of blood. My heart sank, my scream could be heard from three neighbourhoods away.

That was the day I lost everything I had ever loved.

22:27 February the 8th, 2009

My abusive father had given me many other scars to prove my survival with. All over my legs and forearms, but the deepest still on my right cheek, deeper than the ocean. You can fill in the blanks about what he did to me, I’d rather not say, he did some horrible things. To paint a picture of abuse, it started slow, then it built and built, and after two months, blood splattered across the walls of my room in the form of bloody straight lines from the whippings. As viewed, with the devil of an auntie and an abusive father, life was an inferno.

Goodbye hell. I threw the little possessions I had into the suitcase, everything I could fit and I ran. On my way out, I snatched as much money as I could from the tinted money jar and took my last look at my home. Now it is just a house, I never lived here, not according to anyone else is what I mean. My life will be erased from them, I took all the photos of me and took as much food as I could and ran. Where I ran was unsure but I ran, ran without stop.

I followed a path lighted by the glum moon yet cheerful stars in the sky. I felt like the moon, glum and tired and wanting to stop. But the stars, or in my case adrenalin, kept me going. I guess it is bad that I compared myself the night sky, but at that stage, I had nothing else to do. The wind pushed my blonde hair behind me, waving violently. The blonde colour fluorescent in the night light. My adrenaline had run out and I collapsed into a heap of gasps and heavy backpacks on the gutter. I took a small sip of the little water I could fit into my congested backpack. I panted and watched the wisps of air disappear into the night sky. But this time, it was my night sky, not my father's, not my bitch-of-an-auntie, but the night air was mine.

I had planned to stay at the park. I have never been here and don’t really like playgrounds, so it is the perfect hiding spot. I walked the rest of the way from the gutter I rested into the grounds. The playground was made out of a wood, the colour had aged and baked in the sun. It was a sad playground, with one singular metal slide, one monkey bar set and many pathways above ground. It had a mini-tunnel where children would crawl their way on their hands and knees through from one end to another. Pathetic playground, I had no childhood, I shouldn’t stay in a place full of childhood memories. I curled up in the tunnel and laid out my belongings next to me and fell into a restless sleep. For the next couple of weeks, I would stay here. Only until the heat of my father’s search team died down and he got bored and moved on to abusing another one of his dolls. But for now, I would lay here, in the depths of the night.

I probably looked like a girl who never wanted to leave the playground, to be honest, I didn’t even care. If the scent of freedom was the stench of rotting wood and sunscreen, I’d have definitely found my special freedom.