❦𝓡𝓸𝓼𝓮❦

I stand on the edge of a ten story building, looking down at the city below me.

Sometimes I think of jumping.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm here at all.

Sometimes it gets to be too much and I just want it all to end.

I've got nothing again, no place to call home and an empty stomach that gives me a constant dull ache.

It's been a month and a half since I lost Jack. I've spent every day looking for jobs in hope to make enough money to buy another car.

But I haven't been very successful, no one wants a girl with no tools and no car to be their handyman.

The money I had went quickly, a few blankets to keep me warm at night, food and a few other necessities. It left me without a penny to my name.

I thought I'd make it back, I really did. But here I am, a month and a half later with nothing.

Bob and the kids moved last week, he got a job at a construction company in another state. It pays really well, it'll be good for them.

The kids will have nanny. Lilly will have a chance at being a kid without so many responsibilities.

But saying goodbye to the kids just about ripped my heart out.

I turned my phone off when they left, I made sure to send Blake a message saying I was ok before I did so he won't worry about me like last time.

I just don't know what to do with myself anymore.

Life's hard, it's so freaking hard and I don't have any energy left to fight it.

I count the cars as they pass on the road beneath me, it's two in the morning so no one can see me up here, it's too dark.

I hate everything and everyone right now, but at the same time I feel nothing.

I want to die, but I won't give them the satisfaction.

Everyday I wake up, goes against what they want.

I can hear the voices echoing in my head. 'No one loves you.' 'You're a waste of space.' 'I should have never had you.' 'Why don't you just die already?'

Some from my mother, some from my brother.

It was just us growing up, my father died right after I was born. And my brother wanted to be an only child.

He hated me the moment I was born.

When I was younger it was brutal, the things he would do, pushing me off a swing set causing me to break an arm, locking me in the basement for days at a time with no food, hitting me with objects causing me to be constantly bruised, stealing my toys and throwing them in the trash outside so I had nothing.

He stole my blankets for my bed and would soak my mattress in water each night before bed.

Mom was stricken with grief for years after dad passed, and as she pulled out of it my brother convinced her that it was my fault he died.

She turned a blind eye to everything that he did, and although she never physically got in on the abuse, she often verbally did.

As the years went on it got worse, then my brother started drinking and it got increasingly worse when he was drunk.

For my thirteenth birthday they gave me the present of being locked in the cold basement for two months, I survived on the limited amount of canned foods that were left down there.

They wanted me to die, but also wanted to keep me alive to tortur more. As messed up as it sounds, it was my life. I knew it was wrong, but I also didn't know anything else.

It was my normal.

So I didn't really comprehend how bad it was. I started sneaking out after I got let out of the basement at thirteen, I saw loving mothers with their children and thought it was strange.

I got curious and would sneak out every time I got the chance, I would watch people and as each day passed I started to understand how messed up my life was.

I would get caught sometimes, my brother would beat me within an inch of my life, I have blackouts in my memory, bits of time that passed and I can't remember anything.

I'm not sure if that's because the physical damage was so severe that it caused me to have memory loss or if it's something else.

He would go on these drunken rants sometimes where he would go on and on about killing me. Somewhere along the line it changed from him hating me and being jealous, to a crazed obsession with causing me pain.

The end goal always being that I wouldn't be on this planet anymore. I really don't know how my body made it out of it so well, many times I should have lost teeth or broken something so bad it would leave me permanently disfigured.

I have a few scars, but not as many as I should. My broken ribs always healed themselves and somehow my nose was never actually broken even though it felt like it and gushed blood everytime he hit my face.

The look in his eyes as he would beat me is something I'll never be able to unsee, it's hard to explain. His eyes seemed dead, but held a hatred that burned so hot I could almost see it flickering behind them.

He would destroy the house when he was drunk, break down doors, smash windows, punch holes through walls and break furniture. He threw me into the wall once, my head smacked it so hard that it went through the drywall.

No matter what he did, my mom always saw me as the bad guy, everything was always my fault.

I called the police one time, they did nothing, so I never called again.

When I was fifteen I met Max in a skate park when I would sneak out.

He was sixteen and introduced himself to me. We talked for a while and would meet up at the park all the time.

He was almost always there skateboarding so whenever I would sneak out I could see him. I couldn't see it then, because I was so used to the abuse my family was giving me, but Max was the same as them.

My brother found out about him and I was beat for it, but that didn't stop me from seeing Max. He was nice at first, until he wanted me to sleep with him and I refused, then I became a punching bag for him as well.

I thought it was normal, I did something he didn't like therefore I got hit.

After all, everything was always my fault.

My brother hated Max, because one of the things my brother never wanted me to have was friends. But when I came home with a black eye that Max gave me, everything changed.

My brother had a gleam in his eye when I walked through the door, he told me to invite Max over for dinner the next time I saw him. So I did, the naive fifteen year old me thought this was a good thing.

I thought maybe everything was going to change for the better and I would be ok.

They became buddies quickly, bonding over sinister things. It started out with comments first, together they would verbally attack me until I was in tears.

Then after months of that it moved to physical violence. Max would come over and drink with my brother, I'd be woken up in the middle of the night to my name being called in a haunting voice.

They would barge into my room, one would snicker while the other threw me around. My white walls were constantly covered in my own blood.

Everything seemed to get worse as time went on, I really thought eventually that they would grow tired of me.

Shortly after I turned sixteen I went to Max's house because he asked me to, his family was gone, it was just the two of us.

I shouldn't have gone, but I pretty much did anything I was told, so I did.

He pushed me onto the bed, I knew what he wanted and I wasn't willing to do it. I'd let them beat me, I let them call me names.

But when my back hit that mattress something clicked within me and my heart finally said, 'that's enough, fight back now.' So I did.

I remember screaming no, I remember kicking and punching and scratching.

I remember getting off the bed just to be thrown into the wall. I remember pain as he slapped me across the face. And I remember he looked at me with the same eyes my brother did.

I remember trying to run to the door, the feeling of his hand burned me as he gripped onto my arm. I remember he backed me against a wall with a smirk on his face, pulled out a knife and held it in front of my face.

I remember his monotone voice telling me all the facts about the knife. I remember the sharp pain as he plunged the knife into my abdomen.

What I don't remember is how I got out of his hold, or how I made it out of his house and back to mine.

He must have just been done with me that night, there was no way I would have been able to fight him off if he chased after me.

When I stepped into my house it was quiet, my family must have gone out. So I staggered into the bathroom and cleaned the stab wound and stitched it up with a sewing kit, something I learned to do a long time ago.

After I was done I remember looking up at myself in the mirror and for the first time I saw a girl willing to fight for her life looking back at me.

I knew the only way to do that... I had to leave, but I had nowhere to go, knew no one and had no money.

But I had to do something, and I had to do it now. So I destroyed my brother's room and found his stash of money I knew he kept.

It was only a few thousand, but it was enough to get me out of here. I heard a car pull up, so I closed my brother's door and ran to my room locking it behind me.

I pulled my backpack from my closet and stuffed everything I owned in it along with the money.

I didn't have much, so it didn't take long. But by the time I was halfway out the window I heard my brother's footsteps going to his room.

He knew immediately what I did and within seconds he was trying to break my door down. I made it to the ground before he did and I was running down the street to the bus stop by the time he leaned out the window and yelled at me.

He told me that I better hide well, that he won't stop looking for me, and when he does find me he's going to kill me.

I believe him, so I can't let him find me.

That's why I don't have a regular job or anything linked to my name. It would make it easier for him to find me.

A horn honks from below me as a car sits behind another at an intersection.

My hand traces the scar on my abdomen, it's raised because I did a crap job stitching it up.

The only way I know to get back at my brother, is to stay alive, so I step off the ledge and back onto the level roof of the building.

I don't understand how I made it out semi ok, sure I have nightmares and situations that remind me of those times scare me, sometimes enough to cause a panic attack.

I hate that it took me so long to get the courage to escape. I hate that I let them do those things to me for so long. That's why I promised myself never again, it's why I swore off ever trying to make friends again.

But then I met Bob and the kids, and eventually Blake, Isaiah and Ace. They showed me that people aren't all bad, they showed me what true happiness is.

But then Bob and the kids moved away and I pushed the rest of them out of my life.

I miss them, I miss Blake so much sometimes I cry. I tell myself everyday that I'll turn my phone back on and call them the next day.

But I never do. I'm so scared, so terrified that when I do they won't want me anymore. And I'll be completely alone again, I know it's stupid. But as long as I don't hear them say it, I can always have some sliver of hope that they still care about me.

So I don't call, and everyday that passes without them is agonizing.