𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐀

1. Fire and Ash

Every chapter, I'll put a song at the top that I think matches it.

For this chapter, I recommend playing 'No Rest for the Wicked' by Lykke Li (until it gets to the next song, but you'll know when)

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I've always felt as if my heart were split in two, the other half missing.

Since I was young, I was always misfortunate. If anything could go wrong, it would.

When I was only four years old, my parents passed away in a car crash, leaving me in the care of my mother's sister, my aunt, Rosie.

She took me in, but our relationship wasn't exactly normal. Once I was old enough to think for myself and move around on my own, I was taught to cook and clean. As soon as I could do those things on my own, I was alone.

It's been that way since I could remember. I didn't mind though since she was rarely home, and when she was she would stay in her room, only leaving once I had cooked dinner.

When she did stay longer for more than a few hours, I was cooking and cleaning for her.

When you're alone and have the world's weight on your shoudlers, you learn to grow up. Fast.

Despite her rough parenting, if that is what you could even call it, she was a decent person. She never yelled, never hit me or verbally abused me.

That was until I was six, when she met Jake.

Jake was your typical deadbeat. At first, he was a romantic. Always brought Rosie flowers, took her on nice dates, even offered to babysit me.

They got married when I was nine. Eloped, since they were both low on money, and after that day Jake changed, and turned into someone I knew wasn't the man I had first met, but Rosie was blinded by love.

He quit his job, stayed home, and as Rosie spent the whole day, even some nights, cleaning houses and other odd jobs, he would spend it all on alcohol.

After a while he grew into a horrible man, his anger issues that he had hid from us both now present, and soon his verbal abuse turned physical.

The first time he had hit me was just a few days before I turned ten.

As usual he had been sitting on the couch, eyes focused on the football game as he motioned for me to fetch him another beer, the empty bottles beside him adding up to what had to be eight so far.

I had stopped cleaning the countertops as I walked over to the fridge, before pulling another beer out of the fridge and walking back into the living room. As I was handing it to him, my foot had gotten caught on his, sending me hurtling towards the floor as the bottle shattered beside me.

Furious, he started to shout as he pulled me back onto my feet, his breath reeking of alcohol as he picked up the broken half of the glass bottle. I took a step backwards, and that only seemed to make things worse.

With all his might he had thrown the broken glass at the wall beside me, shards flying in every direction as it met the wall, pieces slicing my skin as blood began to drip from a large wound that now covered my left arm, before staining the carpet below.