Margaret Allie Brandon (Jasper's Mate Story)

Chapter 1

Margaret's POV: 

I heard my alarm clock start going off and the pounding in my head matched the pulsing noise perfectly. I opened my eyes, feeling my entire body moan in protest as I silenced the alarm and stood up from the rock hard bed. I walked as quietly as I could into the bathroom before looking up and meeting my own tired looking eyes in the mirror.

I traced the circles under my eyes, barely recognizing the pale, bruised, and depressed blue-eyed girl staring back at me. My eyes slid over the scars on the right side of my face from the car crash that shattered my entire world. I traced them all and then the ones on my neck and collar bone before my tank top covered the rest that went down to my hip on my right side. Almost ten years ago now that my mom died in a car crash driving too fast, ten years since my life basically ended with today being no different.

September 3rd, the first day of school, and yet it will just be another day of my own personal hell. I heard Randy grunt in his room a few doors down and I freeze, holding my breath to avoid waking him up and getting a beating before school started. I heard his loud snores start back up and let out a sigh of relief as they did. As long as I didn't wake him up he would leave me alone in the morning before school started, the weekends varied with being left alone or being beaten but the weekdays were usually consistent.

I brushed my teeth and ran a brush through my black curls before I started applying the makeup to the bruises on my neck. Randy was usually careful to avoid hitting me in areas where people at school could see but he was too drunk last night to remember that school started back today, or he just quit caring about people seeing. That wasn't too hard to imagine really, as it seemed that with every passing year he only became crueler.

Last night he had started choking me when I didn't answer him quickly enough, and now I had to pay for it again as I made sure that no one saw them. I parted my hair so that it would help cover the scars before I looked back up at the mirror. I traced the scar on my left wrist with my right hand for a moment, as I stared at my broken reflection in the mirror, wondering if I should just try again. Then I reminded myself it was only three months until I turned 18 and could get away from here forever.

Besides, the last time I tried he found me and took me to the hospital saying I fell onto a kitchen knife. He didn't love me, hell he didn't even care about me, but he knew that since I was his 'foster kid' he would lose his check if I died. There are days where the only thing I am grateful for is that I'm only his 'foster kid' and that he never adopted me when mom and him first got married.

In the beginning, when he was still kind of nice she had asked him a few times if he would but he always said no. She was heartbroken about it at first, then she was relieved that he never did after the abuse started. I felt a few tears grow in my eyes as I thought of mom again, before I force myself to leave the bathroom and walked back into my room and got dressed for the day.

I pulled a long sleeve black shirt on and a pair of jeans along with a black beanie hat to help hold my hair in place. School didn't care if we wore hats as long as they didn't obstruct other student's views. The hat was one of my only shields that I had, and it helped me not to flinch as much when others came near me. It was one of the only coping strategies that seemed to work at all.

I look at my clock and saw that it was 7:30, which meant I had to leave in the next few minutes to make it in time. I sigh some as I walked back out of my room, shutting the door as quietly as I could and walking to the kitchen. I grab an apple and a bottle of water off the counter before I walk out of the house that I would never call home. I see Randy's black truck in the driveway and send up a silent prayer that it's gone when I get back home from school. Maybe then I'll be able to avoid a beating all together today.

The light grey jacket I had grabbed on the way out proved to be a good idea as the New York weather sends a chilly breeze through the Madison County area. We had lived in Biloxi when my mother was still alive and I often found myself missing the warmer weather. Randy had moved me here only a few months after she died. I had only seen her grave once before he moved us away and I missed her more than anyone could possibly imagine.

I felt a sigh escape my lips as I walked to school, hearing a few cars drive by every once and a while and feeling myself stiffen with each one. Since the car crash, I only rode in cars when forced, or when absolutely necessary. Randy sure as hell wasn't going to give me a car to drive to school anyway but since I hated cars, that 'punishment' was more like a reward really. At times it seemed the only decent thing he had ever done for me, which was kind of pathetic in the scale of things.

I don't think anyone can really blame me for my fear of cars though. I mean a normal girl waking up from a week-long coma with six broken ribs and several other internal injuries, along with being told that her mother was dead, would have had it bad enough getting over her fear of cars. But I wasn't normal, I never had been normal, not since the first death dream I ever had.

While I was in the coma, I had a dream of mom's death in the car. I heard her last words to me, knowing that she said them knowing she was going to die. I felt her die, and when she did part of me seemed to go with her as I became alone in the world. I saw the Adonis like doctor that tried to save her and sat with me for who knows how long as the dream ended shortly after he stopped trying to save her, both of us knowing she was gone.

I had learned over the years that I only had dreams about the people I cared about and how they would die. So, I developed an easy solution to that, simply stay away from everyone I could and not care at all. It was rather easy really since my constant abuse from Randy since mom died had made me wary of most people, men especially. That day of the crash was a constant source of nightmares, as were her last words to me.

I was always on guard and never managed to feel completely relaxed around men or even guys my own age. I couldn't get my mind to accept the possibility that not every man was abusive like Randy. Not every guy I meet would hurt me like he does. He had broken my trust, my spirit, and even my faith in the male species. I had failed my mom in her last request to me, as I felt sufficiently broken by Randy even though I tried not to be.

I was pulled from my thoughts as I reached the parking lot of Madison High, and for once the stares and the whispers of most of the student body didn't seem to be directed to my presence. I follow their gaze and see five new students standing in the small parking lot. It's easy to see that all five of them are beautiful, super-model beautiful, and completely new to this small town.

I see the guys eye the two new girls, one tall with long blond hair and the other one short in height with short spikey black hair. While most of the girls seem to be eyeing the three guys, each looking as if they just stepped out of a magazine. I feel curiosity at their arrival for a moment, before I remind myself that I shouldn't get close to them anyway so what does it matter. I look away from the new students and the uproar that their arrival has caused in the gossip pool as I walk into the classroom and remind myself that this time next year I will be free of Randy one way or another.