When No One Else Does... I See You

Chapter 2: The prison I call home

My day starts off the same everyday like clockwork.

5am - wake-up and clean the house up from the night before. Glass bottles are often the best object used to be thrown at me.

6am - make Dean and Linda breakfast. I never call them mum and dad… not anymore. Not after what they've done.

6:30am - head upstairs and take a shower. I have to be careful of any wounds, bandaging them back up after so they don't get infected.

6:45am - start my hour-long walk to school. I never have enough money to get the bus.

7:45am - get to school an hour early, waiting in the library for my friends.

(7 hours of peace until I have to go back to hell)

3:15pm - start my hour long walk back home. I don't dare ask for a lift, just in case they want to come inside... bearing witness to the hell I live in.

4:15pm - make Dean and Linda dinner.

4:45pm - do my homework and any other schoolwork given to me.

7pm - wait patiently for Dean to finish dinner in the basement, to receive my punishment.

11pm - take another shower after my beating is over and bandage any open wounds up best I can.

12am - try my best to fall asleep since I have to be up early the next day.

This is the timetable I follow everyday without fail almost religiously. If so much as one thing is done out of its time frame… I get a longer punishment.

It's been like this for two years now… ever since my older brother Isaac left. It was still bad, but way more manageable when he was around. He was the only person able to stop Dean from giving me my daily "punishments" and to keep my alcoholic of a mother from hitting me all the time. But then he left to go to university. I guess he also couldn't take the treatment we were receiving at home so he chose to leave me here. Alone. With them.

I don't blame him honestly, I wonder if I would have left him if our situations were reversed. I'm glad he's not here, I don't want him to see me in such a pathetic state.

I'm guessing you're wondering what these punishments are. To be frank, it's just a way for Dean to relieve stress after he's gambled all our money away during the day. He uses anything to beat me really, be it a belt, a bottle, or his fists. Punches, slaps and kicks are all used indiscriminately, without any regard for what they do to my body.

And what do I do? I take it all. Without a sound. If so much as a cry is heard, the punishment is increased in both length and force. Sometimes he leaves me just beaten enough so that I still look presentable to go out. Other times he beats me so badly I can't go to school the next day, hanging on death's door on the basement's cold stone floor.

At this point I'm used to it. It's been so long since it started happening that I'm numb to the pain both mentally and physically. I sit there with a blank face receiving the blows forced upon my once supple skin, now replaced with an ugly, scarred and dry husk.

I can't remember the last time I smiled. It's been so long I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how to. I have to practice how to smile well enough to make it look natural so that no one can see the difference at school or in town. Over the years I also managed to perfect my "fake laugh.'' As long as I keep up the smile and squint my eyes just a bit, I can fool anyone… even myself. 

On the outside, I'm just a girl who likes having fun with her friends,but on the inside... On the inside I'm dying. dying for someone to notice my struggle, dying for someone to take all my pain away. But at the same time praying no one ever will.

It's okay as long as no one finds out. As long as I can keep up this facade, I think I can trick myself into thinking I'm fine.