House of Cards
Disclaimer: I do not own anything you recognize, I mean, c'mon, if I did, would I be writing fan fiction? Okay, so I probably would. Shut up! Madina Lake owns the title.
Author's Note: This is for my wifey, Rachel, for Christmas. Yes, she's my wifey. No, I'm not a lesbian, I am straight! I just have a wife. Get over it.
Italics in first person POV will be the character writing in her diary. Italics in third person POV are flashbacks, they will be marked as such.
XxXxXxX
Dear diary,
I haven't written in you since I was twelve years old. Well, I figured that I'd write down my memoirs, so to speak… after all, this will be my last day on earth.
You know what I've realized? The truth… gets you nowhere. Telling the truth gives you shit. Seriously! Where does it get you? I'll tell you where. Fucking nowhere! All it does is make people ask questions, questions that you don't want to answer.
I mean, sure, I feel bad about not being truthful with my loved ones; to him. Who doesn't feel bad about it? But to keep them around, it's completely necessary.
So, I tell little lies to cover up some shit… a lot of the time…. Big fucking deal! I can be truthful with him. Like, the other day… he asked me why I looked so tired, I said it was because I hadn't slept very well that night. That's, well, partly the truth. Okay, the full truth with that one? I was out getting shit-faced with some of my friends.
Now, I know what you're thinking… what's a little girl like me getting drunk for? Why would these so called 'friends' let me do something like that? Well, I have to please them. These people aren't really "friends"… in actuality, they're drug dealers.
When I was a child, my dad was horribly abusive to me. More mentally than physically, really, unless you don't consider being a five year old, strapped to a bed, and having your father stick a needle full of some drug up your arm or thigh or some other body part; not mental abuse, that is. Oh, and another of his favorites was force feeding me pills. He would starve me for days and than tell me that I could eat if I just took a pill. And I was a child; I needed food, so I would take it. And usually later, I would throw up what little food had been given to me Of course, there was other abuse, but this was definitely one of the most scarring things my father did to me.
But, I'm not going to get into my childhood. Bad memories, you understand. But because of things like this, I'm now addicted to just about every drug you can name. And it's a bad addiction to. I'll do just about anything to get these drugs; even if it means selling my nineteen year old body just so I can be a few bucks closer to getting my sedatives.
But enough about that, it's a touchy subject….
I've gone severely off topic here…. What do I really want to write about here? I want to talk about him. The man of my dreams. Jeff Hardy. He is seriously more than I could ask for. For a while, he kept my life worth living, but now, I don't know, I've just lost the will.
I really don't know how it happened, maybe it's because in the whole of the two years we've been together, he thinks he knows everything about me, but in reality… he doesn't know a thing about me. And it's not his fault, really. It's mine. I've never been truthful with him. I've never told him about what my father did to me; he thinks that my father died when I was a child. Well, that's partly true too.
Rachel looked up from her writing. It had taken her two hours to write down just the little bit that was written, but even that was emotionally wrenching for her. The pages were spotted from her fallen tears and as she reread her words, she felt drained.
It's true, her father had died when she was a child, but his death wasn't due to natural causes.
Flashback
"Okay, I have to plan this out." Thirteen year old Rachel thought to herself. She was beginning to crack, she know it.
Rachel was sitting in a chair right outside the door, a pistol clutched in her shaking digits, she was waiting for her father to come home.
Every night it was the same; he would come home completely trashed, go into her room, climb into her bed, and rape her. Every night it was the same, and Rachel wanted no more of it. She wanted no more of the beatings, the teasing, the drugs, and the psychological damage he had inflicted onto her. She wanted no more of it.
Rachel realized she had no more time to plan out her actions when she heard the sound of a vehicle rolling into the gravel of the driveway.
She cocked the gun and sat, alert, waiting for the door to open, for the second he did, she would shoot him. She had it pointed where he would walk in.
She had saved up all of her money and was able to sneak onto her father's computer and buy a plane ticket out of England and into America. The cheapest place she could go was into an airport in North Carolina. She had already packed up all of her stuff and once her deed was done, she had to leave immediately; the neighbors would hear the gunshot.
Rachel felt her heart beat quicken when she heard footsteps on the front porch.
A few seconds later, the door opened; she shot the gun.
There was a loud bang followed by a crash. Her father was lying dead on the ground, a pool of blood forming beneath him.
There was no time to lose, almost as soon as she had shot him she could hear the neighbors. "What the bloody hell was that?!?" The old woman screamed.
Rachel quickly collected her duffel bag, which inside held everything she owned, no more than just a few pairs of clothes, and she booked out the door, running as quickly as she could down the street.
End of Flashback
Rachel wiped her eyes. She couldn't believe that she was fucking crying! She never cried. Crying is a sign of weakness.
She picked up her pen and continued to write.
Jeff also thinks I'm straight edge, well, as I've already said, that's clearly not true. But, I mean, c'mon…. Can I really tell him that I'm an addict? Of course not! He would leave me as soon as I even mentioned it.
Not only do I do all of that, but to wrap it all up, I cut myself. It's my favorite high. Better than any drug that I've ever taken.
Jeff could do so much better than me. He deserves so much better than me. I've tried so much to show him that, but no matter what I do, he insists that he doesn't want anyone else. But he doesn't even know who I really am.
No one knows the real truth about me, not any of my friends; not him. But I can't let them know the actual truth. If they knew, they would leave me; I just know it. They can't know. Until now.
It's been hard. So hard not to tell them the truth. I've wanted to so many times, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I don't want to be alone; loneliness is one thing that I would do anything to not have to endure. And I know that if I told them the truth, I would be alone.
Rachel lifted her pen off of the paper.
She had felt what it was like to be alone before.
And she hated every last second of it. There is nothing worse than being alone.
Flashback
Rachel hadn't had anything to eat or drink in days, and because of this, she was weak. As she walked down the alleyway, she felt her knees give way beneath her and she fell down to the pavement.
Rachel pulled herself up and she sat against the brick wall, resting her head against it. She was so tired, but she couldn't fall asleep; not when she was out in the open as she was and anything could happen to her. Rachel cupped her hands, the water fill the palms of her hands. She brought them to her lips and let the luke-warm water run down her sore, dry throat. She drew her knees up to her chest and rubbed her arms, trying desperately to get some heat.
"Excuse me?" she heard someone say from a few feet away from her.
She didn't even bother to turn her head to see who it was that was speaking to her. Without even looking, however, she could tell that it belonged to a male, and that he was around her age, maybe a few years older.
Rachel put her guard up as the boy knelt down in front of her.
"Why are you out here in the rain?" he asked her, seeing the way that she shook a bit from the cold. She was soaked to the skin.
Rachel just looked at him. One look at the boy before her, and Rachel could feel her heart melt.
She was right, he was about her age. He had long, dirty blonde hair with blue and red streaks in it and it was tied back out of his face. His piercing green eyes, in her opinion, could see right through her soul and he looked at her, observed her with those beautiful eyes.
Rachel began to grow intimidated. He was looking at her as if he could read her very thoughts.
"C'mon." the boy said, holding out his hand for her. "You can come and stay with me, my Pop won't mind."
Rachel didn't know what it was that allowed her to do her next uncharacteristic move; but she took his hand.
The second he let go of her hand so that he could pick up the bag that had been at her feet, Rachel's knees gave way from beneath her, again, and she almost fell.
"Whoa!" Jeff exclaimed as he wrapped an arm around her waist, catching her before she fell back down to the wet pavement. "Here…" Jeff said as he helped her stand up straight. "I'll help you walk." He leaned down and picked up the duffel bag, strapping it across his shoulder. "I'm Jeff, what's your name?"
"Rachel…" she said quietly, her voice just above a whisper.
"Well, you don't have to worry about anything, Rachel, I'm going to protect you from now on. I'm never going to let anything happen to you."
End of Flashback
Jeff had been there for her, he saved her from her loneliness and solitude, he, unknowingly, of course, helped slow down her addictions.
She put her pen to the paper for the last time.
Anyways, I think that I've trailed off one too many times in this entry; this final entry. Now, I've been saying 'you' as if I am talking to my diary. No. I am talking to everyone and anyone who reads this.
I feel that my story should be told.
Now, before I finish this, and end my life permanently, I'm sure you're all wondering… why, if Jeff keeps me from killing myself, am I killing myself than? Well, that answer is very simple.
Jeff and I have been together, as in a relationship, for two years. And in those two years, and our six year friendship, not once have I told him the truth, as I've already told you.
Tonight, on Christmas Eve night, Jeff Nero Hardy, the love of my life, proposed to me.
And I said no.
I didn't want a marriage based on lies. He doesn't deserve that.
And tonight I have come to realize, I have done nothing but lie to everyone I love and care about.
I would just like to say, that I am sorry. I know that what I am going to do is very selfish of me, because it would be taking away the girl that you all love.
But the truth is, the Rachel that you all love doesn't really exist. She never did.
Rachel closed the notebook. She set it underneath the stool at which she sat. She had been sitting on the stool and had the diary set upon her lap.
She chucked the pen across the room, it just bounced off of the locked wooden door.
Rachel had had it set up for hours. The rope had been fixed to the light above her and it was tied securely.
For the next fifteen minutes, Rachel downed every last pill in that damned bathroom, she shot up every drug which required to be shot up, that she had. She could already feel everything grow dark.
Without a moment to spare, Rachel took the razorblade she had had and she cut little lined going up and down both of her thighs. Feeling the blood run down her legs and pool around her toes was the best feeling in the world to her.
Keeping the blade in hand, Rachel climbed up onto the stood. She fixed the looped end of the rope around her neck. She was beginning to lose consciousness.
Just as she pressed the razor to her wrist, she heard the door pounding. "Rach, it's Jeff, open up."
"Jeff?" she asked, her voice weak.
"Yes, baby, it's me. Open up, I have to talk to you about earlier." As Jeff said this, Rachel ran the razor across the length of her left arm. "I understand why you said no, I mean, you're only nineteen years old, there's an eleven year difference between us. I just want to talk to you, darlin', I love you." As he said this, she slit her entire right arm.
"I'm sorry, Jeff…." She managed to choke out. "I love you." She jumped off of the stool and the rope immediately caught onto her throat.
Hearing the gagging noises, Jeff began to throw his body at the locked door.
When he had finally gotten it opened, he found his love. She was hanging from a noose, blood pouring from her wrists and thighs, a puddle of blood growing larger beneath her.
"Rachel!" he screamed as he ran to her hanging body. But it was too late, she was dead.
He looked down, he couldn't look at the sight before him.
But something beneath the over-turned stool caught his attention. He knelt down and picked up the tiny, leather bound book.
Etched into the cover, in Rachel's handwriting, were the words, "My life is free…. In the House of Cards."
It's late at night the worlds asleep I'm afraid, to be alone And you'll be amazed Now I can't look you in your eyes I'm afraid, to be alone And you'll be amazed It's such a shame what I've become And you'll be amazed You'll be amazed
And I'm trying not to think
I take some pills cause my mind bleeds
I'm thinking what is wrong with me
Because the only thing I know about honesty
Is every lie I told that you believed
I'm afraid, that one day you'll find out
At the secrets I keep
You'll be amazed
At my mouth full of lies
I'm too afraid to come clean
My life's still free in the house of cards
Because the guilt is killing me
I try disconnect my heart again
Just so I can breathe
I wanna be myself again
But I just can't cause
I'm afraid, that one day you'll find out
At the secrets I keep
You'll be amazed
At my mouth full of lies
I'm too afraid to come clean
My life's still free in the house of cards
After years of breaking down
My whole life has come undone
Cause I'm trying to fake it all
And I know that you love someone
But that someone isn't me
Isn't me, no
At the secrets I keep
You'll be amazed
At my mouth full of lies
I'm too afraid to come clean
My life's still free in the house of cards
XxXxXxX
Well, that was certainly dark for a Christmas present, wasn't it? Oh well, it was quite fun to write. Hope you all liked it, especially you, Rachel.
Rach, is it just me, or are we having fun… fictionally killing each other off in our one shots to each other. Lol.
-Leanne