My life

Chapter 1

She watched the water riffle and splatter as she threw a rock in it. It always amazed her how one small action like throwing a tiny rock could disturb the whole lake. It was just like reality, how one person could destroy your entire life.

School today was boring, as it has been since her bestfriend moved to a different town. She had no one to talk to which was why she was standing in front of a lake, lost in thought. The lake reminded her of her bestfriend Maya, beautiful but dark. The lake had a dark past just like her bestfriend but neither of them choose to have those dark past. The lake didn't choose to have people drown in it when they felt the world was too much and Maya didn't choose to go through what she had but it was life, it was reality and reality sucked.

Chloe was totally lost in her head that she didn't notice a figure approaching her until he spoke, startling her.

"Who are you?"

She blinked at him. The boy looked familiar, he had short curly hair, black at the roots and blonde at the tips. He had grey eyes, eyes that made her feel transparent, it felt like he could see through her and it scared her, she didn't want anyone to see her scars, especially not a stranger, a rude stranger. He was in her English class. She'd seen him around but had never really noticed his good looks, now sitting this close, she was almost stunned by his good looks.

"Who are you?"

"Do you always answer a question with a question?

"Do you?"

He was irritated, she could tell from the look on his face. He rolled his eyes and ignored her, facing the lake once more.

She felt off, she loved coming to the lake because it was private, the only place she could be alone and just think but now his presence was ruining it.

She found it a little weird tho, she thought she was the only one psycho enough to come here given the history of the lake. It was called the dark lake for a reason, it was where teenagers came to end it when they felt they couldn't go on anymore.

No one ever came here for fun, only to pay their tribute to a loved one they lost here but yet here she was, finding peace in a place as dark as this.

"Bill. Now who are you?" His voice startled her once again.

"I'm Chloe"

°°°

The house was quite as she walked in. She expected to see one of her brothers lurking around or to hear music playing since that was what her older brother liked to do but she got nothing. She didn't know wether to be glad or worried. Shrugging, she ran up to her room to begin her homework, ignoring her rumbling stomach. She loved the discomfort of being hungry because it gave her a distraction. It was what she loved to do, bury herself in school work or starve herself so she wouldn't feel anything emotional.

As tormenting as school was, she preferred it to her house because everything in her house reminded her of her dad and the terrible memories associated with him, the walls, the furnitures, the fucking air, it was like she could still smell his perfume after years of his absence, could still hear his voice downstairs. She hated dwelling on those thoughts so she'd bury her nose in a textbook and read away her reality.

She was double checking her homework to make sure there were no errors when she heard shattering in the kitchen. The front door wasn't locked, no one was home besides her. She stood up and went down to check it out. She should be scared, it could be anyone, anyone who could cause her harm but she wasn't, she was indifferent about death. She knew if death came she wouldn't fight it, only embrace it with both her hands, she wanted that void, craved it but was too much of a coward to do it herself so she silently hoped for it to come to her.

The sight in the kitchen was not what she hoped for, she had hoped for a burglar to release her from this painful existence but what she found broke her heart even more. She found her older brother Calvin slumped on the floor with a broken plate by his feet, his back against the kitchen counter while he starred off. He had that crazed look in his eyes. Just one look and she could tell he was high as a kite, just like her father, her brother was into drugs.

She was mad, she wanted to blame him, wanted to blame her parents, wanted so desperately to blame someone but whose fault was it? Was it her fault for not trying hard enough to help him? He wasn't always like this, he used to be her hero, she used to look up to him with big innocent eyes and hope to someday be like him but now he was only a shell of the person he once was and it broke her heart to see him like this.

She slowly backed away, leaving him in his own world. Everyone in the house had their coping mechanism, she turned to pain and books, Calvin turned to drugs, Christian turned to music, her mum turned to men.

She shut her eyes and counted to ten, digging her fingernails into her palm. She skipped dinner that night, preferring to lay in her bed and count to ten repeatedly.

Then the voices started, she could hear her mum and brothers arguing downstairs. It was most likely about drugs or Christian's mood swings. She closed her eyes and the tears she had been trying to hold back slipped out. She cried herself to sleep that night, hoping for a miracle to come.