thinking about?” he asks. This is hardly any normal circumstance so I shouldn’t really feel embarrassed to tell him what I was thinking. But somehow I do. “Just… the first time you picked Tyler up from my house…I don’t know if you remember-“ “I do. I do remember” he says. The way he looks at me makes me believe that he does remember. He remembers very well. I start to tuck a stray piece of hair behind my hair but accidentally knock the glass that’s sitting on the table. It falls to the hard tile floor and makes a crash that sounds like the loudest thunder in our silence. “God, I am so sorry!” I say with a sheepish, apologetic look on my face. “SAM! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?” a voice booms from above, I’m guessing upstairs. There’s loud thudding and I hear someone approaching us from the stairs. “Oh no” Sam mutters. He’s up and out of his chair in a flash, “Sarah, go out there, just out there, hurry” he pushes me toward a sliding glass door that appears to lead to his back yard. “I’ll be out in a second, just wait around the side of the house” I’m shoed out and he closes the door behind him. Locks it I think. Instead of going to the side of the house like Sam told me to, I dash behind a árvore so that I can still glimpse what’s happening. I can still hear the yelling, that man, it can only be his uncle, is screaming at Sam like a madman. “YOU THINK I TOOK YOU IN SO THAT YOU COULD SKIP SCHOOL AND HANG AROUND THE GODDAMN HOUSE ALL DAY? HOW ARE YOU EVER GOING TO LEAVE IF YOU DON’T MAKE SOMETHING OF YOURSELF? YOU THINK I WANT YOU HANGING AROUND FOREVER?” I hear Sam feebly trying to defend himself but he can barely get a word in, “JUST LEAVE! GET OUT! I REALLY NEVER WANTED YOU SAM, NEVER WANTED ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU OR YOUR FREAKIN KID BROTHER!” The man is advancing on Sam so he’s forced to press his body against the sliding door, in full view. To my horror Sam’s uncle punches Sam in the stomach so hard he doubles over. My breath catches and I push myself away from the árvore to intervene before this man hurts Sam again. Just as Sam can straighten out again, his uncle throws another mighty fist, aimed at his head this time, but Sam sees it coming and sidesteps it. His uncles fist goes right through the glass door, I’m momentarily thankful that it wasn’t Sam’s head, but the feeling quickly vanishes when I see the deck is littered with sharp shards of glass and Sam’s uncle roughly shoves him causing him to fall back into the broken door. I dart up to the deck now, not caring if his uncle sees me or not, to try to help Sam up. When I reach down to him I notice the nasty cuts that have already started bleeding all over his arms. His uncle kicks Sam’s backpack at him as if it’s a pile of garbage. Now that I’m this close in proximity to the fuming man I smell the alcohol that radiates from him. Sam, with surprising force and agility for what he’s just endured, pulls himself out of the glass, slings the backpack over his shoulder, and grabs my hand. His grip is strong and he leads me away from all the anger. We run and run and we don’t stop anytime soon.