Closer Than You Think (Cameron Dallas)

Chapter 1

IMOGENS POV

I awoke to another average day. The peeling brown paint of my small bedroom with the worn out sofa bed with pink tulip print. I roll of the bed with a creek, dress in a grey hoodie and black trackies and head out.

I take the stairs of my home two at a time. I grab my phone and an apple and I'm off.

It's Saturday and I've got nothing planned today but I'm going to Westfield. The shopping mall there is huge but still not big enough to lose myself in.

I get into my 2001 Holden which I have to smash the shit out of the dash board for five minutes to get it started.

Seven minutes later I get out of my driveway, well you can hardly call a gravel track with cigarette butts laced in with the rock a driveway well then sure, it's mine.

I tune the radio to classical music just because I want to torture myself after last nights episode.

Last night I came home to my foster father who is the worlds most legitimate dickhead fighting with my stepmom again who smokes like a chimney but is so defenceless against him while fighting. I walked in and put my phone on the bench and went to walk up the stairs to my room when my dickhead guardian called me down.

"Imogen, get your ass down here NOW!"

"What the hell do you want dickhead?"

All to soon I saw the hand connect with my face and the sound of a slap and the pain rang across my face. I stared up into his eyes and I felt the tears welling up behind them.

He said so sternly to me "If you were half the douchebag your father was you would have use to me. Piss off you little bitch"

At those words my heart shrunk and I grew cold inside. With that I yelled "BASTARD" and ran up the stairs in tears.

I awoke from the flashback just in time to swerve from the oncoming truck.

I pulled onto the side of the road and went to sleep.

I begin another flashback. Well you can call it an imaginary dream. This one is of my parents.

When I was still unborn, my mother was 8 1/2 months pregnant, her and my father were driving to a hospital as my mum was getting a scan or photo of the baby, me.

During the scan they received good news. When they left and got into a cab they were on the way home when they passed a bank. There was a robbery going on. The people came at them with guns and told them to get out of the car.

My father got out and stood infront of my mother. He refused to move from her. He was a brave man.

All until they pulled him away and they shot my mother straight to her heart. She had my photo in her pocket closest to her heart.

The police sirens rang and the men fled. My father crouched over my mother in tears. He stroked her heart and pulled out the picture of me that had a hole from the bullet. The bullet was close to my heart on the picture also. Realizing what he had to do, when the police came he took my mother straight to hospital.

They managed to save me. A premature baby. I was in intensified care for three weeks. My mother however didn't make it.

They say my father ran off and he left the photo with me.

I wonder where he could be....

I slowly lost my dream and awoke to the road, I looked to my hoodie and then I pulled the photo from my bra. I kept it

The dried crisp blood that stained the centre of the photo brought tears to my eyes.

I began to cry again and I felt the brown lump on my cheekbone where the asshole slapped me.

Finally I pull up to the shopping mall and I get out of the piece of shit I call a car. I grab my phone, stuff it in my sports bag and walked towards the shopping center.

My first stop is a Mac Cosmetics stand in Myer and get a free makeup job to cover the brown lump emerging from the soft bronze skin of my upper cheekbone.

When that's done I go to the food court. I'm so hungry. I haven't eaten in two days and after last nights episode, I have to practically force the small chips that I purchase from maccas down my throat.

I then head out to my car. This day has only been around me for one hour but it feels like an everlasting time warp has concealed me.

I walk to my car and after fifteen minutes of smashing the dashboard it doesn't start. I decide that I will take the bus home instead.

When I reach the stop I sit in the rundown shelter and wait for the bus