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I woke up to a huge smash. I didn't dare make a noise and let complete silence take its place. But it was soon interrupted by dad's loud voice.

"DON'T DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THAT"

By that I knew that Joseph was having an argument with dad. It happened quite frequently, probably once every two weeks, but I was still scared every time.

I did what I'd normally do; I got up, changed, wiped my face with a bit of water from the glass on my table, picked my bag up and carefully, making the least noise possible, creeped out of my room, out the front door, closing it behind me.

It felt good every time, closing problems behind and walking into fresh air. But at the end of the day, I'd have to say a bitter goodbye to beautiful, natural life and walk into the same house of never-ending problems.

I started walking to school, until I reached the split point, there were two paths to choose from. Both led to school, but the left path was quicker. I looked at my watch, there was still an hour till school starts. I decided to take the right path, in which I'd cross my 'second home', you could pretty much call it.

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After school, I was started walking home, when I felt a nudge on my shoulder.

I looked to see that the 'cool' girl of my class, Lilly, had just nudged me. I hated talking to her. She always made fun of the fact that I live in a broken home. My face started to redden and my hands began to tremble. I gulped. I desperately tried to control myself, but nothing would work.

"Hi Grace!" Lilly said, being sarcastic-nice with her friends, "You know my mum's picking me up after school today. You're walking, aren't you? Why don't you just call your mum to pick you up? Oh, wait, I just remembered, you're mum doesn't even exist anymore."

Tears welled up in my eyes as I heard her friends chuckle at her joke. It felt like someone had stabbed me hard. I somehow managed to refrain from crying.

"Your life must suck!" she said, "Not having any mother-daughter time. I'm going shopping with my mum this weekend. Why don't you go with your dad? Oh yeah, he spends all his time getting drunk and having sex." Her friends laughed. I was so angry I could strangle her.

I ran. I didn't care. I just kept running. How dare she talk about my family like that! I hate her so much.

I ran all the way home. I was alone at home. I immediately grabbed my pocket knife from my drawer and went to the bathroom. I took off all the wristbands from my left arm, took a deep breath, and started adding more scars to the collection.

I fell to the floor and cried, drenching my face in tears.

After a while, I finally got up and cleaned up. I put my wristbands back onto my arm and left the bathroom. I went back to my room and put my knife back into my drawer.

It was quite late. 8:42. Dad still wasn't home yet. Joseph and I were alone.

I was in my room, in front of my study table, doing homework, when I heard the front door open. I heard voices. Not just dad's, but... another man's? Usually, dad's voice would be accompanied by a woman's, but this time it was a man. They both sounded drunk. Did dad go gay today or something? I doubt it.

Then I heard more voices; about 5 or 6. Oh shit. Dad had brought drunk friends home.

They went to the living room/ kitchen area. Then I heard a voice behind me, inside my room.

"Hey babe."

I turned around and saw a drunk man, probably one of dad's friends. I started trembling, my throat went dry, nothing came out of my mouth between my parted lips but dry air.

"Shhh, don't worry." He smirked, "We're gonna have a great night."

Before I could do anything, he grabbed my wrists and started tackling me to my own bed. I struggled, trying to release myself.

I kicked as hard as I could, trying my best to push him away. But every move I made failed, I was helpless.

I kicked aimlessly, and I ended up kicking his leg so it hit the edge of the bed right on the metal. He cried and collapsed, grabbing his ankle.

I needed to do something fast. A baseball bat caught my eye. I immediately grabbed it and swung it as hard as I could on this idiot's head. He rolled across the floor, and without doing anything else, I ran outside, knowing exactly where I was going to go.

This had never happened before. Obviously, dad didn't give the slightest shit about me. I'd never been to the lake past 7 o'clock. But I had no option. Right now it was 9 o'clock and I couldn't clearly see where I was going, but I'd been on this path so many times, I'd pretty much memorised it. It was cold and windy, but nothing was about to stop me and make me go back. Not yet.

My shivering self collapsed on the grass. I was on all fours, and I let tears fall down my cheeks onto the grass.

About a minute later, I noticed a dim light from the bench.

I got up out of curiosity and went over to the bench. I saw someone sitting there, holding a candle. He looked a little older than me, he had curly brown hair and beautiful green eyes. I sat down next to him.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I come here every day, about this time. I should be asking who you are." He replied. I was slightly taken aback by his response, but I shook it off quickly.

"I also come here every day," I said, "I usually come here any time before 7pm though."

He furrowed his eyebrows, like he wasn't expecting that as an answer. "Does anyone else come in the daytime?"

"No." I said.

He nodded in response. "Can I meet you here tomorrow? Like, straight after school time?"

"Sure." I said.

"How long are you staying here for?"

"I don't know," I said, "a few hours maybe."

"A few hours?" he asked, slightly astonished, "You do realise how cold it is, right? You don't even have a jumper or anything."

Just as he said that, the cold air touched me, causing sharp shivers going down my spine, coating my body. But I didn't have an option, I couldn't go home.

"I can't go home, so I guess I'm going to have to stay here." I said, even though I wished otherwise.

I expected him to ask me why, but he nodded as if he could understand my situation.

"I'm... gonna leave." he said.

He got up and turned around to leave, as I wrapped my arms around me as much as I could.

He'd only taken a few steps before he turned back around to me. I didn't expect him to do what he did next: he pulled his hoodie off, came to me and gave it to me. I was stunned, and looked up at him. He simply nodded with a small, sad smile, and turned around again to leave.

Another gush of wind hit me. I shivered and quickly pulled the black hoodie on me over my clothes.

I got off the bench, lay down on the soft grass, curled up into a ball, and hoped that sleep would come to me soon enough.