6- Friend in Skates

Editing completed

Chapter 6

SLOWLY OPENING THE DOOR, it made a cringing sound. It was mostly because of the excessive hitting and slamming. The living room was dark, and it smelled of drugs and alcohol, which was the usual smell of her living room.

Holding her things, just hoping to get around the place without feeling nauseated. She would have escaped, but guess luck wasn't on her side this time around. The light flicked on, she paused for some seconds but later on turned around to see her father.

6 foot 2 man, standing by the door with a bottle in his hand.

"Oh look! The slut is back" He slurped on his word. Kehlani flinched at the insulting name that was thrown at her. She couldn't remember the last time her father had called her by her name.

"Are you done whoring yourself? How much did you earn? Hope you earned enough for a meal. The fridge is empty" She didn't know how to respond to the insults, but she knew she had to respond quickly.

Her lips fell open to give him an answer, which she didn't have, suddenly there were shattering sounds that came behind her. She didn't need to look behind to know that he had thrown a bottle at her head, as the bottle that was in his hand was gone. He probably just missed it because he was drunk. She remembered when he broke a bottle on her head just because.

Yes just because.

Grabbing her shirt, he hurled her to the ground, trying to shield her face with her skateboard. He got hold of it and threw it across the room as he continued throwing punches after punches. He always tried to not hit her in the face but since he was drunk his punches flew to different areas; her neck, her eyes, her forehead, just different sides.

"WHEN I ASKED A GOD DAMN QUESTION… YOU F******G ANSWER" He yelled at her face. "You think you can make fun of me just because you look like your mom?"

That was the problem. Her mother died three years ago, just in her final year in junior high. She was killed by a typical drunk driver. The car leaked fuel, and it set the entire vehicle on fire, so there wasn't even a body to bury. To make matters worse, the driver wasn't caught, as he was part of a well-connected and dangerous mafia clan.

Father took a huge hit, and it affected his work, the management didn't have any other choice but to let him off work.

Her Father, Ethan, took to gambling and wastefully spent all the money they had. It didn't take a matter of two years before the money finished. He began accumulating debts from casinos and loan sharks. Whatever he was doing probably kept the debt collectors away from the house. The second year after her mother's death, the beating started.

At first, it was just, coming home late, not cooking on time, but it got worse as time passed. It got to the point that just seeing Kehlani's face aggravated him and reminded him about his dead wife.

She loved it when her brother was around, as after a year her brother became physically big and would always fight him off her.

"Dad please stop" she pleaded with tears in her eyes. It hurt everywhere.

"Next time when I ask a question, you answer" his loud voice rang through the house.

The house.

This house was purchased by her mother and her father with their earning, as they didn't want to pay rent all the years of their lives. Pulling away from her, he stepped around her, heading back to the kitchen to grab another bottle of beer.

"Make sure you clean those up, as it is your fault it was broken," Ethan ordered. With a bruised body, she stood up with whatever strength she had left. Cleaning the shattered glass from the floor and leftover wine, she immediately fled to her room for safety.

Crawling underneath her blanket as she cried. Picking up her phone to call her brother with the hopes that he would come back home soon, but it just went to voicemail.

More tears fell from her eyes as the more she tried, the more she got disappointed. Turning off her phone as she fell, asleep without bothering to wash up.

The sound of the alarm going off woke the black and white-haired girl, bringing the phone to her eye level, she could just barely open her eyes to see the screen. Sighing inwardly, she pulled the blanket from her body with such a speed that the shifted bone in her body made a cracking sound. Whether it cracked to fit it back or not, but she suddenly wasn't as sour as before.

Slowly walking to the attached bathroom, she stared at herself in the mirror. She looked terrible, and that was an understatement.

She had a black eye on her right, but the left eye was swollen and red from the aftermath of crying, She also had bruises on her cheeks, then a dash cut off on her forehead. Bending over to rinse her eyes to get rid of all the dirt in them, she could finally see, at least better than before. Lifting her shirt to wipe the water from her face, she used that opportunity to look at the bruises on her stomach and arms. They were all different kinds of shades at this point. Sighing to herself, she started treating herself.

Pulling down the first aid box. The contents were almost finished, and she had just bought them at the start of the month.

The phone alarm rang again just before she was about to start, remembering that she had snoozed it by mistake. She quickly went to turn it off, as she didn't want to give the man a reason to beat her this morning.

Dismissing the alarm, she saw her brother's missed call. He had called six times five minutes after she had called him. Going back to the bathroom to continue dressing her wounds.

By 7:30 she had fully bathed and already had a bandage wrapped around her tummy and arm, she had put iodine on her open bruise that was on her forehead as she covered it with plaster. She dressed up in a full-cover wear of big sweatpants and a hoodie. She had taken a dark shade from her brother's room.

Thank god for the late autumn season, so it wasn't weird for her to wear an oversized hoodie.

Thereafter, she began making lunch, as the last meal she had was the previous morning at Xavier's house. She quickly whipped up a simple Mexican rice with Mexican corn salad for her and her brother. She had simple bread spread with Nutella. As of 8:00 am, Kehlani had successfully left the house without meeting her father.

She had never been so happy at a success like this, not like she could smile as her cheeks were still hurting her, she just smiled inwardly as she skated her way to school. She had just 15–30 mins to get to school.

🌟

'Something is off'.

Was what went through Joaquin's mind. Kehlani arrived at school at 8:21 and placed her head on her table as she didn't want to interact or answer any questions from anybody. Hence, even when Joaquin had greeted her when he arrived just a few minutes after she did, she didn't move to respond, she just kept her head down, so he had assumed she was asleep.

But that wasn't the case anymore. She had gotten her head up immediately the teacher came in that he didn't need to wake her up. Greeted her again and just got a nod, which he found very weird. Proceeding with his everyday antics of disturbing her class like a little kid, he could no reaction or even paper thrown at him.

But what broke the camel's back was immediately the bell was rung for break, she would usually stay, and they would talk about random things, but she immediately bolted out with her phone in her hand. And that led to the current scenario.

Joaquin had followed Kehlani to see where the hell she was going and demanded her reason for ignoring him, as he could remember she was still smiling and teasing him in the music room the previous day.

"Hey Boss" A voice called out to him. Turning around with a blazing rage in his eyes.

"Didn't I tell you not to call me that in school?" he said, grinding his teeth with an irk on his head as he gripped the collar of his shirt.

"Tee hee" was all Xavier responded with. "Where are you going, even Santi left to somewhere I don't know… that fucker just up and left me, I swear when I find him I will—" Before he could finish his statement, he was pushed away.

"Ah dammit, you distracted me!!" Quin exclaimed angrily. Looking in different directions to see where she had gone, but couldn't find her.

"Who are you looking for" Xavier asked as he straightened his shirt, but his question did not grant him an answer as Joaquin left him to look for her. "HEY!" Xavier yelled as he followed Joaquin to wherever he was going.

*EDITED*