"Julian, Julian. Please let me play?”

“Of course Amelia,” Julian smiled throwing the ball over to me. I managed to catch the ball in time without it slipping through my fingers.

“Nice catch,” Julian said. I smiled with triumph.

After a little while of playing catch with Julian, I went back inside the house to get myself a drink. I noticed my father was there, he was waiting. I didn’t say anything when I walked through the door. He moved closer to me as I poured my drink and stopped right behind me. His body was pushed against me so I couldn’t move.

“Dad,”

“How many times do I have to tell you?”

“I wanted to play with Julian.”

My father pushed his body harder against me that I was leaning on the counter. His hands gripped my wrists and pinned them down.

“What do you say to me?”

“I have nothing to say.”

He let go of one my wrists and gripped my hair pulling my head back. He frightened me, he always did. He pulled my head further back when I didn’t reply. I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that,” he said with his breath hot on my skin. Again, I didn’t say anything and his hand got tighter around my wrist as he let out a grunt noise. He closed his eyes taking in a deep breath, when he opened them he pushed my head forward with full force which collided with the counter.

◎

I woke up from my nightmare. It’s one I’ve not had in a very long time. I sat up in my bed with my hands shaking; glancing around my room to make sure no one else was visible. My body fell back and my head hit the pillow. I stared up at my ceiling thinking how long ago that happened in my family. I’ve not had a dream like that in years, ever since it was finally over. I’d got out from my bed and headed into my spare room where I like to paint. I hung up a plain canvas and chose different coloured paints. I squeezed them onto my paint palette and picked up a brush, the largest one I had. With the paint palette in my hand, I dipped the brush into the red and started to smear it onto the canvas in circular movements. I dipped the brush again but in blue, this time making my movements quicker and quicker. The colours started to collide making a horrible brown but I didn’t care. This time I swirled the paintbrush in all of the colours and started doing circular movements on the canvas. Next I threw the palette at the picture along with the paint brush. I grabbed the tubes of paint and squeezed them tight against the canvas, they squirted everywhere. There was paint all over my face and clothes but I didn’t care.

I started to hit the tubes against the canvas, spraying colour all over the place. Then I kicked the easel the canvas was sitting on and knocked the whole thing over. The tears started to fall as I fell to my knee’s covering my face with my paint stained hands. I was restless all night, well mostly my legs. I couldn’t keep still and I couldn’t stop thinking about what Evan had said to me. He wanted to start a fresh, but I didn’t know if I could trust him. He said he liked me in that way, but why did he still go back to that girl? I didn’t understand. I did ask him to prove himself to me, so I would just have to wait now. How could I be sure he wouldn’t do it all over again?

I decided to take a shower as I was still covered in paint, after having a breakdown I finally calmed down. The shower water was hot, but I’ve always liked it like that. I removed all of my clothes and stepped inside the steaming box. The water landed onto my skin and it felt refreshing, letting my face get covered in hot water.