Happy Ending

Typical Day

 I am now 16 years old. A typical day goes something like this:

 I wake up. Tired from the two or three hours, max, of sleep I was able to obtain the night before, between dad yelling and my constant wariness. I get out of bed and pull on an oversized hoodie and jeans. Winter or summer, as long as it covers the bruises that riddle my arms and legs. I rake a comb through my hair and let it fall over my shoulders and neck, so that it covers the bruises on the back of my neck from slamming it into the counter one too many times. I cautiously walk downstairs. Dad is usually asleep on the couch. I grab whatever I can find in the cupboard, a piece of bread or an apple or whatever, and walk out of the house. Even though my house is a few miles from the school, I walk anyways. The bus is too risky, and I love walking. The birds, the trees, it's all so peaceful, so perfect, it makes me think that mom lives in those trees, with the birds, happy and light and free.

 I reach the school with a few minutes to spare so I go to my locker and plug in the combination. It's typical for a piece of paper or two to fall out of my locker. Organized me. I grab my books for my first class. I quietly walk in and sit in the back, just as the bell rings. The teacher will go to the front of the class and begin teaching monotonously.

 I will hear a voice from in front of me. "Hey, scum." It will say. "Did your psycho daddy go off and kill himself yet?" I will pretend to ignore the voice. "Did you hear me, scum?" they will say. I will still ignore them. "Don't fucking ignore me, scum. Your daddy is just a welfare-sucking drunk. And you're no better than he is"

 "Can you be an asshole a little quieter?" I will finally say. "I'm trying to learn"

 "How cute. She's trying to learn. Maybe she will actually amount to something, unlike her father." It will be like this all day. The teacher will ignore this. All of them do.

"You aren't going to amount to anything, either, if you keep this up" I will say to him.

Most of my classes are like this. Between classes I will endure being knocked into in the halls and whispers of "scum" and "just die already." I know I should be mad, but here is nothing I can do. My father really is scum. And I'm his daughter. I'm no better.

Ill suffer through school and rush home, hoping to get home and do the chores before dad gets home. For if he catches me while I'm doing them, he will find something, ANYTHING to blow up on me about.

After doing the chores (dishes, laundry, sweeping, and straighten everything out as best as possible) I will go to my room and do my homework. Usually, dad will come home and crash immediately after. If he doesn't, he comes to my room. He'll bang on my door as hard as humanly possible. If I didn't lock my door, he'll burst in and scream at me for insignificant things, hitting me.

I will either spend the night locked in the bathroom or warily half-sleeping in my bedroom, starting awake at any little sound.

That is my day. I don't have friends, dad has forbid them.

Why don't I leave my dad, you ask? Well, I have nowhere to go. No family, no friends, nothing. And I don't want to be juggled in the foster system. Therefore I suffer through home, suffer through school, and dream of the day when I can get out of here and get a place of my own. At least that's what I tell myself. Perhaps, I can't leave, because here is where mom was. She loved me. No matter what. And here, in this house of horrors, was the only place I was ever loved.

God. I can be depressing.

Anyway. This is how my life has been. Until a few weeks ago.