Toni Topaz's Story

Feelings are fatal.

This is the start of Toni's backstory.
TW: Mentions of abuse And self injury

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January 9th 2000

The Topaz family settled in riverdale just before Toni was born, her mother Samantha and father Lawrence found sanctuary with the fellow families on the Southside. They weren't the perfect family thats for sure but they made do with what they had. They settled down in a small house that only had a single bedroom, the walls were covered in mould and the wallpaper was peeling off the walls, the carpets were covered in stains and the front door was always falling off. However the family loved each other so that was enough or so Toni thought. 

As Toni grew up she began to see that her life wasnt like the fairytale she first thought it was, by the age of 6 Toni started to notice certain things about her parents like how her mother would go through several bottles of alcohol a day to be able to function, and how her father would always push her mother around like she was some kind of toy. Toni realised quickly that her family wasn't as picture perfect as she wanted it to be, but she was only young, she didn't know any different. After all, aren't your parents supposed to protect you from the dangers of life? Not be them.

However there were times when her parents seemed normal and loving, when Samantha would pull funny faces at Toni to make her laugh, and Lawrence would throw her up in the air and catch her as she would burst out laughing. Sometimes the Topaz family would watch films together all snuggled up on the couch and her mother would read her alice in wonderland to get her to fall asleep. Yet the happy times always seemed to end the same. The same punches, sobs, screams and glasses being smashed.

Toni's parents were very secretive about their lives they never really interacted with the neighbours and never really left the house, only ever to get shopping, the neighbours didn't even know they had a daughter until she was 5 years old as they kept her hidden away and never took Toni out of the house, she wasn't even allowed in the back yard, Sometimes she felt like Alice from wonderland, she felt like she had fallen down a dark rabbit hole she couldn't get out of. Little did she know it would only get darker from there.

August 24th 2012

When Toni was 12 years old that was when she witnessed one of her parents worst fights. Samantha came home drunk which wasn't unusual for her, yet something in the air told Toni that tonight would end worse than it ever did before, as Samantha walked into the house and closed the door. Lawrence had his hands around her throat and she was pinned against the wall within seconds.

Toni immediately woke up to the sound of her mothers body being slammed against the thin wall of the livingroom, she opened the livingroom door and stood completely frozen in fear as she watched her mothers life slowly being drained from her eyes. Her father was screaming violently and her mother was slipping away. She could tell her mother was struggling but Toni was frozen, for the first time in her life she felt helpless.

Her mother's face started to turn blue, it wasn't the pretty kind of blue either, not like the bright blue sky that made Toni feel happy, it was a scary looking blue. A colour that made her tremble and grip onto her teddy with all her might. Slowly her father's grip on her mother's throat started to release, Samantha choked and she gulped in the air around her. But her father wasn't done with his torture just yet he started punching her mother harder, her mother yelped in pain as his fist came into contact with her eye.

Toni blinked as she heard her mother scream in pain, before she knew it she pushed herself in between her mother and father causing her to get the impact of her father's fists. The pain shot through her body and she yelled in pain, it wasn't the physical pain that hurt her the most. It was the mental pain she got as she realised that one of the people she loved the most in the world had become the first person she started to hate.

The young girl looked down at the floor, her lip was trembling. Samantha pulled her daughter into a hug trying to shelter her from receiving another punch to her tiny frame, Toni looked up at her father with teary eyes, there was something different about him. She could see pure evil in his eyes for the first time in her life. Nothing but pure evil. Not even guilt. Toni choked back her tears and climbed up from her mother's lap.

The young girl ran into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her, making sure to lock it securely. she sank down against her door with her bear and sobbed into the stuffed animal until she had no tears left. Her body throbbed in agony from the punches, yet her heart throbbed more. Sure she was only 12 but Toni felt like her heart had just broke into two. Toni knew it was a little strange that she still had a teddy at 12 years old, but with a family like hers sometimes it was the one of the only things that bought her a sense of comfort.

That night Toni stayed curled up in the bathroom floor. Only moving to grab a thin piece of metal from the bathroom cabinet. Her other comfort wasnt as soft and loving as her bear, instead it was sharp and harsh. Yet it still bought her a kind of comfort that she could control. This had all started when Toni turned 11, after one of her parents fights she locked herself in the bathroom and accidentally cut herself on the door as she stormed inside. To her surprise it didn't necessarily hurt, it was more a relief. Relief from the mental pain she felt whenever her parents faught. She didn't know back then that the little cut was the first of many. It became her stress reliever, the only thing in her life she felt like she could control.

That night Toni stayed curled up in the bathroom floor. Her arms and legs stung from the self inflicted wounds yet her heart stung more from what her father had done. A small sigh escaped her lips as she heard her father mutter a apology to her mother, which Ofcourse she accepted. Even though Toni was young she realised that his apology was fake, and that he didn't mean any of it. Her mother however being completely naïve and easily manipulated believed that his apology was sincere, just like she would in the future when he abused her again. She never understood why her mother would forgive her father, after all the cuts and bruises he caused on her body she would always go back to him. Then The same would happen again and again. It was a never-ending circle. A circle Toni had to break.