*note* Warnings. Triggers mentions of self harm and anorexia*
Chapter one:
“$18.50 mam.” I faintly hear the cashier as I am staring into space.
“Oh, yes sorry!” I respond I as pull out my Nightmare Before Christmas wallet and hand him a twenty. “You can keep the rest.” I shout running out of the speedway. I sprint to the side of the building to grab my skateboard so I can get a running start to avoid being hit on the busy street. As I quickly dodge the speeding cars I hear a police siren while the cop car pulls into the closest place he can pull into and gestures me to come to him. I role my eyes and walk slowly towards him.
He pulls out his ticket book while asking me “Amber, how many tickets must I give you till you realize you shouldn't walk across the middle of the street?”
I reply simply with. “And how many tickets is it gonna take you to write till you realize I have the money to pay them without worry and I will just keep doing it?” As I take the ticket and shove it into to my bag and walk away.
Walking into my favorite park I pull out my camera. Well one of my three. I am snapping shots left and right of the trees and wildlife. I finally feel the giant grin on my face. I loved the park. It had a section the was just forest. The trees are always beautiful in the fall. That’s why I am here the most. With mom and dad always being gone at work I am able to come here whenever I want to. It was sheer bliss. Bzz bzz. I had a text from my best friend Jess. She was at home asking what I was doing. With a quick reply I go back to the forest. I end up at the waterfall. It was gorgeous as always. Putting my bag and camera on the bridge and slide under the wooden post on the bride and into the cold water. I breath in the smell of the water and hop from rock to rock. When I get as close to the waterfall as I can without getting wet I find a big rock to sit on and just sit there and sit there. My peace in quiet is suddenly interrupted by a tallish skinny boy leaning over my stuff on the bridge.
“Hey! What are you doing?” I scream at him whilst running across the rocks. I then notice he has head phones in and can not hear me. I finally reach the bridge as he looks down at me,pulls his headphones off and says in a cheery voice “Hello there I presume this is your stuff here.”
“Well you presume correctly then sir. This my stuff.” I answer while pulling myself on to the bridge
“You have quite the nice camera miss.” He exclaims in a just as cheery voice.
I look him over. He was kinda cute... “Ummm thank you. And you are?”
“James I just moved here from London a week ago. My father had his job moved. So me and my best friend Kingston came with him.
The next hour or two I sat on that bridge and talked to my new friend James. He was really really nice. We talked about Kingston he was 16 almost 17 and sounded kinda cool. We talked about him, James. He was my age, 17 we listened to the same music we both loved photography he played piano and guitar. I was impressed. He was amazing. Finally realizing how late it was I told him I had to leave but he refused to allow me to walk home by myself so we walked to his house because it was closer then mine. He drove me home and we said our goodbyes. I was a little sad about parting from him. But when I got home I was still happy to see my brother Terrance. He informed me that our parents where still gone and we had the house to ourselves. I grab my skateboard and ride it threw the house till I get to my room. I throw my bag on the ground and flop onto my bed. I didn't wanna sleep but I didn't want to be awake either. If I was a sleep the nightmares would come. And if I was awake I would have to see my parents. I don't see my parents a lot and when I do my dad is drunk and trying to hit one of us ,usually Terrance . My mother just trys to act like a normal mom. Like she isn't always gone and makes dinner. I hate it. When I hear something in the kitchen shatter. I race out there I can my see father is home. Terrance was punching him in the face repeatedly. I manage to pull him off and drag him kicking to my bed room.
“What the fuck just happened out there Terrance?!” I was screaming at him from across the room. Wait? Why was I yelling at him? I calm myself down. I was getting good at this but with this household you learn quick. I take a deep breathe while asking “Okay sorry for yelling what did father do this time?”
“He was calling me a dumb ass faggot, and you a slut, saying we didn't deserve to live in this house or on this planet that we where worthless and shitty kids! I-I just couldn't take hearing it. I flipped out pinned him to the wall and started punching him.” He says as we hear a shriek come from the living room. Our mom was home. She was looking at my father laying on the ground. Bloody face, bruised with a bottle of rum in his hand. She manages to get him off the ground and Terrance explains. She wasn't shocked much. By now you can guess my loving brother is gay and my father hated him for it. But Terrance didn't care he got used to it. He wasn't even upset about what our father said about him he was mad about what he said about me. Even though Terrance was my younger brother he always acted like my older brother. Him and father get into fights often because father would come home drunk acting like a dick and Terrance wouldn't take it. It doesn't take much though. You can call him all the names you please but if you say a word about me or John he will beat the shit out of you. John is Terrance’s boyfriend of 2 years. But that that was enough of the day for me. Even though it was quite early I fell asleep easily.
I was freezing cold. The room was pitch black. Nothing but a tank top and shorts. I look up to see a small white figure far off. I yell out asking for help with no avail. The figure slow creeps toward me. I can see nothing but a white cloak covering a body. I could tell as much as it lady like I see long hair that of a girls. It is then I finely see a face. A face that is not recognized. But it had writing all of the face actually covering from what I see the whole body. I could barley make out the words but they where horrifying those that I could read. I turn an ran as fast as I could from the hooded lady still freezing I feel wind against my face and come to a halt there she was standing there in front of me looking down still just as terrifying.
I wake up and almost scream. These dreams came often and don't stop. I wake up at night my pillow drenched in sweat even though I was in shorts a tank and a thin blanket. I had never told anyone about them. Only one person knew was Terrance and only because our rooms were right next to each other so he heard screaming when I did which was little. He would come running in to make sure I was okay. I refused to tell my parents, I knew what they would do. I would be sent off some place. And my cutting didn't help any. My parents didn't try and talk to me about my cutting never bringing it up. I knew they had found out when my mother had excused her self from the table one night at dinner after watching me cut my steak closely and I could hear her sobbing in the bathroom. It made me want to stop but I still didn't. I dropped back onto my sheets trying my hardest to rid the memories away for the night and go back to sleep.
The next day was hard. Waking up and knowing my parents were already gone and Terrance would soon be gone. The day passed uneventful. The next day came and I hung out with James. We became good friends. After that came the next day and I knew I would be home alone again. I hated being left home alone with only my thoughts. I knew I could always invite Jess over I wanted. Both of us were single with parents that worked a lot. So we had time to spare. I quickly shower and put some clothes on. I don't bother to straighten my hair and leave it for my curls to form in my bright red hair. I grab my laptop and rush to my living room to grab some breakfast to sit on the couch with. I open my laptop and check my emails and such. Boring as I was I turn on the tv to blare music from our speakers. Knowing Terrance would not mind. Doing nothing but listen to music and play video games for most of the day I got bored easily. I went to the bathroom and started my shower. I got undressed in nothing but my size small underwear and bra. I opened my bottom drawer to my sink and pulled it out completely. I set the drawer on the floor and sat in front of the opening of the sink for several seconds before pulling out the tiny purple crown royal bag. I set the bag on my left side and quickly put the drawer back in its place. The tiny purple bag was was open by my thin fingers to dump out the many blades inside. As they spilled I smiled as big as I could. I couldn't be anything but happy to cut. I grab my sharpest blade and began to slice.
The blade digging deeper and deeper into my forearm. The blood spilling out was a gorgeous sight for my eyes. It was crimson and pouring slightly down my arm. I winced just ever so slightly as I pushed deeper. I pulled the blade away and grabbed the closest washcloth I could to wipe away the blood to see if I was satisfied with the cut so I could start another and another and another. I cut into my pale white skin to cover the scars with more cuts to make more scars. I was already half way into my seventh deep cut when my head started to spin. I didn't care though. I kept on with the cut. And my dizziness made me go deeper. I closed my eyes and they didn't want to open up again. But I forced so I could start on number eight. Because I was not happy with the number of cuts yet no matter how deep. My eyes not wanting to open again I still was able to get them open long enough to keep cutting into my skin. Closing time after time I finally let them stay after I finished cut ten. And after I let them close I faintly heard Terrance calling out for me and then I blacked out.