Afraid (Harry Styles)

Chapter 1

All I see is darkness. For a minute I can't make out my surroundings, but then I realize i'm in my childhood bedroom. Nothing about it comforts me, it's pitch black and I hear crashing from the other side of my door. Suddenly, a man comes stumbling into my room. It takes me a minute to recognize his face. This drunk man was my father. I immediately crawl to the far end of my small bed, farther away from him.

"Don't be afraid Bells..this is going to be fun" the man says with a sinister smile.

No words come out of my mouth as the drunk man comes up to me. He harshly grabs my waist, pulling my shorts down. I want to beg him to stop but I can't speak. His hands start traveling lower and lower and I let all my tears pour out from eyes. Suddenly he starts moving inside of me and I scream from the top of my lungs, drowning out all the sorrow and pain.

"Bella wake up baby! Its okay, you're safe" a woman tells me in a comforting voice.

It takes me a couple of minutes to realize that i'm not in my old bedroom with my sinister father. I'm here, with my "mum" and "dad" in my new house. It's been such a long day and i'm so grateful that Amy woke me up. Even though I have these nightmares every night, they still scare the shit out of me. I hate having to relive my horrible past.

My foster parents, Amy and Chris, thought it would be a good idea to move to America so I could get a fresh start. As much as I would like to believe that this is a new start, I can't stop thinking about my past in London. I guess that's normal though, considering this is my first night in the states. The nights my supposed father came into my room to molest me are still fresh in my mind. He turned into an angry alcoholic man when my mum died in a car accident. I was only five when he started abusing my brother and I.

At first, he only hit us occasionally, but that turned into daily. Soon he would start showing up into my room at night and doing vile things to me. My brother and I would try to make light of things. When our father was drunk or in a bad mood, we would hide out in our shed in the garden and play cards. We were always together and he was my best friend, or so I thought. When my brother was 15, he ran away from home. I was eight at the time and my brother was like my savior. The night he left, he packed his bags and gave me a kiss. He promised he was going to come back for me and get me out of that hell, but he never came.

I continued to live through hell with my abusive father for years until I turned 13. That was the worst and best night of my life. It started like any other night. I was pretending to be asleep, when I was really listening for my father. After a few minutes, he slowly came stumbling in. Usually he would first go around the corner of my room and close the window and blinds so he could prepare for his "fun". I could tell something was off about him that night, he seemed more drunk than usual and he seemed a bit out of it. More than usual of course.

This night was going to be different, I could feel it. I was going to stand up for myself tonight. I knew there were going to be consequences, but I was ready to face them, I was ready to face him. When he came closer to him, I impulsively moved away. I wasn't go crack from his glare that night. He grabbed my scrawny legs closer to him, but I rebelled. I pulled out my legs and without thinking, kicked him straight in the face.

While he was recovering from shock, I ran to the other side of my room. After a few seconds, I could notice the change of my father's demeanor. He looked ready to kill as he took out an empty beer bottle from my desk. With a blink of an eye, the bottle came crashing towards my head. I felt the gush of blood seeping from my head. I was paralyzed in pain but my fight wasn't over. I did the only thing I could think of, I screamed at the top of my lungs as another beer bottle came hurtling towards my neck.

The last thing I remembered before blacking out was hearing our neighbors come rushing up to my open window to stop my dad from choking me to death.