Piggyback Rides

(Connor Point Of View)

Pain shoots through my body as I very slowly peel myself up from the floor, as soon as I get myself fully standing up I move over to where my clothes laying on the floor and put everything back in the box except a pair of black skinny jeans and a red t-shirt. I lift the shirt I have on over my head and drop it onto the floor. A dark purple bruise covers my stomach and ribs, next I pull off my pants, just like my stomach, it's covered in bruises. I put on the clothes I picked out.

I look over to the clock I have hanging up on my wall, It's only 5:30, school starts at 7 but it takes at least an hour to walk there. I walk out of my room, down the hallway until I get to Cali's door. I reach out with my left hand and open the door.

"Time to wake up." I walk over to her small sleeping body and poke her nose. She rolls over and pulls the blanket over her head. "Rise in shine" I pull the blanket off of her.

"Go away" She tries to reach for the blanket.

" Nope time to wake up" I carefully pull her arm to get her to sit up.

"I don't want to" Nether do I but what choice do we have, it's either go to school or stay here and watch our mom sell herself and dad doing drugs, then hitting us. I'll go to school any day over that.

Very slowly she puts her small feet on the floor and stands up. I help her take off her clothes and then put on a cute pink shirt and black leggings.

"What do you want to eat," I ask her as I lead the way to the kitchen.

"Ice cream." Not this again, she always asks even though she knows I won't let her have it. I grab the last s'mores pop tart and open it. I hand her one then keep the other for myself.

Once we're both done eating I help her put her small pink book bag on her back, then sling mine on my right shoulder. "Ready?" I smile

"Yeah" She looks like she's about to fall over and go to sleep.

"How would you like to ride on my back?" I don't want to carry her for like an hour but it's better than her walking, at least the elementary school and high school are only a block away from each other.

"Yay!" I crouch down so she can jump on my back.

" Hold on tight" she wraps so tight it makes it hard to breathe. Very slowly I stand up to make sure she doesn't fall. I walk across the living room, to the front door. I reach out with my left hand and open it. A cold blast of wind blows my hair in random directions. Just great now my hair is going to be a giant tangled mess all day. This is going to be a long walk.

I wonder what my dad did with my car, he mostly sold it so he can buy more drugs. What type does he do, I saw needle marks on this arms so maybe heroin.

About ten minutes into the walk I hear this quiet cat-like snore coming from my sister. I hope she didn't have to grow up this way, she's too young to see this stuff. I'm scared that one day dads going to hit her the way he hits me, every night I think about this, and I way to get away from it.

After another ten minutes this red car pulls over a couple of feet in front of us, it looks familiar.

Levi opens the passenger side door and steps out. "I'm going to guess your walking to school. Why don't you let me give you a ride?"

I don't know why but I have this weird feeling when I'm around him, I don't even know how to describe it other than magic. I don't understand, why he started talking to me all of the sudden. "Thank you so much." I quickly walk over to the car, as Levi opens the door. He picks Cali off my back and gently puts her in the car and puts the seat belt on her.

"What happened to your eye and jaw?" He softly touches my jaw with one of his fingers.

"It's a long story." I give him a fake smile.

He lends forward and softly connects his lips to my jaw. My skin tingles where his lips are. He pulls away and I have to stop myself from whining. "A kiss to make it better." I have to remind myself that he's most likely playing with me, no one like him would talk to me. He walks around the car and opens the back seat on the passenger side for me. "Come on, get in." I do as he says and he shuts the door before climbing in the passenger seat.