Depending On You

chapter one - good girl

The sky was already darkening as Grace walked home from school; small pellets of rain dribbled from the streetlights and wet her black jacket.

Her feet quietly disrupted the peace of many puddles on the sidewalk when she quickened her pace. She loved the rainy weather and the chill it left on her transparent skin, but she wanted nothing more than to be home.

School had been all but easy that day. In her Pre-Calculus class, she'd gotten a recent test back with her grade written in bold lettering at the top of the page: 47%.

And next to the number was a note from her teacher. Unacceptable, it said. Then, below the word, her teacher had sloppily written out the schedule for math tutoring in a small, connected font that she could barely make out.

As always, Grace disregarded her teacher's attempts to help her. She was too far gone; that's what she thought. She'd find a way to pass and get her credits for that year – like she always seemed to manage – but for the time being, she felt no need to worry.

Her bleary eyes caught sight of her dwindled home. It had never been beautiful, but it had once had meaning at the very least.

The small mobile home used to comfort her. She had seen it as a safe haven away from school where her peers judged her and her teachers pitied her. Now, she figured it had little significance as it started to feel like more of a chore to come home than a relief.

She used her silver cut key to unlock her front door, unsure if anyone would be home because her mother usually worked until late at night and her father nearly never came home.

Her slim fingers shook at the feeling of the metal doorknob and the carved wooden surface of the door as she pushed it open. They were cold from the hours they had spent untouched and exposed to the winds of a mid-November day.

All was quiet as the door shut behind her. She heard nothing but the angry squeaking of her wet sneakers on the wood floors that lined the lot of her home.

She paced to her tiny bedroom, the one at the end of the hallway. She pushed the quilted cloth away from her door frame to allow herself inside as it took up the area where her door had previously been, before her mother took it away.

She gently tossed her school bag into the corner of her room and proceeded to walk to her dresser where the drawers were left open and overflowed with clothes that Grace never wore. She ignored them. Instead, she focused on her reflection as it appeared in the mirror above her dresser.

She sighed, turning away from herself while lazily wrapping her hair up so its long black strands wouldn't bother her.

She wasn't surprised. She never liked what she saw in her mirrors. She would perpetually be disappointed when she got the hope that this would change, because it never did. It never would.

She knelt down by her bed, the only other piece of furniture in the room. She felt around the cold carpet beneath it until she found what she was looking for.

She pulled a small metal box from the dark abyss and sat it on her mattress as she pulled herself up. She held the box in her tiny palms for a moment, contemplating, biting her lips and the flesh of her cheeks. She gripped the box tighter until its pattern was imprinted on her fingertips.

She glanced at her bedroom window, its pane left slightly open. When she left home, she'd usually go through this window, but she thought that her home was vacant, at least for the moment, so she pushed the window shut and locked it before leaving her room.

Again, the whining of her sneakers plagued the silence as she made her way down the same route she'd come in. But this time she noticed her father was seated on the sofa placed adjacent to the door, just outside of Grace's eyes line when she'd entered.