Life in my shoes -pt9

My Father lived in an old Victorian style house, a huge difference to the council house that I had lived in with my mother. My room there was small but clean and bright and had everything I needed. I decided this would be the fresh start I had needed for so long, away from the almost daily arguments that my mother and Nigel were still having.
I missed Wes so much and often thought about him, where he was, what he's be doing. I would be going to stay with my mother in the school holidays and I couldn't wait to tell Wes all about my new room,etc.
I was enrolled at a local school where I made a few friends, my father seemed to be more mellowed out with me and we would spend weekends doing stuff together and go to the leisure centre in the evening so he could play squash and I could go to swimming club.Life was beginning to improve at last!
For several weeks I relished my new, quiet lifestyle, no listening to mum & Nigel fighting, no lonely days on the playground, no stress.

My happiness was short lived as my father's true colours began to show again, it began with him getting annoyed with me and telling me off, but after a few weeks his shouting turned into slaps and his slaps into throwing me around and punches. If I had been an overly naughty child I may have understood but his violence erupted from trivial things like I hadn't hoovered the carpet properly, I wasn't wearing my apron when cooking or I hadn't cleaned my bike thoroughly enough.
It became so that I was scared to do anything, I began to only do as I was told, talk to him when I needed to and just try and stay out of his way the rest of the time. His girlfriend, who also lived with us seemed to be at the receiving end of his moods too although I never witnessed any violence towards her.She would often try to stop him, which gave me time to run off to my bedroom. In-between my sobs I would hear them arguing and things being thrown around in the kitchen below.

I had a cousin who lived near by and she was unfortunate enough to see what was going on for herself. She ended up running off home to her dad in tears, who then had words with my dad. I was later told that I wasn't allowed to see her anymore, I guess her dad didn't want to get involved.
A friend who came to hang out with me also saw him beating on me and refused to come back to my house.
I was once again alone and had no one I could turn to for help.

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