Insight

Chapter 2

I ran my fingers along the bruises on my bare stomach, some of them had started to fade away; the less severe ones. Others had turned all kind of colours; black, blue, yellow... and just the slightest touch hurt immensely. I winced as I grazed the one just above my belly button, turned mostly blue and purple and big enough to be covered by my whole hand and still show around it. Memories had once again started flooding back, forcing me to hold back tears of fear and regret.

A knock sounded loudly on the door, causing me to jump up, I was only in my bra and my bruises could be easily seen. Scared that someone would notice them; I picked up a dirty t-shirt off the top of the pile on the floor and pulled it on. The one I had thrown on had a white mayonnaise stain on it, possibly from a party I was at; I looked at in in disgust but ignored it as the person by the door knocked once again. I lay on my bed, ready to place my head on my soft pillow and knew that I was not going to get a proper night sleep for a long time. I hadn't slept the night before as I couldn't close my eyes for even a second without remembering every single detail of the previous horrendous five days. Dealing with either my mum or brother was certainly not on my agenda right now.

My eyes felt tired and I could barely keep my body up straight, ready to collapse into a deep sleep any second; I needed alcohol, anything to keep me awake since I knew the nightmares would disturb any sleep I tried to get. Alcohol was always the only way I could keep myself awake.

"Scarlett, can I come in?" I heard an unknown voice ask me from behind my broken mahogany door, disturbing my thoughts. It was the voice of a man; he coughed before clearing his throat and speaking once again "its officer Adams."

I groaned, of course the police would be involved in this; I was gone for five days. There was no surprise that my overprotective brother would call them, and cause a huge deal about it. I had been interrogated by the police a few times before, after getting caught drinking underage, breaking some stuff in the pub when I got into a fight, fighting on the street, vandalism, and the list just goes on. But I got out of a lot, considering my family history. Having a fucked up father kind of played to my advantage. I looked at the door as the knocking repeated, I was exhausted and in no mood to explain any of my whereabouts. I decided to jump out of my bedroom's window to avoid him; I had done it many times before, sneaking out or just for the sake of it.

"Just a minute! I'm naked" I shouted at the officer who was at the door; smiling as I heard him clear his throat nervously before walking away, his footsteps hard on the worn out floor. I put on my knock off converse, not bothering to tie my laces and simply tucking them into the sides.

The window budged open at the slightest touch, the light breeze blowing my hair back, sending chills down my back. I stepped onto the bottom frame of the window and looked down; I was on the second floor, a pipe ran down from my window to the ground, it was rusty and old, but still strong enough to uphold my weight. I sat on the edge of the window and secured my hands on the pipe, before swinging my legs on either side of it and making my way downwards. My fast motion caused friction between the pipe and my body, leaving burns on my hands and bare legs. But the pain wasn't unbearable and I endured it. I jumped the last few centimetres to the ground and brushed some dust off my legs, wishing that I had worn jeans or tights, the cold air sending goose bumps up my legs.

I looked back to my house and made sure no one had seen me, especially not my brother who was notorious for being both nosy and bossy. After I saw no one looking through the windows and the front door hadn't budged, I started walking away; pulling out my phone from my pocket, scrolling through stupid tweets to keep myself entertained till I reach my destination.

"Stop!" I heard a voice frantically say behind me, I simply ignored it but slowly started to pick up my pace, I didn't care who it was, I was not going back to my house right now. "I said stop Scarlett!" the voice repeated once again, definitely a male's voice, I heard his hurried footsteps, before he had finally caught up with me, standing in front of me and blocking my way.