Lysander was restless. He had been lying in his threadbare mattress for hours, waiting for his foster parents to go to bed. His foster father came home intoxicated again, so he and his foster siblings quickly hid away in their bedrooms while their foster parents screamed at each other.
It started out the same as all the other arguments:
"You're drunk again?!"
"I'm not drunk, I only had one beer after work!"
"You smell like a fucking brewery!"
"Don't start with me you useless bitch!"
Then their fight would go from how he was an alcoholic, to she's not a good enough wife, to money, to the foster children, until he usually hit her, or she retreated to the bedroom where he would either fall asleep on the couch, or eventually follow her with false apologies and rough sex.
Tonight he hit her again, and afterwards it had become eerily quiet. Their foster father grumbled and broke things for a while, until he finally stumbled into the bedroom he shared with his wife. Lysander had waited for at least 2 hours before he decided to escape.
When he figured it was safe, he grabbed his backpack and quietly snuck out of his bedroom. The backpack wasn't full of much. Just a loaf of bread and jerky that he had swiped from the kitchen when his foster mother wasn't paying attention, a few pairs of socks and underwear, a thin blanket, and an extra outfit.
He tiptoed into the hall and turned into the living room. It was a mess, a broken vase lay on the floor, its dried flowers littered about within the cracked ceramic, the unread books on the bookshelf had been thrown onto the floor. It looked like a tornado had gone through, and lying amongst all of it was his foster mother. Was she dead? He couldn't tell. He timidly approached her, bent down and placed two fingers on her throat. There was still a pulse, she was just unconscious. He sighed a sigh of relief, stood up, and slipped out the front door and into the night.
It started out the same as all the other arguments:
"You're drunk again?!"
"I'm not drunk, I only had one beer after work!"
"You smell like a fucking brewery!"
"Don't start with me you useless bitch!"
Then their fight would go from how he was an alcoholic, to she's not a good enough wife, to money, to the foster children, until he usually hit her, or she retreated to the bedroom where he would either fall asleep on the couch, or eventually follow her with false apologies and rough sex.
Tonight he hit her again, and afterwards it had become eerily quiet. Their foster father grumbled and broke things for a while, until he finally stumbled into the bedroom he shared with his wife. Lysander had waited for at least 2 hours before he decided to escape.
When he figured it was safe, he grabbed his backpack and quietly snuck out of his bedroom. The backpack wasn't full of much. Just a loaf of bread and jerky that he had swiped from the kitchen when his foster mother wasn't paying attention, a few pairs of socks and underwear, a thin blanket, and an extra outfit.
He tiptoed into the hall and turned into the living room. It was a mess, a broken vase lay on the floor, its dried flowers littered about within the cracked ceramic, the unread books on the bookshelf had been thrown onto the floor. It looked like a tornado had gone through, and lying amongst all of it was his foster mother. Was she dead? He couldn't tell. He timidly approached her, bent down and placed two fingers on her throat. There was still a pulse, she was just unconscious. He sighed a sigh of relief, stood up, and slipped out the front door and into the night.
