Loyalty

    It's been about two weeks and Jonathan and I still haven't talked. I've started going to parties with Sarah out of spite. Although I wish I could just ask for my promise ring back and kiss and make up. I still have my cell since he paid for it already and I'm back talking to all my old friends. During one of the parties Aaron calls to see how I'm doing and that throws me for a loop. At another party we run into Jonathan and although he doesn't talk to me he manages to keep any guy from talking to me so we leave early to go to the after party and after he follows us there I go home. At home the amount of time I am spending there is wearing my step dad's nerves thin. He has moved us into the townhome next door to ours and in the process left me without a room and no where to go when he starts drinking.
    On one night in particular he is not drunk but in one of his moods nonetheless. He is picking my mom apart. Pinching her arms, stomach, legs telling her how flabby she is. (My mom has always been about 100lbs which still seems super skinny on her 5'2" frame) Finally I can't take it anymore. I walk into the kitchen and poke his shirtless gut, pinch his arm "Really? Really? You with your beer belly and rail thin arms are making fun of her? Give me break!" I've woken the beast. He's in my face screaming, poking me backwards. My mom starts screaming when he grabs me by the arm. I shove him off me. My brother comes running down the stairs begging me to stop, not to make him mad. My mom is trying to pull him away from me but he tries to shake her off and backhands her in the process. "Just go!" She is telling me, I'm making things worse. I go outside and our neighbors are already outside their houses, but he is relentless. He follows me out and shoves me from behind. I stumble forward and turn around. I've had enough I get back in his face. I can't hear my mom screaming anymore just white noise. All I can see is his red face and every horrible memory I have of him on top of me. Everything in me wants to hit him, but that's what he wants. With every step he takes forward the closer I get to the busy street behind me. I hear horns behind me and see my mom and all the neighbors on the phone. He cocks his hand back to punch me but suddenly he whips around and I don't know why. Then I see him, Jonathan. My step dad swings at him and Jonathan bobs out of the way. "Calm down!" He shouts and puts his hands up in surrender. My step-dad backs him into the street and swings again, Jonathan ducks. My step dad is getting gassed from missing. He turns and walks into the house but not without the last word "Next time I'll beat your ass you stupid bitch!" Jonathan comes up and asks me if I'm OK, I lie and say yes. He says OK and walks back to his apartment. I sit there on the curb under the street light. The sun has already set and I have no clue where to go. My mom comes out with a jacket, my cell phone and charger signs to me sorry and that she loves me through tears and walks back inside. I understand, he pays the bills and she has two small children to think about. I'm  6 months shy of 18, I need to fend for myself.
    I walk around the block, use the restroom at Denny's and go back to my spot on the curb. I don't know what to do but I refuse to cry. I don't know anyone out here but Sarah and Jonathan. Sarah's mom doesn't want to "choose sides" she says and I don't dare ask Jonathan. I contemplate calling my dad....I dial the number, my sister answers. I haven't heard her voice in so long. I sit there just to hear her say hello. She finally hangs up and I give in to my tears. What makes me so undeserving of kindness, or love? To be a part of my own family? What makes me so disposable? I used to think that suicide would make them understand how much I am hurting, how lonely I feel. But I'm gone, I've been gone and no one has cared to find me. A set of parents, a set of step parents, 5 siblings but I'm an orphan. I have no place to call home. I sit out in the cold air of the desert we live in feeling like my fingers and nose are going to fall off. "Where are you going to sleep?" Jonathan texts me. "Don't worry about it" I text back. I sit there with a numb butt, freezing and wishing I wasn't so stubborn.
    I hear someone walking towards me for like the umpteenth time and have given up raising my head to see who it is. Then I see them out of the corner of my eye, blue and white cortez and bright white socks. "Come on" I hear Jonathan say. I look up and he's holding out a pendleton jacket. I shake my head no. He lifts me up by my armpit. I follow him, huddled up inside his jacket, as he walks ahead of me. He stops abruptly and a big black Chevy Tahoe with blacked out windows pulls up in front of us. He opens the door for me, I shake my head no. I know who that car belongs to, it's not someone I want to be associated with, not a face I want to know. He places his hand on the small of my back and guides me in. I feel so out of place. More than I do at any of their gang's parties. Maybe because I'm sober. I keep quiet, more so not to draw attention to my makeup streaked face than from intimidation. We pull up to a Motel 6 that's two blocks away from my house. Jonathan hands ****** money and he gets out to get a room. Neither Jonathan nor I are old enough to purchase one on our own. As we walk up to the room we see a cuffed half naked girl being escorted to a police car and a bunch of men cat calling her from the story above. "I'm staying with you" Jonathan tells me. I act annoyed but I'm relieved.

*Originally written January 20th 2012