The Power of a Muted Mate

Chapter 1

Melody's POV

"You pathetic brat! You were supposed to make me dinner and it was supposed to be ready 5 minutes ago!" My dad yelled at me.

I just bowed my head and didn't say anything.

My name is Melody Winters, I am 17 years old and I know what you are thinking. A girl with the name Melody must sing and even speak beautifully. Well you're wrong. I don't sing or even talk at all. I haven't since I was ten years old. You might ask why, but that will have to wait. I will explain as this story goes on. How do I know it's a story if I am in it? Easy, it's my story to tell. Now let me start at the beginning, or as some would call it, tell you the backstory. Well when I was 6 years old my mom was diagnosed with cancer. We ended up not catching it in time, and so when I was seven she died. At the same time my father turned to drinking, and my older brother who was 8 at the time abandoned us. He ran away to his uncle's but we never found him there just the note. He abandoned us, and I don't know if he is even still alive. However if he is still alive, it doesn't matter, because he is dead to me. He promised he would always be there for me, he knew that my father would abuse me, but he left anyways. So at the age of seven I started being abused. I was forced to do all the chores and make my father's meals. I wouldn't get to eat until after all the chores were done, and I only got two meals a day. They were always the same meals. An apple in the morning for breakfast, and a banana and granola bar for dinner; however I shouldn't be complaining some people eat less than that or even nothing. The worst part is when I messed up. My father would beat me until I lost consciousness. I would beg him to stop but then that made him beat me harder. So at the age of ten I stopped talking, I haven't uttered a single word for the last seven years. I used to be able to handle the abuse, it wasn't as bad, and I got used to it. However in the last year as I blossomed into a teenager almost a young adult, my dad has started to beat me even worse. He has even tried to rape me in his drunken state, but I have managed to defend myself from him enough until he passes out from the alcohol. He always says that I look so much like my mother, and I think that is why he does all this, he is reminded too much of my mother by looking at me. Which I agree with, with my 5 ft 3 in. height, and my blonde hair and blue-green eyes, I look almost exactly like my mother. The only feature that I inherited from my father was my perfect teeth. I have never had a single cavity. Everything else came from my mom, from my blonde hair, to my tiny feet, (considering I only wear size 6 in shoes). Anyways back to the beginning of the night.

I was exhausted from moving all the stuff from the moving van by myself. So I decided I would take a nap before I made dinner. I decided I had an hour and a half before I had to start it. So being the stupid person I was, I fell asleep. When I woke up I realized I forgot to set an alarm, so I looked at the clock and saw it was quarter to 5, my dad likes to eat promptly at 5:30. I ran down to the kitchen to start preparing his meal. He specifically requested that he has steak and baked potatoes tonight. Baked potatoes take almost an hour to make, so I cringed inwardly thinking about how I was going to get it done in time. I decided to start on it first.

While I was cooking I started praying to myself

Please, please, pleaseeeeee come home late tonight. Out of all the nights to come home late please let it be tonight.

Of course knowing my luck though, my father came into the dining room at exactly 5:30, and when he saw that dinner wasn't ready he was livid. He stormed into the kitchen and started screaming at me.

"You pathetic brat! You were supposed to make me dinner and it was supposed to be ready 5 minutes ago!" My dad yelled at me.

I just bowed my head and didn't say anything.

However I was thinking, it isn't even 5:32 yet, so it wasn't even 5 minutes, but knowing I couldn't say that I just bowed my head and didn't make eye contact. My father then slapped me hard across the cheek, he kept telling me how I was worthless and how he never should have kept me and I was good for nothing, all the while hitting and kicking me. I tried hard to not let the tears fall, knowing that it would be worse if I cried. However one traitorous tear slid down my cheek. All of a sudden my father stopped everything he was doing.

I looked up and he was grinning in a way that made me shiver and dread what comes next.

"Awe is someone crying, is someone sad at what their father is doing? Why don't we make it all better with a little alone time?" my father said.

Knowing what he meant I turned and ran towards the door, but he caught me.

"Fine if you don't want alone time I guess I will just have to punish you some more" he said.

He then proceeded to the kitchen drawer that held our knives. He pulled out a steak knife and turned around. He held my wrist in one hand and then started to make thin shallow cuts on my legs. I struggled but he wouldn't let up. Finally he stopped, and he said:

"Well we wouldn't want those cut to get infected now do we?" so he got the rubbing alcohol and started to pour it all over the cuts and it burned them. I wanted to scream so badly, but I knew I couldn't. I couldn't make a sound because I haven't made one in seven years and I wasn't going to start now.

Finally after what seemed like forever but was only actually a minute he stopped and let go of me. I dropped to the floor. He then turned to the door, and when he got there he looked back at me.

"Get a goodnight sleep; you have your first day of school tomorrow. Remember the rules: no talking, no friends, no boyfriends, and don't draw attention to yourself." He said. I just nodded my head. Then he left the kitchen.

I was not looking forward to school tomorrow, where everyone stares at me and makes fun of me for being the weird mute girl. I sighed and cleaned up the kitchen. Then I walked upstairs to my bedroom. I looked around and I sighed.

Nice room, I thought, nice life you have Melody Winters. I looked at my mattress that had my baby blanket on it. My room was really empty, it had a small closet for the few clothes I have and it had an air mattress in it with one little baby blanket on it, and no pillow. I was lucky to get the baby blanket, the only reason my dad let me have it was because it was given to me by his mother, who he also lost to cancer the year after we lost my mom. Sighing, I climbed onto the mattress and quickly fell into a nightmare filled sleep.