Hailey

I burst into my father's room and instantly start rummaging in his dresser drawers, looking for his spare keys. He almost always drives his Subaru to work, but we have had another car, a Honda in the garage for God knows how long.

I don't find the keys in his drawers. They always used to be here. Where would that bastard put them?

Maybe in his closet you idiot.

Sometimes I really hate my subconscious. She's always so fucking rude.

I yank open the closet and sure enough, they are right there, hanging on a hanger. Who puts their keys there?

Your dad.

Well she's right about that.

I vaguely wonder why he decided to start putting them there. I used to sneak out for a drive on Friday afternoons because Dad worked late and that was the only sense of freedom I would ever really get. The keys were always in his dresser drawers. And he never caught me.

Well, as far as I know.

I shake my head. Now is not the time for that. My dad could be dead for all I know, and I'm standing here worrying about whether he caught me driving or not? Stupid. 

I rush out of his room and go through the door that connects to the garage. I get into the car and press the button that opens the garage door. I start the ignition and put the car in reverse and quickly swerve out of the driveway and onto the street. I close the garage before I forget and then drive in the direction of the hospital that I saw my dad was admitted to on the news.

You're probably thinking that something is wrong with me. That I should be celebrating because my dad is such an awful person and that I should be glad he got into an accident.

But you don't know... you haven't lived my life. 

I feel like I am getting every red light and it's aggravating the fuck out of me. I hit the steering wheel, causing the horn to blare and I see people looking over at the car. But I don't care. 

The light finally turns green and I speed down the road. Well, as much as I can. It's rush hour so this shit is taking forever.

When I finally get to the hospital I park quickly and basically jump out of the car. I hurry inside, my heart nearly beating out of my chest. I run up to the lady at the front desk.

She smiles at me. I want to smack that smile off of her face. 

"How may I help you, miss?" she asks, her voice fake and sickeningly sweet. 

"What room is Cain Johnson in?" I ask while panting.

"What is your relation to Mr. Johnson?" she says, the smile still on her annoying face.

"I'm his daughter."

"And your name is?"

"Hailey Johnson." Just tell me his fucking room, lady.

"May I see some identification?"

I slam my fist onto the desk, making it visibly shake. The lady is now frozen, the smile wiped off her face as she pales. 

"Where. Is. His. Room?" I growl. 

"R-room 211," she stammers.

I don't bother saying thank you. She doesn't fucking deserve it.

I go to the elevator and get inside, jabbing the '2' in the process. I tap my foot on the floor as the elevator goes up. Once the elevator is on the second floor and opens, I run out and immediately start looking for room 211. A nearby nurse stops me.

"What room are you looking for miss?" she asks politely, her attitude much more sincere than the fake woman.

"Room 211."

"Right this way," she says as she leads me through the hall. I follow her until we get to the room.

"He's right in there," she points through the doorway. "He is resting so please be very quiet and let me know if you need anything."

I find it in me to smile a tiny bit. "Thank you."

"Of course." She walks away and I go into the room. 

I look at dad. His face has several bruises on it and his bottom lip is swollen. He has a cast on his left arm and another one his right leg.

I decide to sit the chair farthest from him. Just in case he wakes up and chooses the strangle me. Even with a cast, knowing him, it is possible.

For some reason, seeing him this way brings back memories from the past. Good memories....

I was five. Mommy and Daddy and I were on vacation. They had a cabin by Lake Tahoe for us all to stay at. 

Mommy and Daddy decided we were going to have a picnic by the lake. So there we were, relaxing on the grass right after eating our food.

"Whatcha doing little bug?" Daddy asked me. I was laying down and looking at a ladybug that has crawled on my tiny hand.

"Wook daddy! I found a wittle wadybug!" I exclaimed. At the time, my Ls sounded like Ws. 

Mommy scooted closer to me and daddy. "Well isn't that a beautiful ladybug! Be careful with it."

I giggled. "I will mommy!"

The ladybug flew off of my hand. I looked longingly at it flying away and sniffled.

"Well would you look over there? I see a butterfly," daddy said.

I gasped. "Where, daddy?"

"Right over there, little bug," daddy told me, pointing to the grass a few feet away from us.

"Sh! Shh shh!" I ordered softly, pressing my index finger to my lips.

Mommy and Daddy kept quiet as I crept up on the butterfly. I was just about to scoop it up in my hands when it started to fly away.

Panicking, I jumped for the butterfly, but it was too high in the air now. I looked at Mommy and Daddy, my lower lip trembling. They rushed over to me as tears hit my cheeks.

"Oh Hailey don't cry honey," Mommy cooed while trying to comfort me.

"B-but the butterfwy-"

Suddenly I was scooped up by Daddy. I squealed as he spinned us around. 

"Daddy! Put me down!" I giggled through my tears.

He gently put me down and then kneeled by me so we were about the same height.

"Don't cry, little bug," he reassured me while wiping my tears away with his thumb. "You tried your best. That's all you can do." 

He continued. "Sometimes we need to give up. Sometimes we have reached our limit. There are times that we need to give up for our own sake and our own wellbeing. It doesn't make you a quitter. It just makes you mature enough to know when you lose."

 I blinked. "But daddy I don't wanna lose!"

He chuckled. "Losing sounds bad doesn't it? But sometimes we need to lose, little bug. That helps us grow, and learn for the next time. As long as we don't give up, as long as we pick ourselves back up. As long as we don't let our mistakes be for nothing, we'll make it."

My heart aches, remembering those things. Remembering how beautiful our family used to be. Before the abuse. Before my mom left me. Before everything.

I can't help but wonder if there was something I could have done to fix this. I think if I tried hard enough I could have prevented any of this from happening. If I had tried harder then my dad would be back to the way he was back then. If I tried harder, my mom would have never left me. She never would have died.

But I didn't try harder. And now it's my own fault that all of this is happening to me. 

I deserve it. I deserve the pain. I deserve the emptiness. I deserve to be beaten and raped everyday. I should be punished for letting all of this happen. I should be punished for letting dad turn so cruel and for letting my mom leave. 

I own this pain. It's mine and it's the only thing I can rely on having. 

***

Hey guys! 

Omg my heart was literally breaking when I wrote this chapter!

But this is important because there are people like Hailey out there. There are people who blame themselves for something that isn't their fault at all. And they think they deserve to be punished for it. It's terribly sad, but it's true.

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Please let make know what you think of it!

Love Lexi ❤️❤️❤️❤️