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“Okay . . .”

“Yeah okay.”

I kept driving while she told me the whole story. It felt like deja-vu. I’ve heard the same story time after time, but each one is different from the other. They always had the same people and the same bruise. It was monstrous what they did . . . What they do. They would always wait until the bruise healed until the cut closed until the scab receded. Then she would bring her into her dad’s office.

His office was massive, even though I have only ever been in there once. When the front door was wide open. I was worried that something had happened to her so I ran inside. I went down the winding hallways and entered the office. Each wall was adorned with a brown mahogany bookcase filled with thousands of old books. The ones with the pretty and intricately designed covers, most, seemingly. The bookcases stretched up all the way to the balcony. A balcony! Inside!!! The second floor, it insinuated. It was enveloped in decorations from different parts of the world. It was beautiful . . . but not at the time.

I didn’t even know that their house could hold such a large area, but that wasn’t what stunned me most. 

The most horrific scene was happening right before my eyes. I couldn’t even comprehend it. It completely bewildered me and flew right over my head, as if my mind was trying to shield me from the horrors that my eyes were perceiving.

Once I had regained the ability to think and truly believe what was happening. She was advancing towards me, and before I could run and help Sam, she grabbed my arm and was dragging me away. She pulled me through the entire hallway. She made me stand up, and punched me in the face, making me trip down the stairs of their porch and skidding across the blacktop. Leaving me with a black right eye and a scraped up face.

I had seen her being whipped with her dad's belt. Her mother was carrying out the unforgivable deed. It was always in the same place, they did that so it would hurt even more than it would if it was near untouched skin. The skin was sensitive to pain. I remember, from the time I walked in, was that she was crying and screeching. It was so hard to see. It was even harder to drop her off at home at curfew when I knew she lived with those . . . those people.

“So they . . . they did what the usually would. This time it was 20-”

“20?! JESUS CHRIST SAM!”

“The same spot. By the 10th one, it was already bleeding, but they wouldn’t,” she choked, “*ahem* they uh wouldn't stop. This time they just said I was spending too much time with you and this was my punishment. I was bleeding pretty rapidly by that point, it was soaking into the carpet beneath me, adding to the large brown stain. It seemed to give new life to the tainted floor. I hated their stares. The way they looked at me with blank eyes, it was as if . . . as if . . .”

“As if they weren’t really there,” I finished for her in stunned silence.

“Y-yeah,” she responded with a sprinkle of shock as if she forgot I was sitting in the seat next to her, driving the moving car, “My dad just watched from his little balcony like he always does. I’m pretty sure he gets some weird pleasure from watching someone bleed out.” She laughed then as if she couldn’t believe that something so messed up could be the truth.