Smoke filled the room, covering her vision of the figure in front of her.
“So...wa’cha think?” a deep voice asked her.
Breathing out another puff of dark smoke, she smiled a crooked smile.
“No idea,” she leaned against the wall behind her and they carried on smoking in silence. She thought it was weed, but you never know it could have been something else – not that she cared.

Coughing slightly, she closed her eyes and felt relaxed. This was the life. Breathing in the fumes in the air she felt slightly comforted. The alcohol in her system might have had something to do with that.
There was a fit of coughing beside her and she blinked, trying to see through the clouds.

“I’m a’right,” the deep voice croaked as the coughing subsided and cleared his throat.
“Didn’t ask.”
“Wa’ever.”
Taking another puff, she shaped her lips to make circular rings of smoke...amusing herself for the most part.
Somewhere outside the room a door slammed.
“Gotta go,” there was a shuffling beside her as the figure moved from her side, slipped out the door and shut it quietly. No goodbye. Not that she expected any.
The girl continued smoking. She was in deep sh** - not that she cared, it was just a fact.

In a few minutes her mum would be walking in, smelling the odour. There would be the raising of voices. Her mum would threaten to call the police or insinuate on throwing her out the house. She would go on about ‘how why on earth did she have a child?’ and ‘I should have left you when I had the chance!”. Nothing new, nothing that had any effect on the girl anyway. It was like a basic routine. Even her ‘friends’ were used to it by now. Sneaking out just before the row began. She didn’t blame them. She wasn’t bothered.

Just then the door open, squeaking loudy. A crack of light found its way through the haze, blinding the girl.
“Wha’ the hell?” a familiar, irritating voice shrieked into the room.
“Mornin’ mum,” the girl grinned. Being polite helped she got on early.
“You smokin’ weed again?” It was more of a statement then question actually. “Or is it marijuana this time?”
“Tis the same thin’ mum,” the girl rolled her eyes, knowing her mum couldn’t see.
“Does it look like I give a damn? How many times hav’ we ta’ked bout this? D’you want me to call de police? Tell me – d’you?” The girl noted that it was the police threat this time.
“Why, oh why lord did I have a child?” The girl wasn’t amused though she had got it right. Now her mum would call her boyfriend to back her up and lecture about how much they did for her...blah blah blah...

“George! Come ‘ere!” the woman yelled behind her and a bulky form joined her side.
“Ally? Where you?” His gruff voice was louder than average and Ally flinched at the sound, turning her head away.
His rubbed his eyes, now filling with tears as a result of the fumes in the air.
“She’s in the room you moron!”
“Come on Ally, we ta’ked bout this.”
“Doesn’t she know how much I’ve done for ha’? I work my a** off everyday to give this little scum a nice home and a bloody bed to lay in – and how does she repay me? She smokes behind my back, bunks school classes and George? Ya know wha’ else? Ya know wha’ else? She been talkin’ bout me to dem neighbours again. Ya she has. Dey come by askin’ funny question, dey did.”
Ally shook her head in exasperation. Her mum sounded like a little girl snitching to her parents except unlike normal parents, George was worse.
“Ya did wha’?” George’s voice was laced with anger – this always happened before he got into one of his moods.

“Never! I did not, ma’. Ya know I wouldn’t. I didn’t go anywhere near dem neighbours!” Ally knew she made a mistake. She shouldn’t have argued back but the weed in her system messed up her mind and she wasn’t thinking clearly. That was kind of the point but not in these situations.
“Ally, come ‘ere,” he breathed loudly and unevenly.
“Why? Ya gonna’ hit me again?” she spoke back rebelliously – another mistake but it was too late now.
Her mum gasped, in an over – fake kind of way. You know when someone gasps or screams in such an exaggerated way that it’s obvious they’re lying?
“Ya little squirm! George never lay a hand on your filthy body!”

Ally grew angry. Ye right! She remember his hands against her skin, his breath by her ear, the pain and bruises all over her face and abdomen. George took any excuse to come next to her, to beat the heck out of her. He wasn’t happy until he saw blood.

“Sal, get outta ‘ere. Go ‘nd make supper,” Sal was her mum’s nickname. George’s voice was an eerie calm. Fear knawed at Ally’s heart, the weed didn’t take the raw emotion away – she learned that early on but each time she was disappointed.
“Mum-” Ally whimpered softly, too softly. Her mum walked out the room oblivious to what was happening; ignorant of what the man she shared her bed with was capable of, indifferent to the events that had to do with her daughter.
Ally gave up begging a long time ago. She breathed out her last breath of vapour.

The clouds of smoke were thinning out now. Ally could see everything. The hint of a smile on George’s lips when he approached her crouched on the floor of her room.
His arms around her when he lifted her onto her ruffled bed sheet covers. His knuckles against her temple, her ribs, her cheek bone, her nose. Blood drizzled down her upper lip and she tasted the metallic taste on her tongue. Bruises bloomed across her skin.

She cried as his nails clawed at her. Her cries were unheard as her mum turned on the happy tunes of the Beatles in the background. The walls vibrated with the sound waves and echoed through her brain. The lyrics of “Its only Love” rang in her mind, Lennon’s voice hard and true as George lay on top of her. She was grateful for the effects of the weed that dulled the pain, but she still felt. Still experienced.
His hand pushed against her hip and she was aware of his anger and frustration that radiated off of him. George took it all out on her. She didn’t suffer in silence mind you. She might have to undergo this torture on a regular basis – that didn’t mean she had to accept it.

Ally cried as her body buckled and her head hit the wall behind her. Tears slid down her face, her neck and mixed with the sweat on her body. The smoke was all but gone now but her vision was hazy and still, she was blinded. She sensed his presence against her but she wasn’t there. Her head rolled back as she left her body and went to a secret place that no one could touch, where she could feel no pain and horror of her reality. There she sat and cursed herself and her stupid mouth. There she swore to get her revenge.

Once back in her own corpse, with George still caressing her on the brink of sleep she slipped out from under his heavy weight. Naked, Ally reached under her bed for the knife she kept hidden. Groping in the darkness her hand touched steel. Lifting it high above her head she brought the blade home, a second too late. A hand hit her square in the chest and a throbbing spread through her breast.
“Nasty little rat aren’t you?” George smiled at her, taking the knife – her only hope – away from here. “Did ya really think I wouldn’t know bout that?” He laughed, enjoying her display of despair and hopelessness.

He got up to exit her room, speaking as if nothing actually happened. “Come to supper, ya mum worked hard over that stove.”
Ally crawled back to her previous place on the floor and hugged her legs to her chest. Tears were now flowing freely and she pitied herself and her situation. Her body was still tender and ached all over but she smiled. He might have found the knife but she still had a gun with a single bullet – though not for long now.