A balding man swings his arm back and throws a bottle towards a discolored wall. It knocks a frame to the ground, and shards of glass rain onto the carpet, tangling themselves in the knotted shag. The picture lays face up. A jagged crack runs across the front panel and splits the scene in half.

“Your letting it happen again.” The voice, almost inaudible, comes from a doorway to the right of fallen picture.
The man replies by taking a swig from another bottle, before sending it too, towards the wall.

A girl steps out, and hugs the corners of the room as she approaches the man. “You're losing control,” she says.
The man dismisses her comment, and turns to walk towards the matchbox sized kitchen on the other side of the living room. His feet leave imprints on the carpet where the strands of beige yarn flow in directions opposite of the rest. A wheezing yellow refrigerator sits inside the small, annexed room. An old gas stove and industrial sink accompany it. The man yanks on the handle of the fridge. The chrome piece pulls off, and reveals two holes in the door’s chipping surface.

The man looks at the kitchen doorway, where the teenager shifts her weight back and forth. “I told you to fix that,” he says.

“You said you would replace it,” the girl fixes her eyes on the ground and lets her hair hang into her face.

The man’s stained tee shirt clings tightly to rolls of fat, and dark, moist areas appear under his arms, and below his extended gut. He slams his fist against the counter and the tiles rattle. The grout that holds them in place has chipped away over time, and the yellow squares shift back and forth. His gaze focuses on his daughter, who’s blonde hair still covers her face. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing.”

“Get this handle fixed,” He opens the yellow door from the side, and grabs another beer, this time a can. He kicks it shut on his way out of the kitchen, leaving a bootprint on the paint.
The man palms the chrome fridge handle, and shoves it at the girl as he pushes past her. Two red marks bulge on her arm from where the handle’s pegs met her skin. The bruises and cuts that line her arms and chest dwarf these new spots.

The girl walks to the sink, and sets the fridge handle onto the tile counter. A fraying dishcloth sits in the sink, under the brown, stagnant water. She grabs the cloth and lowers one knee to the ground, then the other, moving carefully. Her back stays straight, and her whole body leans instead of bending. One scratched hand braces her body, and the other wipes the metal surface clean. She scrubs until the rag strips her knuckles raw, and her fingers become enlarged wrinkles that hang uselessly. In the absence of mud, or any other substance on the fridge, the girl eases her body back up, and walks into the living room. The rag, still present in her numb hand, causes her to return to the kitchen. She tosses the rag into the sink, and it splashes droplets of dirty water onto the counter.

With absent intention, the girl finds herself back where the glass bottles hit the wall. A bright, slightly urine colored liquid drips languidly down the surface, and collects at the bottom, a sort of junction between the strained carpet, and the off white floorboard. The girl bends down again, more direct this time, in search of the fallen picture that was hung since six months ago. The photo drips with the same yellow liquid that decorates the wall. It flops, almost uselessly from the moisture, and pieces of the frame and glass still cling to its gloss. The picture in her hands displays an alternate reality. Six months ago it was the truth. Inside the broken frame, a man with a small balding patch on the top of his head, and hands resting on the shoulders of two teenagers, smiles largely at the camera. The two teens seated next to each other smile as well, but it doesn’t reach their eyes. They look alike, and one could call them identical, if they were the same gender. The girl thumbs the picture, and hovers her digit directly over the boys face, then turns it around. A series of red lines and dashes sweep across the back. They read “Andrew”. The girl closes her eyes.
Theres a car. A silver van. It waits at an intersection. The light shifts to green, and the bulbs cast a pale hue over the fog covered ground. It illuminates the droplets of condensation and makes the air glow. The van pulls out into the intersection, but so does a pickup truck, coming from the perpendicular direction. A horn blasts, then a crash, and all becomes silent.

The girl opens her eyes, and brings a scabbed hand up to her face to wipe the moisture from her freckled cheeks. She turns and walks towards the older man’s room, with the picture in hand. She grasps the handle of the man's door, and twists it. The door opens with just a push; the knob is broken. When her eyes adjust to the dark inside the room the lids pull open wide. They reveal bright blue eyes, and dilated pupils. “Don’t do it,” she says. Her voice cracks 

“I have to. I killed him.” The man sits on his bed, with a gun in his hand. His convulsions shake the frame, and the nightside table that leans unsteadily against it. The girl takes a step towards him.

A click of metal, a sob, and a shot. The man’s daughter screams, and house lights outside flicker off as if the neighbors had coordinated their actions before hand. Nothing inside the house makes a sound, except the uneven breathing of the girl, and a rattling metal noise. The soft shaking grows in prowess, and ten minutes later another shot breaks the night's silence.