“Today was just another one of those days. I woke up, left the house as quickly as I could’ve, walked around my neighborhood, and when I came back, he was still here. He never leaves; just sits on the couch with another bottle of beer in his right hand, and the TV remote in his left. I never knew what made him this way. He is my dad’s brother, so there shouldn’t really be anything wrong with him. I guess since the accident, I never really knew him well enough. Everyday, I ask myself why I’m not scared of him. I still don’t know wh-”
Sixteen-year-old Violet Morrison quickly shuts her journal as she hears her 36 year old sluggard of an uncle make his way up the flight of stairs leading to her attic room. He throws open her bedroom door and walks up to her desk where she is seated.
“Violet,” he grumbles.
“What do you wa-,” she feels a sudden sting on her cheek, followed by a rush of heat.
“Go to the gas station, and buy me a pack of cigs.” he spits at her.
She stands up grabs her bag, and makes her way to the stairs. As she’s about to take her first step down, her uncle grabs her by her slender upper arm and pulls her close to him. “And don’t ever respond to me in that way ever again,” he said while shoving her away.
She quickly descends down the stairs and leaves the two story ivory-bricked house her grandparents built for themselves when they got married. Now Violet only sees the house as a reminder of her parents who were the victims of a fatal car accident in their town last fall. It was now the end of summer, so Violet instantly regretted not grabbing a sweatshirt before she left for the gas station in 50 degree weather only wearing light long sleeve.
Walking out of her neighborhood seemed so foreign to Violet. The only time she ever really leaves “Hampton Grove” on her own is when she misses her bus and has to walk to school or whenever she needs to get something from the convenience store across the street.
“Can I see your ID?, ” questioned the clerk at the gas station. According to Violet, he was no older than 19 years old.
“Yeah sure, sorry,” Violet replies after being zoned out while still scanning the guys face.
“Is there a problem?” he follows up with.
“No, you just look so familiar,” she blurts out while looking down at her once white converse and biting on the sleeve of her thin, long sleeve shirt. “What’s your name? I mean- you don’t have to answer, but I-
“Jared.”
“Jared Ronson?” Violet asks. Her attention is now locked on his deep brown eyes.
“Yep,” he replies while turning around to grab the pack of Marlboros off the shelf behind him.
He sets the pack down on the counter between them.
“Is that it?” Jared asks Violet.
“Yeah um, thanks,” she replies quickly as she grabs the pack and rushes towards the door.
“Bye, Violet,” he sighs, causing her to stop walking for a quick second. She looks down at her shoes again, but manages to pull herself back together and walk out of the gas station without saying another word.
She walks all the way home in utter darkness; only accompanied by the chirping crickets and flickering streetlamps.
As she opens the door to her deceivingly beautiful home, she is welcomed by the stench of stale cigarettes.
“About damn time, Violet,” her uncle snarled.
“Sorry, I cou-”
“I don’t need your stupid excuses,” he says while snatching the cigarettes out of her hand and walking back to the couch.
Violet scurried up the stairs, and got ready for bed as it was now 11.20pm. After throwing her long caramel-colored hair up into a ponytail, she sat down at her desk where she decided to finish her journal entry from earlier.
“I still don’t know why I’m not even scared of him,” she finished off the sentence. “Maybe it’s just because I see a little bit of my dad when I see him. Or maybe it’s just simply the fact that he wasn’t always this shameful excuse of a person.”
She finishes the entry and softly places her journal back into her bag. After tucking herself into bed, she shuts off her lamp and stares at the blinking light of the smoke alarm wonders what tomorrow will be like for her.
“Probably just the same,” Violet mumbled while slowly dozing off.
About seven hours later, Violet is woken up by a rattling car motor.
“Are you kidding me?” she says while looking at her alarm clock that indicates the time being 6:40. Her usual time to wake up is usually about ten o’clock.
She shuffles her feet across the floor to the bathroom where she manages to get herself looking partially presentable. She then goes downstairs, grabs herself a cup of coffee, then leaves the house to go on her “somewhat daily” walk through the neighborhood. Before leaving, she made sure to wear a scarf to cover pale pink markings left on her neck from early spring and the fresh bruise on her lower cheek from the previous night, but she forgot.  As she made her way down the street of her neighborhood, she discovered the source of her dreadful wakeup call. 
“Hey Violet,” a voice came from behind the old mustang parked in the driveway behind her.
She turned around to see Jared, the clerk at the gas station from last night, covered in motor oil with a rag in his hand.

“Oh, hi,” she replied while slowly crossing her arms.
“Why are you up so early?” he asked while checking his watch.
Violet glared at the car’s exposed motor under the hood.
“Oh, um. Sorry, I just wanna get this thing going for today.” He scratched the back of his neck.
“What’s today?”
“Going downtown to the new park to take some pictures. Ever been?”
“Have I ever been downtown? Or the new park?”
“Either.”
“No. I haven’t gone to the park or downtown... ever.”
“Wanna come?”he said while he started to pull some wires.
Violet looked at him with a concerned look on her face.
“I could really use an assistant. And, I mean, what could go wrong?,” he said to support his question.
“I-I-I just haven’t really left the town since last fall,”she said while looking down.
“Who not?” he laughed.
Just then, he seemed to have pulled a wire that made the car start.
“I’ll tell you when we get there,” Violet said softly while still glaring at her shoes.
She looks up with a soft smile and her grey eyes, that Jared remembered once being blue, were glazed with tears.
“What time will you be ready?” Jared asks while wiping his hands into the rag.
“I just have to grab my bag from home then I’m good to go.”
“Alright, just walk in through the back door when you’re ready. I’m gonna grab a quick shower.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll see you later?” she said while turning around slowly to walk back home.
“Bye Violet,” Jared replied with a smile, waving with the oil stained rag.
Violet made her way back home, went up the stairs,  while managing to avoid waking up her uncle, who happened to still be passed out on the couch. She grabbed her bag, threw her journal into it, and looked in the mirror. She noticed that her white v-neck exposed too much of her neck, and that her bruises were visible. She sighed heavily then threw on a scarf. Although it was relatively warm out, she’d wear anything to hide her marks.
“I’m going out” She called to her unicle while running down the stairs.
He grumbled while stretching on the couch.
“K,” and went back to sleep.
Violet approached Jared’s house, but didn’t see him outside.
“Riiiigggghhhhtttt,” she said while walking towards the back door of his red brick house. “Just walk in when you’re here..” she mimicked Jared’s voice.
Hoping that Jared was done with his shower, Violet crept up the stairs nervously.  Just as she took her last step, Jared popped his head out of the door of his room.
“Hey,” he said to her with an even bigger smile than before.
“Hi, again,” Violet replied while walking into his room. “Your room hasn’t really changed much since we were little,” she chuckled.
“Well I mean; I kinda just put pictures up to hide the blue and green stars,” he laughed while staring at the walls of his childhood room.
There was a brief moment of silence while both Violet and Jared glanced at the pictures on his wall.
“Ready to go?” Jared finally said to break the silence.
“Mhhm,” Violet said while nodding once and looking into her bag to make sure that her journal was still there.
Violet and Jared got into the car and drove for 40 minutes to the city. The car ride was pretty silent aside from the sound of the morning radio station.
“Uhh, how long have you been doing photography?” Violet said to break the silence. “When we were younger I remembered you only liked being the subject of the picture” she exhaled a subtle laugh.
“Well, my parents got me a camera for 8th grade graduation, so I felt bad if I didn’t really use it. But then I started taking it everywhere I went, and there was always something to capture.”
Violet smiled at him.
“Ready to go?” He replied while slightly chuckling and getting out of the car.
“Yeah!” Violet excitedly replied while fixing her scarf.
“Wait, it’s 75 degrees out! Why are you even wearing a scarf? He laughed while pulling it off of Violet’s neck and shoulder.
“Vi.” he said bleakly.
“W-w-what,” she stammered while she hurriedly put the scarf back on her neck.
“Is this your uncle doing this to you?”
“Y-yeah. It’s fine, I’m fine.”
“No, you can’t have this happening to you.” he angrily said while getting back into the car.”
“Where are we going? We just got here,” said Violet while pulling him out of the car.
“No, get in.”
Violet finally gave in and sat down next to him. The whole ride home she said nothing, and Jared’s eyes were set on the road.
“Slow down,” Violet managed to finally blurt out.
No reply.
“Jared. Slow down.”
Still nothing.
After 20 more minutes of speeding down the highway, Jared pulled into Violet’s grandparent’s house. Jared forced the car into park, and got out.
“What the hell.” she said under her breath.
Violet ran in after him, and threw the door open.
She saw Jared fling himself at her uncle who clearly was too drunk to think about anything.
“Stop!” she screamed at the top of her lungs while reaching for her phone to call 9-1-1.
----
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
“There’s a fight at my house, that my uncles involved in. He’s extremely dangerous, please help.”
“Okay, we’re on our way. Hampton Grove?”
“Yes.”
Jared finally backed off after a few minutes and Violet saw her uncle, almost lifeless, on the ground. For the first time, in a long time, she actually felt free. She turned to Jared, who was also covered in blood, and let out a sob.
“Thank you” she said with slight regret.
         ----
The next thing she saw was police officers taking her uncle off the ground and throwing handcuffs on him. Jared sat next to her on the stairs with his arm around her and a blanket around both of them. She felt so much relief knowing that she wouldn’t have to live with that monster anymore. A tear fell down her cheek.
  ----
       The last thing Violet heard was the sirens travelling out of her neighborhood.
Those sirens developed into her annoying alarm clock, and Violet woke up at her usual time of ten, shuffled out of bed, got ready, made her way downstairs, and saw her uncle on the couch, sleeping, surrounded by, of course, more cans of beer.
She thought about the dream she had last night and muttered, “I wish.”