ALONE #Wattys2015 COMPLETED

CHAPTER 1 // ZOE

"Zoe..Zoe...ZOEEEE!!!" My mum yells across the house.
 I am locked in my room sitting in the corner holding myself as I try not to whimper. She is obviously drunk again, and there is nothing I can do about it. There is never anything I can do about it. All I can do to protect my self is lock the room and hope she thinks I'm out. Or, I can climb out the window and actually go out somewhere to get away.
"Zoe!" She continues to yell, and I realise I have had enough.
So I quietly get up and put my blue Nikes on. I grab my purple Adidas jacket and tie my brown hair up in a ponytail. I put some clean leggings on and make sure my face doesn't look like a mess.  It is alright, better than usual. As I stare at my reflection in the mirror I slowly look down at my arms and lift up my left sleeve. Then I slowly lift up my right sleeve. I slowly trace my fingers down the cuts on my wrists and small droplets of tears slide down my cheeks. The cuts have gotten worse and are reddening. I decide to leave it, since I can't do anything about it. Since it's whatever I do when things get bad. I cut. I roll my sleeve down and wipe the tears off my face.  I go to my table and grab my phone out of the charger, it is 2:30pm meaning my mum will be going out to the club soon. I put my hoody on and slowly open the window. As I'm making my way out of the window I hear my abusive mother call my name again.
"ZOE PARKER WHERE ARE YOU, IF YOU DON'T COME IN 5 MINUTES THEN YOU WILL BE IN DEEP TROUBLE!"
This threat scares me, so I quickly pull my window down and jump off landing on my two feet on the grass. I stand up quickly and run down the street.

30 minutes pass and I'm still running. Running is the only activity I can do to clear my mind as well as getting away for a while. As I'm running I look down for a second to check the time on my watch. Then BOOM, I run into a boy and of course he's holding coffee. The coffee falls to floor and wait for him to yell at me. Instead he just stares.
"Oh my gosh! I am so sorry, are you okay? I'm sorry I wasn't looking where I was going!" He apologises.
"Wait why are you apologising? I ran into you." I say confused.
"No, I ran into you," he replies.
 "Let's just say we ran into each other." I conclude. 
"Let me make it up to you, I feel awful," I say.
 "No, I feel awful," he says. "Let me take you out to lunch, that way we can make it up to each other." "Sure," I say feeling nervous, a pit of butterflies in my stomach.
We walk down the street to the nearest café. "I'm Jonny; buy the way, Jonny Quent."
 He says putting his hand out to greet me. "I'm Zoe Parker," I say accepting his hand and shaking it.
He has an extremely strong grip. He smiles at me and I smile back. I notice he has dimples, as my eyes scan his face I see he has dark brown hair, a few freckles, green eyes and a jawline. Oh my gosh, and I must look like such a mess.

We walk into a café called 'Lets Eat!' As Jonny and I walk in, we grab a table and my eyes scan the menu. I feel my stomach grumble and realise I haven't eaten in less than a week, since my mother never gives me money or food and the only way I do make money is by working.
"Hungry are you?" He says winking.
I feel my cheeks go red as I look down.
"Yeah, I haven't eaten in a while," I say.
"Don't be embarrassed, I'm starving too!" He says and pats his stomach.
My eyes scan his arms for a few seconds and I realise he is quite built. I quickly look up to realise he didn't notice me checking him out, thank God.

The waitress comes to order our food.
"I would like a cheese hamburger, with extra fries!" Jonny says.
 The waitress turns to me and I realise I don't actually know what to order, my eyes quickly scan the menu and I find something I like.
 "Could I please have chicken parmesan with a salad," The waitress writes this down and walks off.

"So.." I say. "Soo.." Jonny says.
We stare at each other for about 5 seconds then I look away.
"How long have you lived in Melbourne for?" He asks.
 "All my life," I say. "How about you?"
 "I have lived here for 15 years, my parents moved here when I was 2, so I don't quite remember much. I'm 17 now. " He says.
"Oh cool.." I say.
 "How old are you?" He asks.
"I'm 17," I say. One more year and I can move away from my mother, far, far away, I think to myself. "You're having a deep thought," He says.
"How can you tell?" I ask.
"Well, for one thing you aren't making eye contact, you're eyebrows are sorta pushed together and you're focused on the table, meaning more on your thought then on the piece of beauty in front of you," He says winking, and once again I feel my cheeks go red. "I'm only kidding, but honestly I can tell when people are doing certain things, I don't know why, it's just a gift." he says."
 "Well you're right, I am in deep thought." I say.
 "Care to share?" He says.
I quickly become alarmed thinking of a lie, I don't exactly want him to know how I get treated so I just try think of something.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," He quickly adds noticing my facial expressions.
 "No it's fine, it's just I was thinking about what I'm going to do once I'm 18, you see I'm home schooled." This was partly true, I am home schooled, but I teach myself and learn from YouTube videos.  I've practically been doing this my entire life.
"Oh, well I know what I wanna do when I turn 18," He says.
 "What do you wanna do when you turn 18?" I ask curious.
"I want to become a gridiron player! But for Australia, not for America." He explains.
 "Gridiron?" I ask confused.
 "It's American football, you should come to one of my matches some time, and they're pretty interesting." He says smiling.
 "I would like that," I say. "But first I have to actually know how the game works,"
"Well I can help you with that!" He says. Jonny spends the next 10 minutes explaining the game.

The waitress comes back with our food and we continue to talk about gridiron. I have to admit the game sounds pretty interesting. We spend the rest of the afternoon talking and having fun. After the café Jonny and I go to the pear and walk on it. I check my phone to see what the time is and I realise it's nearly 5:30pm.
"Jonny I have to get home, I'm so sorry. Today was amazing and thank you for buying me lunch," I say smiling.
"The pleasure was mine, in fact I was wondering if I could get your number, so we could do this again?" He asks.
"Sure,' I say smiling and get my out phone, he does the same. We put our numbers in each other's phones and Jonny puts his arms around me and hugs me. Nobody has ever hugged me before, so I place my arms around him hugging him back feeling a little awkward since I don't know if I'm hugging right.
"If you want I can walk you home," He says.
 "No it's okay, I have to go get something from the shops anyway," I say.

This was a lie, as much as I wanted Jonny to walk me home, I couldn't let him see my mother. If she saw him and he saw her then it would cause so much trouble. My mum would scream and ruin everything. Plus she would probably hit me IN FRONT of him and cause even more trouble. Jonny gives me a sad look.      
 "Oh it's okay, I'll text you though," he says.
 "I'll be sure to reply back," I say smiling.
 I give him another hug, this one not feeling so awkward and I make my way home.
As I get home I climb through the window and I close it quietly, I put my phone on charge and make my way down the stairs to see a random man sleeping on the couch. He is probably another one of my mother's "friends". I think to myself. I quietly go back up the stairs to see my mother standing there angry and drunk.

"You filthy pig, you think you can just do whatever you like huh? Well, we'll see about that," she says.
Then everything goes black.
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A/N: Hope you guys are enjoying the sotry so far! I will try update as much as possible! And I am planning to have the story finished soon, as I try and write as much of it as possible daily!

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xx Gabby (: