Ellie crouched down

Ellie crouched down behind the deck and tried to breathe as softly as possible. Her knees gently grazed the ground as the sounds of her parents shouting filled the air for the second time this week.

"Not this again! Oh, you just love to throw that in my face!" her mother screamed while laughing hysterically. "One time, it happened just once but you just can't fucking let it go, can you?"

Ellie couldn't see where they were standing but it seemed to come from the backyard. She wished she hadn't come home. In fact, today she was supposed to be playing with her friend, Michelle, today. She lived down the street, and they often played in her pool on Saturday mornings. But today, Michelle's mom had told her that Michelle wasn't feeling good, so Ellie had come home.

"Annie, can you please lower your goddamn voice? We have neighbors." her father said.

Maybe I can just walk over to the park, it's only a few streets over, Ellie thought, feeling an overwhelming urge to not be home at the moment. She peeked above the brown slabs of the deck to see her parents stand facing each other, her mother with her arms crossed and her father pointing his finger at her. Ellie turned back around and gazed absently at the vegetable patch that her mother spent hours every day tending. She didn't like vegetables and didn't understand why adults constantly took it upon themselves to force it down theirs and everyone else's throat. If it was up to her, everyone would eat Kit-Kat bars and ice cream every day. It always put her in a good mood and maybe would make everyone happy too.

It didn't look like her parents were going to be done any time soon. She crossed the yard  behind the deck on all fours until she reached the front yard. She was going to the park. Her parents could go on for hours before they both retreated back inside, her father to his office, and her mother to their bedroom. The house was always eerily silent afterward. Ellie couldn't even turn on the television. Well, they never told her not to, but she felt so supremely uncomfortable in the midst of their discomfort, that she felt bad.

Ellie crossed the street and began walking to the little park that all the neighborhood kids came after school to play in. She tried to walk in a straight line, making sure to step in every concrete slab in even steps. When she was younger, she had to take two giant steps to make sure the steps were even, which ensured that she was always leaping instead of walking in normal steps. But recently, Ellie had started to notice that she was able to walk quite normally even though she was stepping in even steps.

The sun warmed the back of her head as a chilly gust of wind blew on her bare legs. Ellie was wearing her _______ shorts even though her mother had told her not to wear those in the cold. But she had wanted to show Michelle the holographic design on the shorts

To be continued...