My heart felt as if it were breaking as I watched him with her. Ever since I had had my first vision of him he was who I had wanted, the one who pulled me through the dark days and painful nights at home. I had hoped I would one day meet him. My dream, for him to take me away from the home that hated me, so we could be together, somewhere safe and happy and now here he was, a new student at my school. I had not realized that he already had someone else. A girlfriend that he was in love with and expecting a baby with. He held her close, wrapping his arms around her, hands on her stomach as he whispered something in her ear. She laughed and he smiled at her, kissing her cheek.
The pain that shot through my body was unexpected and I fell to my knees in the middle of the hallway. People ignored me, I had no friends here, I was an outsider. Then, in my haze of pain I saw a pale hand and looked up. There he was, the beautiful blonde, blue eyed angel from my dreams. He helped me stand up and looked at me worridly. My dreams had not done justice. He had frown lines and scars around his neck that you could tell kept going under his shirt. Even these faults were beautiful on him. He was tall and though he was not overly muscular, you could tell he was strong. His voice was as beautiful as he was, I had never heard it in my visions.
"Are you alright?"
A texan accent. It took me a minute to answer him. The daze now was not from pain. I had forgotten his girlfriend, glaring at us from just a few feet away. I had forgotten her pregnancy, just barely showing at the time. All that clicked into my head was that he was finally here and he was talking to me, he had helped me when no one else had. For the first time, I felt hope. Finally, I realized that I should answer him before he thought I was insane.
"Yea, I'm fine. Thanks."
"I am Jasper Whitlock, pleased to meet you."
"I'm Mary Alice Brandon but you can just call me Alice."
Jasper's girlfriend began to get impatient and he sighed quietly.
"Alice..." He smiled as he said my name. "I hope to see you again soon."
With that said, he walked away. My heart pounded as I smiled. He wanted to see me again. I walked home, forgetting momentarily, through my happiness, what awaited me home. I did not realize that I was 20 minutes late or that my father would be drunk again when I got home. I quickly went to the kitchen after seeing the time and began making dinner, hearing him yell through his drunken stupor. My mother had divorced him and left me with the bastard, but had taken my sister with him. She said I looked too much like him and did not want any memory of him anymore. She signed away her rights to me before leaving.
My father was an asshole and no one knew but my mother and me. My sister was too young to remember. I made him his dinner and opened another beer for him. He stopped yelling at me to eat and drink. I knew he would go watch tv for a couple of hours before he left me began bothering me again. I went to my room and laid on my bed, blasting Nightwish, singing along to my favorite song, Nemo.
I thought of Jasper, trying to ignore the fact that he was with Maria. I thought of what it would be like if we were together and he did not mind my visions. We could live somewhere else, away from here and be happier. A place where my parents could never find me, even if they wanted to, a safer place than here. I knew Jasper was kind, I knew what he was like, his favorite things and why he had those scars. He had been abused as a child, by his step-father, until he turned sixteen and was able to move out on his own. We could have our own children together and we would never abuse them the way we both were. I had never seen Maria and I could not figure out why.
I already loved him, had for years but could he love me? He had a life with this other woman, a baby on the way, he lived with her. He loved her, I could tell by the way he looked at her but I could not tell if she loved him back. I knew she felt as if she owned him though she did not. I tried to look into her future. I wondered if the baby would look like she did and what he did. Then I saw it. A vision of her and another man, a calender in the background said the date was a month from now. The baby was not Jaspers and she had been sleeping with this other man.
I stood up, ready to find Jasper, I was not sure how I would tell him what I had found out but I had to tell him something before this woman hurt him. I grabbed my smokes but before I was able to leave my bedroom my father came in. I had not realized that so much time had gone by since I went upstairs to my room. I could smell the alcohol on his breath when he spoke my name and pinned me to my bed. My smokes fell to the floor as I cried out. No matter how many times he did this, it still hurt, still terrified me...and still made me feel like a whore. This was one of the many reasons my father had left my mother. He did the same to her and now that she was gone he did it to me.
He covered my mouth as he ripped off my clothes, he was strong enough that he was able to do everything easily enough and I could not get away, still I struggled and attempted to cry out. He repeated what he did every night and began raping me. I thought of Jasper to try to make it easier as I slowly gave in and silent tears went down my face.
