The Notebook He Stole

Chapter One

(Has been edited and revised)

Chapter One: La La Land

Charlotte groaned as an annoying beeping rang in her ears, her hand automatically flapping over to the nightstand to turn the offensive alarm clock off before she slumped onto her pillows and stared at the ceiling. She sent a silent prayer asking for mercy not to kill anybody today. She then sighed and sat up, her messy, long brown hair falling over her shoulders. It was when she looked at her calendar hanging on the wall next to her when she realized it was Wednesday. The first day of her senior year. Wonderful, she thought sarcastically.

She then sighed and hopped out of bed, making her way towards her very small bathroom. She lived in the smallest room in the house: the attic. Though, it was big enough to fit all of the things that were necessary to a 'healthy' lifestyle. Posters of bands and colleges she wanted to get into littered her walls, her dresser shoved into the far corner. She scratched her shoulder as she walked into her bathroom, looking into the mirror. The bathroom was too small to fit a bathtub, but it consisted of sink, toilet, and a showerhead, a drain drilled into the floor. She bit her lip at the sight of herself, sighing and tearing her eyes away from the mirror and undressing to get into the shower.

She had had a terrible summer. She was forced to do the chores the entire summer, her older brothers blackmailing her into doing theirs. If she wasn't doing chores or working in the city diner, she was locked up in her room, listening to music and drawing. Canvases littered the floor, along with paints, oil pastels and chalk. It was one of the ways she got her feelings out, she just didn't know that she had put so much emotion into her drawings. She just drew what came to mind.

She looked down at her thin body as hot water pelted against her fair skin in the shower, turning it a light pink. Scars scattered all over her body; her thighs, stomach, biceps and wrists. Some from the previous night, others healing from last week. She'd been a cutter since about fifth grade. What parent would let their fifth grader around knives and razors? The one that went off the deep end when her husband died in a work accident only two years before. When Charlotte's father died, her mother decided to turn to drugs and alcohol. Her new husband, Charlotte's step-father, was verbally abusive to his step-daughter. He had yet to become physical, but Charlotte knew it was coming soon. Her mother knew about the abuse coming from her new husband, but did nothing to stop it. Instead, she joined in.

Charlotte turned off the water and wrapped herself in a warm blue towel before brushing her teeth and washing her face. After putting her hair into a ponytail and adding eyeliner and mascara to her light silver eyes, she dressed up in black skinny jeans, her father's old Seahawks sweater and her black and white Converse. Grabbing her iPod, earbuds, and school textbooks, she stuffed them in her backpack and slung a strap over her shoulder before locking her door and heading downstairs to the kitchen.

"Charlotte!" Her mother called from the living room as she descended the stairs, the TV blaring in the room. The mother of five was slouched against the couch, a half drunken bottle of whiskey in her hand. "Make us breakfast! Isn't that the only thing you're good for?" Charlotte was used to this; the constant dejection and degrading words brought on from her family, along with the laughs coming from her brothers who were in the kitchen around the island. Charlotte nodded silently and made her way there, ignoring her laughing brothers. She grabbed eggs, bacon, and hash browns from the refrigerator, digging for pans in the cabinet before setting them on the stovetop and starting to cook.

It took about ten minutes to cook everything. The eggs scrambled to everyone's liking, the bacon crisp, and the hash browns crispy. When she was finished she grabbed an apple from the fruit basket and looked at her calendar. It was the 21st, meaning she had to work today at the diner. She was the only one in the family, besides her step-father that had a job, but the money didn't stay with her. Whatever she made, whenever she made it, went straight to her mother, who used it to pay the bills and buy booze and cigarettes. She never saw the money, never asked for it either.