We Are All Sinners

'One year, just one year left in this house' I said to myself as I heard my father's murderous footsteps cross the small trailer where we lived to my closet of a room.

"Aria! Aria, you Piece of shit!" 

His voice rang loud and shook my ear drums to the core I curled up into myself clinching my eyes shut to pretend like this wasn't happening again.

"Aria! Get the FUCK up!"

He yelled out as he kicked my flimsy door in. My body trembled as I shot up and scooted myself back into the corner of my twin bed furthest from him. It wasn't fast or far enough as his wide hand raised above his left shoulder and then swung towards my face leaving a taste of blood in my mouth. I knew that this beating wasn't going to end well. The way his breathing hitched, and his eyes darkened like he could kill me and love it.

"Dad no please I- I didn't do anything" I cried out as my hand covered my stinging cheek and busted lip. I knew it would leave a bruise it always did. Just one more to my collection of trials and tribulations. I tried to stay strong and keep my head from bowing to his abuse.

"You are a shitty excuse for a daughter, what do you mean you didn't do anything!?" he asked malice in his voice as he grabbed me by my hair dragging me to the kitchen. He opened the fridge with his free hand. I could see there was all of three can cokes and a packet of bologna in there everywhere else was barren. Well beside a few expired condiments and a empty carboard box that should have housed his beer bottles. Her grabbed my face by the jaw now making me look closer into the fridge I could smell the cigarette smoke laced in the skin of his fingers.

"You are telling me you don't see what's wrong here! Where the fuck is my beer, Aria! You think you can steal from me and not have me noticed!" Tears threatened to push out has his grip tightened making just another bruise. The smell of alcohol from his breathed filled my senses, my teeth grinding as I held back every yelp, whimper and begging my body wanted me to give into. I wouldn't do that I couldn't do that.

"It wasn't me dad! You drank it I don't want your beer I promise." I yelled towards him unable to keep the fear out of my voice. I shouldn't have said anything instead it should have held my tongue and just nodded or maybe did nothing? I'm not sure anymore, ever since mom left us and we lost everything, including our house my dad can't be caught sober. It's like he is allergic to a sense of self-respect and instead blames me for everything we loss. He acts as if I was the one secretly cheating on mom and drove her out with the infidelity. No instead I was the one abandoned with this monster.

At first it would just been him drinking till he passed out, that was easy to handle even when he lost his job due to him never going in. Then it grew to yelling, then slapping and now its beatings. The last month has been the worst it's been summertime and with me not having school my dad saw no reason to go easy on me. It's only been a year, and in that year, we went from a happy family in suburban house; to living in a single wide and not an ounce of love in the whole place. 

"Disgraceful liar! Just like your whore of a mother!" He tightens the grip on my hair and threw me towards the sink. I tried to catch myself with my hands, but I missed just barely and knocked a glass the floor breaking it. My body froze in fear as the glass hit the tile and the look in my dads' eyes went from pissed too murderous. It took him one stride to reach me grabbing me by the neck and throwing me to the floor.

"You steal my beer and break my cups! Do you have no ounce of respect in that stupid little head of yours!" I let out a yelp as my head hit the ground and my arms and chest were cut by the glass. I fought the tears again not wanting to cry, crying meant weakness and I couldn't be weak I just couldn't. I felt a boot meet my stomach making me want to let my nonexistent dinner go on the floor. Reactively I rolled into a ball trying to protect my soft spots as more kicked meet my body.

"Dad please stop!" I yelled out through the chaos of never-ending blows to my body. "STOP? You want me to stop?" He reached down grabbing me by the throat picking my up by it. I grasped his wrist and forearm trying to ease the pressure that was stealing my breath as he moved us to the front door. He opened the door and tossed me out into the cold wet rain. I tumbled off the steps and into the mud below. My skin yelled as the water seeped into the bleeding cuts from the glass. My black and blue face aching from the cold breeze, while the thunder caused my skin to raise.

"Stay the fuck out of my house and out of my sight next time I see you I put you six feet under where you mother should be!" When I heard the door slam shut, I forced my body to move. When I finally got up and could get to my feet, I walked towards the road clutching my stomach in pain. I made it to the end of the dirt road when I fell over again and rolled into the ditch. I could barely move I tried to fight the cold and screaming pain coursing through my body. Yet the night shorts and small tank top didn't do much to combat the problem.

When I realized I couldn't move anymore I gave up and laid there facing the sky. As the rain pelted my face, I let the water mix with tears until I could no longer fight the urge to pass out. My blurring vision went dark, and that night was the night I thought the ditch would be my grave.

-One Month Later-

"Jody, we need more Jack from the back!" Yelling over my shoulder at the owner of the local biker bar called 'JAYs". I think it was after his dad, but I don't tend to ask many questions when the man that hired me pays me under the table and gives me a place to sleep upstairs after I was kicked out from my house.

I was happy to be alive and even happier Jody let me work here even though I was underage. We made a deal if cops show up, I lie and say I'm 21 and he would claim I forged my documents. Which technically wasn't wrong he did set me up with fakes under the name AJ Toma and keeps them in the back under a file named 'Potential hires' so he can claim I wasn't officially hired but was doing a interview. He was always covering his ass, but I respected it.

A few moments later Jody had come from the back of the house with four handles of Jack and set my on the counter behind the bar. "Here ya go darlin any more request?" Jody spoke with a thick southern accent it was hard not to swoon when he called me darlin especially with his looks. He was 6'1" tan and had dirty blonde curly hair that sometimes covered his green eyes in a way that made me want to move it just so I didn't lose sight for his features. I smiled to him and grabbed a handle opening it and pouring it into a glass with too much ice and too much coke; but hey I was saving the bar money and I wore my low-cut black t-shirt with my white short shorts. Soo I was still getting paid the same. 

"No sir I got it covered up here, but you did get an order for your famous steak sandwich." I shot him a smile as I slide the jack and coke over to the burly male waiting almost impatiently at the bar for his sixth drink. Jody walked over to me and bent down just so he was at the perfect height to whisper into my ear where I could only here him. "How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling men sir, in this bar that will get you into a world of trouble."

He pulled back to look into my eyes and slipped his hand under my chin, so I tilted up a little. "Even I have limits to my own control and while I may only be four years older you are still jailbait darlin." I blushed a little stuck my tongue out at him. "Shut up you know I say it out of respect for you. You practically saved me." I shoved his shoulder playfully and turned to grab a glass to make a pint of beer for the costumer yelling his older for the eight time.

"Hold your damn horse's Frank! Boss man was talking!" I yelled to the man at the end of the bar, a regular with a nasty habit of a short temper. From behind me I heard Jody chuckle and walk off. I ignored the want to look at him again knowing my face would still be red. 'Damn why couldn't my dad have kicked me out a year later so I could jump Jody's bones' I thought to myself. I mean not that I actually would I'm a virgin with zero experience in anything. I haven't even kissed a man but that doesn't stop me from Fantasizing... I mean the man is gorgeous.

As Jody left and Frank scarfed down his beer I continued to work like every other day since I was taken in here. It wasn't always easy work and being around drunks meant I had to keep my head on tight and not be a push over, but it was better then with my dad. At least here I felt safer and something about being a bartender at a biker bar made me feel like a badass.

Most the men in here were in Jody's biker group so they knew they couldn't touch me, and the others that weren't in Jody's group were stopped before they could try. I wasn't so much part of them, but I also wasn't not part of them?