Chapter 1

Hi!

This chapter is could be a trigger warning for some people so please proceed with caution. I'm sorry if anyone has to go through anything like this.

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BYE!!!

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Charlotte POV:

 I listened carefully to the world outside my bedroom. I was curled up in my pathetic excuse for a bed, my gaze piercing at the old wooden door that barely blocked anything that came into its path. After years of abuse to the door, it was barely holding onto its hinges. As if it was trying to grasp the last bit of reality it can before tearing down. It's once incredible brown lost its luster to a splinted, aging cedar color. The door stood as a mask of protection, but just like me, it shows that it’s on its last legs. All it, all I, need is another push before we tumbled down into a dark abyss. The thought of catching or saving it, is as far back into someone’s mind that it’s not even there.

I strained my ears to listen. I needed a sign. A needed something to know that it’s safe to step out again. I couldn’t walk out there unsafe. I wouldn’t walk out there unsafe. Not yet, not again. Not from what happened last time.

The fear that I felt was raw. The pain that I felt was real. The situation was horrendous. The hatred that I felt was overwhelming to a point where I felt pity for myself.

I pitied myself.

I pitied myself as I drowned myself in tears. I pitied myself as I drowned myself in soundless sobs. I pitied myself as I was drowned in cuts, bruises, and blood. I pitied myself as I was drowned in punches, spits, and cruel words.

I pitied myself.

I slowly uncurled, pushing myself up so I could sit. I was already ready for the day. Just in case that I had a chance to leave my room.

I just need a sign. Any sign at all.

A soundless sigh escaped my parted lips as I waited. My mind started to wander along with my eyes as I stared at the walls to my “room”.

The room that I once called my safety zone, my safety bubble, has slowly turned against me. The once comforting environment has turned into a complete war zone. The walls were littered with blood, other body fluids, and holes. The paint that once made the room glow in pride now peeled off the walls, falling in tatters to the ground. The floor, once a vibrant pile of white fluff, was now covered in stains, torn areas, and ripped clothing.

As if I wasn’t depressed enough, the sad sight only fueled it.

I needed to leave. This wouldn’t benefit me in the slightest.

I struggled to maintain my balance as I stood, leaning against the nearest wall. I was in pain. I could barely move without fighting the urge to whimper or scream. But I ignored it, I needed to. I needed to go to school.

Anything is better than being here.

The thought of going to school made my skin crawl: the noise, the people, the smell, the pain…….so much pain. There was lashes, punches, kicks, spits, slurs, scratches, choking, slapping, pushing, hair pulling, and those were on a good day.

But it’s better than staying here. Having strangers treat you like you’re the scummiest thing on the planet is one thing, having a loved one, someone that is supposed to be dear to you, protect you from anything and everything, treating you like that is completely different.

Your self-respect, your view, your comfortably, your everything, is gone, crushed beneath the hope of resurfacing, crushed beneath the weight of distrust, crushed beneath unwanted emotion and grief, crushed beneath fowl play of abuse and unbroken promises.

I’m crushed, I’m broken, I’m crushed beneath the weight of distrust, I’m filled with unwanted emotion and grief, my body scattered with abuse and unbroken promises.

But I’m okay.

My cracked, bloody lips still spread into a smile. A false smile, but people don’t notice, my cheeks burn in pain at the permanent on slaughter of fakeness.

I don’t talk to people.  

I smile. I smile until it’s too painful to keep it latched onto my face. I smile until tears streaming down that face. I smiled until I’m screamed at and kicked at by my fellow peers.

But it’s okay.

It’s always been okay.