Lips Like Morphine

Viola Clarke is a 16 year old girl from London. She moved to Belleville, New Jersey with her parents when she was only 10; leaving behind her much loved friends for a new life in America. Viola thought this was the start of something new, something better than the dark and dirty streets of London; where pedestrians budge past discarding the youths blocking their path. From one city to another Viola arrived with great expectations for her future. Little did she know, it was all about to go tragically wrong…

She found herself alone, cast out by her fellow class mates; destined to spend her days alone or locked in her bedroom. The students began taunting her about her British accent: the clothes she wore, the music she listened to. The constant whispers of judgment progressed, filling her head and torturing her mentally. Violas mind became a ticking time bomb of pain and misery. Every night she returned home and hid herself away from the world. She lay curled up under her bed covers listening to the horror of her parents fighting downstairs. Bottles smashed against the walls, screams of peril ran out through the suburban home.

Her 17th birthday came and went. No cards, no presents; nothing. That night her parents fighting became more aggressive than usual, her father had come home drunk and began beating her mother senselessly for no apparent reason. Viola sat at her desk in her room, lighting a small candle on a cupcake she bought that day on her way home. She sighed deeply “Happy birthday to me…” a wish passed silently through her mind as she extinguished the candle with one swift breath.
‘I wish I was dead.’

Will Viola’s life come to a self-inflicted ending or will someone come and save her from this nightmare?