It was winter in Jersey. The wind was cold and wet, all a little bone-chilling. I was nine. The prime of my childhood. I had love for everything, love for the world, and even those who hurt me the most. I had just found out the man who had been raising me, was not my real father, and that my mother was cheating on him. Too much for my developing mind to handle. I wasn’t sure how to react. So I didn’t. I was silent. It was New Years Eve, my younger siblings slept, and I sad quiet in the living room, with my “parents” awaiting for the ball to drop. The phone rings. They both scurry to answer, as if it was life and death. The funny thing now, is it kind of was. It was the woman that he was seeing on the side. The sister of the man my mom was seeing. She picks it up, curses the woman off, laughs, and slams the phone down. Just about as hard as he slams her against the fridge. I cried, I locked the siblings bedroom door, they didn’t need to see this. I walk into the kitchen and as the light shines off the half-crushed **** cans, I yell. I tell them to stop. I walk in the middle of them, and get pushed to the wall. I get hit a few times, so does she, and him as well. He chokes her, has her up against that fridge. And then. He lets go. I grab my mothers hand, sit her down on the couch, I do the same for him, on the opposite side of the room. All is quiet, and the ball drops. It’s silent. The next morning my whole family shows up, we leave. I don’t see him for a while. Except in my dreams. I was nine. In the prime of my childhood, when I saw what I never should have seen, and yet, would soon become accustomed to. But instead of him and her. It was her and I.