It's cold, dark, and I'm not wearing pants. Cool concrete against my bare feet, a breeze raising bumps on my skin, I'm dancing a little to cut through the cold. I'm regretting the underwear I chose today, tiny winged hearts displayed for the world. This entirely, probably, mostly my fault. I should have known better, I do know better.

She was a terrible idea but she was one of many. Too many terrible ideas that came before, too many of the same mistakes made. There's no excuse for repeated stupidity.

I can see my phone through the grate of the screen door taunting. It's sitting on the kitchen bench waiting for me to pick it up. But I can't. Between me and my phone is a locked door and the threat of discovery wafting from the lounge through to the kitchen. I can't hear what they're saying but she's in there spreading lies like pain over a child's drawing on the wall.

She told me to wait when she tossed me outside. Dignity would have sent me running if it weren't for the fact that she ejected me before I could grab my phone or my pants or anything that might have helped me escape. I should leave anyway, sacrifice my phone to the gods of broken romance, but I can't seem to move.

The voices from the house get louder as they move towards the kitchen. There's just enough time for me to slam my body back against the wall next to the door, hiding from view. The bricks are colder than the concrete and I think I hit a spiders web in the rush. Suppressing the urge the dance any spiders off my body, I have to cover my mouth with a hand to stop my teeth from chattering too loudly.

Stilted conversation comes from a man I don't know but still recognise. He's talking to someone, I know this but I can't hear it in his words. He's shouting angrily into the void about traffic or something equally mundane. Not complaining, accusing, there's something in his tone that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand to attention.

Shadows shift in the light reflected against the concrete. I can't see what's happening but I can tell the moment he spots my phone because his accusatory monologue stops abruptly in time with his shadow. My breath wants to be heavy, trying desperately to pant in time with my increasing heartbeat. I can't let it. I have to stay quiet.

"What the fuck is this?" he yells and I can see him in my mind picking my pink sparkly phone up and shaking it like he's making pancakes from a packet.

He's yelling and she's yelling back. I hear tears and the reflection of his shadow looks dangerous. Every instinct is telling me to run. Telling me to leave before this gets out of hand but I can't. I'm stuck still against the brick wall listening. She asked me to wait.

I feel it before it happens, like the energy of his arm being raised is visible through the wall. It's not, but the sound of bone and skin contacting. Abrupt and sudden, there's nothing I can do. I'm still frozen against the brick. Hidden next to a door I couldn't open if I wanted to.

Moments feel like hours, something happens without warning and choices are made in an instant that feels like forever. Everything slows and suddenly there's nothing but time to think things through. To wonder how it is that I got here.

She was a bad idea and I knew it the moment I saw her. She never mentioned a boyfriend but I saw him in her smile. I could try to claim innocence but I knew what I was in for. She was a bad idea I couldn't say no to.

There's silence apart from sobs. He only her hit het once, a terrible thought to have in a moment of powerlessness as I try to justify running. Try to convince myself to escape. I have nothing to offer, nothing to give. I'm not even wearing pants. I've got to get away. He only hit her once.

She's whimpering but defiant, I'm caught by her anger as she screams back at his violence. I feel like she should back down, play dead, hide away until the danger disappears but she doesn't. She fights and he hits her again. I stifle a cry in time with the impact.

This wasn't what I wanted. She was bad news and I knew it but this wasn't what I wanted. I saw the boyfriend in the glaring omissions and I pretended I didn't because I thought it was me that would be hurt. When she pushed me out the back door it was me that she hurt. Another dirty secret on a list of many.

If I'd taken my phone I would have run. Pants or no pants I would have run. I like to think I would have called for help. Asked someone to call for help at least. But I don't know. I'm not a hero. I've never been a hero. I could see the boyfriend in the cracks of her conversation and I still came, I'm still here.

Panic takes the edge from the cold, the bumps on my skin are from fear not temperature. I'm not a good person. I look like a good person. I smile at the right times, I'll listen enough to make you feel heard but I'm not good. I'm a lie. She's a bad idea but so am I.

The funny thing is she was supposed to be safe. She was a path to familiar heartbreak. Another girl hiding from herself and the world, not ready to fall in love, not ready to fall for me. She was safe.

He hits her again and she's stops shouting. I can hear laboured breaths but it's not enough. I barely know her and I don't know what to do but I have to do something.

Pulling myself away from the brick feels like playing an invisible game of tug of war with my survival instincts. I'm not even sure I'm doing the right thing. I don't know how to argue with the part of myself that seems to be right. I'm not in a position to fight, I'm not even wearing pants.

The sound the door makes when my hand hits it full force echos through my skin. The long since forgotten chill on the air returns in the silence that follows sound. I smash my palm against the screen again hoping adrenaline turns to confidence before he reaches me.

Distraction turns him toward me as I reach inside myself for any kind of strength, any hint of heroic instinct that might have been buried by years of selfish survival.

There's nothing there, just fear.

Her lip is bloody, I can see her on the floor through his legs. There's no connection, no desire. She's beautiful, of course, and flirty in a way that felt dangerous. But that's the end of it. She's there, and that's the end to it.

I'm thrown backwards by the screen door when he pushes it open. My body hits the ground mirroring the way she's spread out in the kitchen. The garden is dark, the grass is wet from the night and I'm still not wearing pants. He stomps, slowly, purposely, towards me shouting words like 'slut' and 'whore'. Words I've heard before, words I've said before, words I'd always laughed at that suddenly didn't sound funny at all.

She's not there, I look over to where she had been grounded like I was and she's not there. She'd been on the floor, starring up at me, trying to make me feel something I just didn't feel but she was there and now she's not.

He's still coming for me, it's taking forever but I can't move any faster. I'm shuffling backwards like the girl in a horror movie you know is about to die. 'Get up and run', we scream at the screen but she never does and neither do I. Standing seems to far away and the overwhelming urge I had to do something, anything, has disappeared. There's nothing left but me, and I really want to curl up on the ground until everything ends.

There's a question, on the cool air as he lifts me by the t-shirt I'm not very grateful to be wearing. 'How did we get here?' the wind asks and it's funny because the answer is easy. I know exactly how I got here.

I walked. I met a girl I knew was trouble at the supermarket buying cereal and I walked into her home knowing it would only end in pain. I didn't know the pain would come from his fist hitting my face, my legs scrambling to find footing on the ground that felt too far away. I'm screaming, I think. He's telling me to shut up so I must be screaming. I'd wonder what the neighbours think but I'm sure they've heard similar sounds coming from this house before.

The stop is sudden, like someone pressed pause on his abuse and he froze in the same second. He falls forward as I run backwards, the monster at the end of the movie finally defeated and about to crush the hero. Except I'm not a hero.

She's not either. She's still standing over his falling body her hands still in the shape of the rock she'd been holding. The rock now lying on the grass next his groaning body.

He's not dead but he can't seem to find which way is up and I'm standing straight enough to do what my bodies been begging me since she slammed the screen door in my face.

Run.

I'm already in the kitchen searching for my phone before my brain catches up and realises what's going on. My phones on the floor but still lights up at my touch, a lifeline to the world beyond this mess but I don't know who to call. I should call the police, I suppose, but I've never done that before and the only thought I'm able to grab is 'run'. I open the familiar app without thinking, it's the only thing to do.

Outside, his groaning and writhing is becoming more co-ordinated and she's still standing there holding an invisible rock.

I should go, I should run. She's the one that brought me into this mess. I'm not here to save her and I never was. Something made me step in when he seemed to be going too far but that's done. I have no place here, even if she told me to wait.

Dark curls of hair stick to the sweat of her skin, or maybe it's the blood that hasn't stopped running from her noise. I wonder if I look as bad as she does. I wonder if I still look pretty like she does. Wide brown eyes, dark skin glistening in the moisture of the night.

It's not fair really. I didn't ask for this. I walked here and I knew it was going to be bad but I didn't sign up to be anyone's hero. I never wanted to be anyone's hero. I'm the bad girl, I'm supposed to be her mistake not the other way around.

My hand wrapping around her wrist knocks her into action. She looks down at the man almost able to stand and back at me, face covered in blossoming bruises. No pants, no bra, no hope in hell. I'm not built to beat him and she knows it.

"We've got to get out of here," I say the words that could have remained unspoken. They're obvious but she doesn't understand them. I tug on her wrist and she starts to move even though she doesn't seem to realise she's doing it.

There's a gate to the left of the back door I've been eyeing as my escape route since she pushed me outside. I drag her towards it although it doesn't take much but I'm worried that if I let go she'll stop.

When we reach the drive she does stop. I'm not expecting the resistance and I almost fall to the floor for the second time that night. I save myself, spinning to face her. She's about to speak I think, about to say something, when my phone lights up and a car pulls into the drive knocking the words out of her.

She looks confused, it's hard to tell with her face swelling and the blood covering it but I can just make out the crinkle in her brow. My hand is still wrapped around her wrist, I don't know why but I'm too scared to let go. I'm not sure if it's for her sake or mine.

"Anna?" asks the driver.

He's looking at my lack of dress with concern but I don't give him the chance to object. I nod quickly and jump into the back seat. She almost falls on top of me as I drag her into the car. We both look a mess but at least she's wearing pants.

The headlights hit a figured coming through the side gate as the car backs out of the drive. My breath holds with hers, my hands still wrapped around her wrist. He doesn't move towards us, the car seems to have startled him enough to allow for our escape but even when we're speeding along the road too fast for him to catch us the fear remains. It's like I can feel him in the rearview mirror chasing us down.

Finally I look at her, for the first time really. Before she was just another bad idea. Another girl looking to experiment. Someone else running from the truth with the same mistakes. She opens her mouth to speak and I wait for all the words that should have been said, that have to be said. The screams, the cries, all of it.

"Where are your pants?" she asks.

It's too much. It's too little. It's so silly there's only one thing to do. I laugh. I laugh loudly. I laugh with so much energy that the bruises where he hit me start to hurt and then I laugh some more. Because the situation is too absurd for anything else she laughs too.

Leaning my body against hers, searching for comfort without expectation. Her head falls against mine as we breath together through the dying laughter. We let the hum of the car calm us as we consider a moment without words. A connection shared through the understanding of mistakes made again and again.

The car is dry, my skin is wet with sweat and my pants are lost forever. She's warm against my skin. This is not my fault, but its not hers either. We're both running and we'll both keep running, but for one night we ran together and it was kind of nice.