Clenched tightly beneath the desperate arms of a young child, a toy's button eyes almost popped off of its head.  A plush cat was being held on to for dear life while its holder tromped down the hallway in a small house.  She did not reach the hall’s end before being stopped forcefully by a fist in her hair.  The girl shrieked from the pain and fell to her knees, but did not let go of her cat.
“Don’t run away while I’m talking to you,” thundered the voice of a disgruntled father.  There was a bottle of whiskey hanging by the throat in one hand and his little girl dangling from the other.  
“I’m sorry daddy!” the little girl pleaded.  She kicked her feet and wriggled her body, but even her best attempt faltered beneath the strength of her father’s one hand.  He raised her momentarily to watch her struggle fruitlessly, suspended above ground, then tossed her, like he would a dirty rag, into her bedroom and shut the door.  
For moments she laid there, dejected and alone, save for a ragged plush cat, and thought to herself that she would get away one day.  She set the cat down before her so that they met eye to eye with her still lying on the floor across from it.  Its coat was of a flat cotton fabric, having once been a light sandy color, but now more closely resembled the dirt it had undeniably been exposed to.  It had a soiled white streak that ran from the chin all the way down its underside.  The nose and mouth were stitched in faulty pink thread that came loose in several places.  The eyes were sewn on poorly; a pair of buttons that did not align straight across the face.
“One day, Sanders,” she looked into the green button eyes of her stuffed toy, “We’ll run away together.”
* * *
“I’m sixteen years old, John!”
“I’m your father, girl.  Don’t call me ‘John,’ we’re not friends,” John Roberts threw his comebacks across the room at his teenage daughter.  The argument began the moment she stepped through the door and kept her whereabouts to herself.  
“You’re no father, either,” she called back, quieter, almost trying to keep the remark to herself, but her words did reach the ears of her father.  Anything Lily had to say that fell short of a “Yes sir” was to be reprimanded.  
Lily kicked in the door to her bedroom, threw her bag onto a desk and threw herself into the chair in front of it.  Nearly as soon as her jeans made contact with the wood of the chair, her father came storming through the doorway.  He raked his fingers into her scalp and removed her from the chair in one forceful swing of his arm.  Lily cried out in pain as her body crashed to the floor.  With some strands of red still intertwined in his fingers, John undid the buckle on his belt and removed it from the loops of his jeans.  
“No,” Lily whispered, lips quivering and tears streaming down her sunken cheeks.  She screamed, crying, as the harsh leather of her father’s belt cracked against her back.  Again, again, and again…
Several minutes later, the teenager lay crumpled, battered, and broken on the cold wood of her bedroom floor.  Her eyes could produce no more tears and her throat would allow no further sound to pass through her parted lips.  She waited until the light that shone through her dusty window had turned to darkness; a darkness that shrouded her body and veiled the scars it bore.
Lily pressed both palms to the ground and removed herself from the place of pain.  By now her father had left the house, gone to run an errand or inebriate himself at a bar that wouldn’t recognize his shameful face.  From within a small drawer in her desk, she reached one trembling hand inside and removed a small, circular shape.  It was about the size of a coin, but a dark green hue, cracked and charred in places.  She closed the item in her hand and pressed it to her chest, remembering the inanimate friend that this button-eye had once belonged to.  While placing the button into the front pocket of her jeans, Lily made her way swiftly out the door and into the autumn-chilled streets of town.  
She wandered for hours.  A hand-knit scarf hung loosely around her neck, complimenting the tattered look she wore on her face.  The streets were quiet; there were no children playing nor commuters returning home at this late hour.  Lily was alone, and with no distractions in sight, she allowed her mind to dwell on the events she had left at home: the drinking, the yelling, the beatings, her mother leaving.  
“Not that she was any better at parenting,” Lily spoke through the silence of the night.  She escaped into the space of an alley that ran between two buildings; they were closed for the night.  The girl hung her head, leaning against the brick of the alley’s surrounding walls.  With thoughts and memories of her mother and father - screaming at each other, screaming at her, hitting each other, hitting her, and finally separating - swirling relentlessly through her fragile mind, Lily could no longer house the tears that welled in her eyes.  They slid down her face and wet her wavy, red bangs.  
“I feel so…” she wept, succumbing to the scars of her past, “alone.”
The sound of a garbage lid falling nearby startled her.  She held a hand to her heart and searched the darkness for any signs of liveliness.  Silence followed the echo of metal against the concrete and for a moment she thought to run for safety, but decided instead to keep her place.  A dirtied tennis ball rolled from out of the shadows and stopped at the girl’s feet.  She gasped with a start, having been startled by its unexpected emergence.  Following this, she heard a drone, a soft purring sound that came quietly down the alleyway and into her ears.  Lily stood her ground, waiting to meet the source of the sound.  The white paws of a small sandy cat stepped forward.  It came towards her and pressed its body against the girl’s legs, nuzzling her lovingly.  He was a very bold cat.  The girl crouched down to look the cat in his friendly green eyes.  She scratched under his chin and smiled.
“You know,” she said, “You remind me of an old friend.”

And so it became routine:
John would beat his only little girl.
The girl would hurt and cry and leave.
And there would be a cat to love her; no questions asked, no conditions set.  Just love, affection, and attention.  
“You know, Sanders,” the cat raised his head at the sound of her voice.  The two sat together on a bench near the alley where they originally met.  “I think you’re the first person in the world I’ve ever really loved.”  Sanders took this as an invitation to curl himself up on Lily’s lap.  With his tail swooping around his body to meet his pink nose, he purred softly.  “I mean, you’re not technically a person, but you are to me, you know?”  Sanders voiced his understanding by keeping his contented place in the girl’s lap.  “There was the first Sanders, but he wasn’t a real cat.  My mom threw him into the fireplace one evening, after fighting with my dad… She got upset with Sanders for always being my source of comfort, I think.  She wanted to be my solace, rather than a stuffed cat.  But she never could be, because she caused me so much pain.  Anyway, all I have left of the original Sanders is one of his eyes, but it’s a little burnt.”  Sanders continued to purr, picking his head up and meeting his green eyes with Lily’s dark brown ones.  “He had green eyes just like yours.”  

There was chicken for dinner one night, compliments of the culinary talents of Lily Roberts.  She served a meal for two, she and her father.  John drank a beer with dinner, but was able to keep a sober mind.  It was a quiet evening, one of the few that entailed no after-dinner beatings.  The man even went so far as to ask his daughter how school was going this year.  
“Great,” she answered.  “Everything’s great.”  
After dinner, Lily stood by the sink and washed the dishes, as was her custom after every mess was made.  As he removed a second beer from within the refrigerator, John went to his daughter’s tangle of red hair and kissed her on the top of her head.  Lily smiled as he exited the kitchen and thought she’d go to see Sanders tonight with happy news, rather than the usual.  She took with her the leftover chicken and left out the back door to see her good friend.
Sanders was not present in their usual meeting place.  Not in the alley, nor on the bench; not even around the corner.  Lily decided to wander on, hoping she’d find him exploring some new area of town.  Halfway down Troy Street, the front door of a small house opened up and the voice of a child spoke, “Come back soon Markus, and don’t eat any mice!”  Down the front porch came the white paws that belonged to a sand-colored cat.  Lily met him on the sidewalk, where he paused upon seeing her.
“Markus, huh?” Lily mused at her old friend.  “I should have known you had a home.  You’re too pudgy for a street cat.”  She set the leftover chicken on the ground by her feet and Sanders ate it gratefully.  
As Lily left Sanders, or Markus, that night, she couldn’t help but feel a little hurt.  They weren’t loners together anymore; Sanders had had a home, but he was supposed to be hers.
Weeks went by…
John was drinking again.  He stumbled through the doorway with the overpowering stench of alcohol on his breath.  It ran through his blood and leaked through his skin, amalgamating with the sweat that beaded all over his body.  Lily could smell it the moment he slid his key into the door.  She sensed the disoriented anger in the sound of his footsteps as they stomped up the stairs.  The girl panicked, fearing the punishment she would receive simply for being seen.  She prepared to leave, she would return after her father went to bed.
“Where are you going?” his breath wafted down the hallway and reached his daughter’s nostrils, poisoning her mind and decaying a layer of hope.  
“I’m just going for a walk,” Lily tried not to whimper as she took another apprehensive step down the hall, closer to her father.  When she reached the top of the stairs, John placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and stopped her where she was.
“I want you to stay.  I’m your father and I’m telling you to stay home,” the smell that carried his words was almost unbearable.  Lily made another move for the stairs, but her father grabbed her by both shoulders and slammed her into the wall.  She scrambled for the railing, trying to pull herself out of his drunken grasp.  Both of the man’s powerful hands clasped themselves around the girl’s frail neck and he lifted her, holding her over the railing and dangling her off the stairs.  Her toes reached desperately for ground to support herself on, but her air supply depleted and her movements slowed.  John let his daughter fall.  She landed awkwardly on her feet, but her legs buckled and her body hit the floor.  Without another word, Lily dragged herself up and ran for the door.

“Sanders!” she sobbed, holding the cat close to her chest.  She limped most of the way into town before the cat finally found her.  They were somewhere on Troy Street, not far from Markus’s home.  “I can’t go home,” she wept, “I can’t live like this anymore.  What would I do without you, Sanders?”
“Markus!” a small voice called through the winter air.  The cat’s ears flexed upon hearing his name.  He removed himself from the arms of the girl and started down the sidewalk.
“Sanders!” Lily cried, “But…” she clenched her fists and yelled into the night, “Fine!  You have somewhere to go to; a home to welcome you into.  But what about me?  I have nothing!” the broken-hearted girl fell to her knees, “I have no one…”
* * *
Lily, now eighteen and independent, slipped a coat on, tied her shoes tight, and stepped out of her third-floor apartment, locking the door behind her as always.  It was a cool autumn afternoon and it being a Sunday, she began on a walk into town.  Her apartment was not far from her father’s house, a place she was glad to have gotten away from.   “Maybe I’ll visit an old friend,” she thought, turning the corner onto Troy Street.
There was a moving truck outside of Sanders’s house and a “For Sale” sign was being removed from the front lawn by a proud new homeowner.  It was recently bought from a family that had already left town.  Sanders had moved away and Lily had to move on.  She continued on her walk, turning around and starting back in the direction of home.
Standing outside the building, she searched with one glove-clad hand for the key in her pocket.  It was cold outside, but she suddenly felt something warm against her leg.  The warmth rubbed against her jeans and through her legs.  She looked down and saw a sand-colored body that held a pair of friendly green eyes.  The sound of purring followed shortly.  
“Come on up,” Lily smiled, “It looks like we’re both in need of a place to call home.”