Her eyes

I remember that night when it got really bad. It was a long time ago but I've never forgotten like you did. I'd had done something wrong, like always, and you were on my ass about it, again like always. You screamed and yelled and hit me, crying about how you were the victim. You told me that you hated me and how your life would be so much better without me. You put your firm grip on my hair and dragged me to my bedroom and made me get my shoes on and then get in the car. We drove. I wasn't listening to you, I knew where we were going, driving on the same main road we do to go anywhere nowadays. I remember the silent tears streaming down my face as I looked ahead out the windshield, trees and houses flying past with a background of black.

"You're not even going to try and get me to not drop you off?!"

No, I wasn't. There was no reconcile with you. I thought about all my friends and how I would never see them again. Mikey, Alan, Toby...I closed my eyes and sighed, they would probably get new friends anyways, we were only in sixth grade. I still just looked forward with a dead stare. But I was snapped back to what you were saying when you struck me across the face from the driver side. My hand zipped up to cup the left side of my face as a fear stricken look came up. I finally looked at you..and you were crying. You were. I muttered out a lie.

"I'm sorry."

You proceed to bitch on, ignoring me like always. I looked forward again, my hand retiring to my lap as I looked at the donaho children's center sign as you pulled in. This was it. Would this be better or worse than my life now with you? To be honest, I didn't know. I didn't even have a clue. You drove down the dirt road, both hands gripped on the steering wheel. We passed the main office, the lights were off and you complained how you were going to have to turn around to see if they were open. We got to the turnaround.

 My eyes locked on a deer eating grass when we got there. Your headlights enveloped it in light. The doe lifted its head up and froze - quite literally deer in headlights. Its ears were pirked up and I could see its muscles under it's light brown fur. Its hooves were big and black, if I hadn't been able to see the top of its head, I would've assumed it was a buck with how big it was. I could feel its eyes burning into me. They were beautiful. Her eyes were big and round, emerald green. They looked like big milky green saucers. In their wholeness, there was really no detail in them - like if you were on some coloring app and you color filled a blank space. No dimensions, no shading, just pure flat color. I don't know what it was about her, but it just made me feel. I  stopped crying, and just felt tiered. Tiered of you, of the world,of living, of having to go through the same shit with you everyday. But in a way, it also gave me hope, hope that it would maybe get better. She blinked, and you began to turn around. It was only a few seconds, but it felt like several minutes. They ended up being closed, and you got on my ass for that too on the way 'home'.

When we moved to where we live now a few years later, I checked the mailbox one day. There was no mail, but there was a trinket. It was a faintly heart-shaped stone. I really couldn't tell the exact colors from the dust but I could see it had a small metal loop on the top. I took it in to wash it. As I did as soon as the dust and dirt washed off of it my breath caught in my chest. It sat in a small pool of water in my hands, and it was the same as her eyes. It was milky green, with streaks of even lighter green. It was her. Her eyes exactly. I almost cried right there. She was the first thing I thought of, and she still is whenever I put on that necklace. I try to wear it as often as I can, for her. I want to go back to that spot one day, when things get better and I'm away from you, so I can see the spot where my life almost turned upsidedown. So I can finally know I'm free.