Wherever Our Path Takes Us.

Chapter One: Avery.

I could hear every breath I took.

My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest and goosebumps started to form up and down my arms. Everything was quite except the thuds of footsteps coming up the stairs and the fighting that followed.

I remember the small closet. The feel of the cold breeze of the vent that was on top of the ceiling and the books that sat on my bookshelf. The closet smelled like new books and an old pop tart that I forgot to throw away. Even though the tiny closet saved me from all the fighting between my mom and dad, I hated the closet.

It was always crammed and my my legs could never fit. I would have to sit in a fetal position and my knees would always scratch against the wall. Then, soon the days became weeks and the weeks became years and my knees would be bruised. Why do you always have bruises on your knees? Other kids would ask repeatedly, but I would blame it on my clumsy self and they would always let me be.

So then for five years that would always be my excuse.

Until I didn't have to hide in the closet anymore, because the fighting stopped. My mother died mysteriously and my father became the suspect.

"Avery, if you've seen or heard anything from the night your mother died, you can testify against your father to put him in jail. If you do this, he will never be able to hurt anyone ever again" my lawyer looked me dead in the eyes, he showed no emotions except hate for my father.
I was 13 and already diagnosed with PTSD, although I couldn't actually remember what happened on the day my mother died, one of my therapists once said it's the trauma of remembering that made me forget, which made absolutely no fucking sense when I first heard about my 'diagnoses'.

"I can't remember anything from the night my mother died, remember asshole?" He looked shocked, but I kept the same emotionless face that I had the moment I stepped into his office.

"You can't keep talking to me like that Avery, I'm trying to help you" he stood up from his chair and put both of his hands on the table to get closer to my face, instead I leaned back in my chair, attempting to try and piss him off.

"By help me, you mean put my father in jail. Which I'm very much looking forward to, but think about me Mr. Jones, what will happen to me? With no parents to take care of me, I'll turn out to be one of those lonely orphans who never gets adopted because of their foul attitude!" I apply sarcastically, I slightly smirk, seeing how angry he's getting with me.

I was one of those kids who learned about sex, drugs, swears, and how to break someone's finger all at the age of 7. I'm the kid who usually showed up to school with bruises and teachers asking me if I needed a counselor or police officers.

When I was 6 my mother forced me to go to a therapist, which is when I got diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

Then again when I was 8, a school counselor took me to see a friend of hers that was a therapist and I got diagnosed with depression.

When I was 12, I started having dreams where I would wake up sweating or I would think my friend was my father, and at 12 is when I got diagnosed with PTSD. When the therapist asked if I wanted to continue their sessions, I always said no and instead of convincing me otherwise, they threw a pill bottle in my lap and told me how much the session was going to be.

I never testified against my father, the detectives ended up finding some type of evidence that she killed herself and just like that, the case was no longer a cold case, it was just another closed case of a suicide that they thought was foul play.

At first, my father could be heard crying every night at two o'clock in the morning, downstairs at the kitchen table.

Then, the sadness quickly turned into anger, and the closet was too big for a 14 year old girl.

The 14 year girl showed up to school with bruises on her face.
The 15 year girl's voice was horse and sore everyday when she went to school.
The 16 year old girl's eyes were red and puffy.
The 17 year old girl's body started to form more bruises.
The 18 year old girl has enough. She wants to runaway and she has a plan. With only $5,990 in her bank account and a $990 one way flight to Paris, France she can escape all of her fathers abuse. She can steal her fathers car to drive to the airport, and never turn back. Get into a college university in France and leave her old shitty life behind.

I have a plan, I just don't know if I'm going to fucking make it.
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This story might be a !tw! to some readers so please keep that in mind when continuing to read this story. I won't be putting tw on the chapters so if you get triggered by abuse topics, alcoholic topics, catcalling....THEN PLEASE DO NOT READ IT. Please help my story as a young writer by voting, commenting, and reacting.