Her Secret Garden

Her Secret Garden-Chapter 1

Hey there friends. This is the first Chapter of the story I'm trying to write. I'm pretty much new at this and have no idea if I'm doing this part right, but I guess I'll figure it out eventually. I would really appreciate your feedback and suggestions in this story. This might be short for a chapter but I have no idea. I hope you enjoy it!

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Lilibeth woke up in a cold sweat. It was another nightmare. This time the voices were screaming at her, telling her she wasn't worth anything, that she should just end it. She couldn't figure out who the voices belonged to, but they felt real to her, as real as the fuzzy pink pillow lying beneath her head. She looked into the mirror on her wall, just to make sure she was still all there. The first things she saw were her eyes, green like the sky before a storm. She saw her wavy, brunette hair landing just below her shoulders, and her face. She managed a smile, a smile that could melt stone. She thought she was too skinny, but no matter how much she ate, she always stayed the same weight. Her aunt and uncle walked in.

"Are you alright Lilibeth?" Annabelle, her aunt, asked. Annabelle was always so kind to Lilibeth after she was thrown into her aunt's life just four years earlier. Annabelle was as kind as she looked, with long, black hair and dark brown eyes. She stood just five feet tall, but she could hold her own.

"I'm fine Annie, it was just another nightmare," Lilibeth said. The nightmares had been getting more and more frequent in the past year. She started noticing them right after the incident, but they kept getting worse and more vivid. They started with whispers, but the voices began to scream at her.

"Alright, just tell us if you need anything dear," Jacob, her uncle, said. Jacob was a strong man; this was a result from working in construction. He had bright red hair and sharp blue eyes. He was at least a foot taller than his wife. Annabelle and Jacob were only married a year before Lilibeth got thrown into their lives. They haven't had any children yet either. Jacob was the brother of Lilibeth's mother. Lilibeth was only twelve when it happened.

"It's okay Jacob, I'm alright now," Lilibeth said. Jacob and Annabelle left the room.

They were always so worried about Lilibeth. They didn't think a little girl could go through all that she did and be okay. They didn't even think they could go through so much pain and be okay. She became secluded and withdrawn after the move, and hardly made any friends after that. Lilibeth has had a tough life so far, with the loss of her mother and no memory of a father, it was a wonder she held up. They also worried about the bullies.

"Who could be so cruel," they thought, "that someone would exploit a young girl's weakness after all she had lost?" Lilibeth refused to tell who was responsible, but they knew it was happening.

~

"But why don't you tell them?" Asked Sarah, one of the few people that befriended Lilibeth, "I'm sure they could do something about it."

Sarah was always kind to Lilibeth; they became friends when she just moved in with her aunt and uncle. While Lilibeth just wanted to stay inside herself, Sarah was able to wedge into Lilibeth's emotional wall, and brought a light to her lonely prison.

"I just don't want to worry them about it," Lilibeth said.

"Well I won't always be around you to scare them off," Sarah said.

Lilibeth laughed. While it seemed funny, it was true. Nobody ever messed with her when Sarah was around, and if they did, they had another thing coming. Lilibeth was very soft spoken and never confronted the bullies, but Sarah, while she seemed like a gentle girl at first appearance, with her calm blonde hair and soft blue eyes, was as wild as a raging storm if someone dared mess with her friend.

"It's fine," Lilibeth said. "I can handle it."

"I could just go and ..." Sarah started to say before Lilibeth interrupted.

"No, just leave it."

"Fine."

After settling the little disagreement, Sarah brought up another point.

"I can't believe you have this part of the day off, and I have to go to class," Sarah said.

"Hey, I have an excuse, remember?" Lilibeth responded.

"I guess, just don't let anybody mess with you, okay?"

"I'll do my best," Lilibeth said.

Sarah left to go to her class. After Sarah left, the jeering started.

"Look, there's the freak," they said. "Don't get too close to her, she might be contagious."

Lilibeth wrapped her forest green jacket around her, trying to protect herself from the harmful words.

"Oh, are you sad? Why don't you go crying to your mommy then? Oh, that's right."

Lilibeth started walking faster, focusing on the sound of her black boots hitting the ground, as if to drown out the sound of the continuous attacks. She didn't know why they said so many cruel words, but it hurt. She wished her jeans would be less restricting so she could walk faster.

"Maybe you should just join her, nobody wants you here anyway," said Victoria, the leader of the bullies. "It would be so much better here without you."

With that phrase the tears started to flow. It brought back the painful memory of her mother's death.

~

"Mommy, what are you doing?" Twelve year old Lilibeth asked. "Why are you holding a gun?"

"I've had enough Lilibeth!"

"Mommy, put the gun down." Lilibeth was quaking with fear.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Lilibeth's mom put the gun on her daughters head. "Do you want me to kill you?"

"Mommy," Lilibeth whimpered.

"Shut up! I've had enough of your crying. That's all you ever do, cry, cry, cry." Lilibeth stood in silence, tears streaming down her face. "Ha! First I lose my job, and then I have to take care of this pathetic thing. Your father was no help! He left because of you, you know."

Lilibeth's sobs kept getting more and more violent. Then, her mother turned the gun on herself. "I blame this on you."

Bang!

Lilibeth collapsed over her mother, crying until she had no more tears to cry. The neighbors heard the gunshots and called the police. They always knew her mother had issues, but they didn't think it would get to the point it did, and they worried that the condition would be genetic.

~

Lilibeth finally made it past the bullies and walked slower than she had been. She was heading to one of the only places she truly felt safe. It was a garden that hardly anyone in the school knew about, it wasn't difficult to find, but nobody sticks around the school long enough to find it. She hadn't ever seen anyone in there before, and that made her like it. It's filled with beautiful flowers with bright, happy colors. It has stone benches and a fountain in the middle, with angels shooting water from their mouths. She recalled the first time she found this garden, and she felt at peace, calm. There weren't any distractions in the garden, no bullies to bring her down. It was just her and the flowers with a book or diary.

She walked through the gate of her garden, and let out a breath of satisfaction when the scents and colors hit her, but there was something different. Something that wasn't normal in her garden. This time, she was not alone. She saw a boy sitting in her garden. She thought he looked familiar but couldn't figure out where she had seen his kind face before, or where she had caught a glimpse of his eyes, hazel with a splash of green. His hair, brown, looked soft.

She didn't understand why he was in her garden, but she didn't seem to care. It was almost like he belonged there, like he should have been there all along. She looked at his name badge, everyone had to wear one. It said Blaine. She liked that name, Blaine. He looked up.

"Hello there," he said with a smile, "It's nice to meet you. I'm Blaine."

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So, what do you think? I'd really appreciate your feedback and hope to post a second chapter soon.