Abba Branklin awoke to the sound of chirping birds, calling her from sleep. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and yawned, stretching her arms and sighing. Today wasn't a particularly good day; for one thing, it was the day her father was kicked out by her mother seven years ago. It also happened to be her birthday. That day she was turning eighteen, and she knew life would never be the same after it.
She swung her legs out of bed and put on her slippers, scratching her head with her worn fingernails. Maybe I'll get a manicure, Abba thought, even though she knew she didn't have the money to do so, and her mother would say no.
Life wasn't especially good to Abba. Ten years ago, on that same day, she was spontaneously struck by lightning while riding her tricycle outside her house. Her younger brother was eating ice cream with her mother, who was busy gossiping with her neighbors/best friends. She was sent immediately to the emergency room, where she stayed for almost a month.
Eight years ago, on a hot day in August, Abba was beat up by the neighborhood bullies, Sandra and Claire. Sandra had enough muscle to pick up a truck, while Claire was skinny to the bone. Both were able to scare the hell out of Abba, and she stayed away from the general area around the two bullies, who regularly hung out near the ice cream parlor across the gas station.
Abba never left the little suburban neighborhood, and she grew up thinking that was the whole world. Her mother was very overprotective, and at the same time abusive, putting out cigarettes on her children and making them do humiliating tasks. She once told Abba that her father was eaten by a lion, who proceded to excrete his body parts, which were then used to make silverware for the less-fortunate.
Abba knew that was a lie, not because she wasn't naive, but because she witnessed her mother throwing her father out of the house. Evil was in her mother's eyes, and Abba watched the scene by peeking through the crack in her bedroom door. She wanted to get out of her room, to convince her mother to let her father stay or just leave with her father, but fear consumed her, and she stood there like a statue.
Abba grew throughout the years, and one day, she received a lemon-scented letter from an admirer, who marked the love letter in hearts and kissed it repeatedly. She proceded to go on a hunt for the boy who sent her the letter, and found out a week later than young Billy, who lived across the street from her, was the one who sent it. Billy was known for being what his father called "disgusting".
He acted weird around the older boys, who got together every Saturday to play basketball in the playground. Sometimes he'd steal their sweaty shirts and watch them from afar, using binoculars. Billy was also fond of unicorns and sparkles. Abba was somewhat disturbed when she found out Billy had sent the letter, but understood when she confronted him and he told her that he thought she was a boy.
Abba began to change her image, afraid that her current state would turn off most of the boys around her school. She started working out, grew her hair out, and wore makeup all the day, much to her mother's dismay. Her body developed rather quickly, and soon all of the boys in her middle school were chasing after her. Before the age of fifteen, she'd managed to have sex with twelve high school seniors and one assistant teacher, and try mushrooms with a group of high school dropouts.
Her behavior was beginning to worry her mother, who immediately called upon God to straighten her out. Before she knew it, Abba was enrolled in a Catholic school.
Abba entered the bathroom inside her bedroom, which she was thankful to call her own. She grabbed her toothbrush and the open toothpaste bottle lying in the sink, and looked herself over in the mirror.
She wiped the drool from her chin and sniffed, taking in the smell of fresh pancakes that were waiting for her downstairs. Her mouth was watering, and she quickly brushed her teeth, took a shower and got dressed. Adjusting her bra, which she accidently put on backwards, Abba made her way downstairs and into the kitchen, where her formidable mother sat, smoking a cigar.
"Happy birthday, bitch!" her mother exclaimed, and Abba blushed, rolling her eyes. "You're freaking eighteen! Old enough to get the hell outta here!" Her mother was wearing a lot of makeup, more than Abba.
Her eye shadow reached her eyebrows and was sick green, and she wore dark red lipstick that came off on the cigar. She wore a tight pink dress that barely covered her huge thighs, and had a pair of giant platforms on her tiny feet. Whoever told her she looked good was obviously blind.
"I know," Abba said, taking the seat opposite her mother. She inadvertantly breathed in the smoke, and coughed, gasping for fresh air. "Do you mind?" she asked, but her mother shot her an icy look, and Abba backed down, looking at her shoes. "So anyway," she said, trying to change the subject. She pulled down her skirt and tied her hair into a ponytail. "I was wondering if you could let me-"
"You didn't eat your pancakes!" her mother said, running over to a steaming plate that had pancakes stacked on top of each other. Abba's eyes were melting, and she quickly applied butter and syrup to each individual pancake, scarfing them down in the process.
"Damn, girl," her mother said, "you eat faster than a starving pig. Where you put all the weight, I don't know. You're skinnier than a twig, but you've got breasts like your mother; big and firm." Abba felt the pancakes coming back up a bit, and rushed over to the garbage can, just in case she couldn't stop the flow. "Not in that one!" her mother yelled. "I just bought that. Ah, damn you, Abba!"
"I'm sorry, mother, but I have to ask you something!" Abba watched her mother roll her eyes, and then elaborated: "My friends bought some Beatles tickets for themselves, but one of them got herpes, so there's an extra ticket for me. And I was wondering if I could go-"
"So you can have some more sex and do some more drugs? I haven't forgotten why you're in Catholic school in the first place!" her mother screamed. Abba rolled her own eyes; it wasn't as if she had given up on the both immediately. She had boys paying her twenty bucks to have sex with her behind the gym, claiming that she was virgin and was looking for "a big, strong man" to show her a good time.
She managed to do about fifty boys, not including her History and Math teachers for an A+ on her tests. And just last week she was smoking weed with her pals in an alley behind a bar, where she sold some of her share to adventurous newcomers. It was highly likely that if Abba went to the Beatles concert, she'd end up pregnant and drunk, which wasn't exactly a good combination.
"But mom, you never let me go anywhere or do anything!" Abba yelled.
"I'm sorry, bitch, but that's the way it is!"
"But-"
"I don't want to hear it!"
"Mo-"
"I said, I don't want to-" BANG!