Chapter 1: Prologue

When I was a little girl, I used to be one of those girls who dreamed about a prince charming. I would think about him for hours as I lied in bed, attempting to fall asleep, He be blonde and sporty, with light blue eyes and a dazzling smile. He would be athletic, with huge muscles and killer abs. I wanted him to be perfect in every single possible way. I even had our entire lives planned out for us, from our wedding, which would have a garden theme and feature my then favorite singer named Jesse McCartney, to our house, which would be located in the suburbs of New York City and would have a white picket fence and the rest of that suburban crap. I have to admit, even then I thought that this life was a stretch but I was a little girl and I prayed every day that these dreams would come true.

I guess my perspective on life has changed a little since then. I am proud to say that I have matured from my prince charming daydreams and tried to move on with my life. I have managed to accept that I will never get my old dream of a house with a white picket fence and 2.4 kids and the rest of the typical American dream. My life has been far from typical, which might have caused some of my dreams about a normal lifestyle.

Now, I know a lot better then I did then about life, I know that a person will never get the life that they dreamed about no matter how hard they try, so why bother trying. If your life is going to be screwed up, then it will be screwed up and nothing you do can really get yourself out of that situation. When you are born into a life that is completely messed up, to parents who had a messed up life, whose parents had a messed up life, whose parents had a messed up life and so on and so forth, then what are your chances at having a normal life. I would say that the chances were slim to none on a good day. I long ago decided to face the fact that my life wasn't going to change anytime soon and I learned how to deal with that. Cigarettes took away most of that pain and anything that remained was taken away by drinking. It's a sad and pathetic lifestyle and I know that but I have no other choice and nothing else to turn to.

Someone could ask about how parents or friends could let me fall into this desperate life. Well, about my parents I don't have to say much besides for the fact that my mom introduced me into cigarettes as a way to ease the pain. She told me how to drink and secrets about them, like how to buy beer even though I'm underage. For my sixteenth birthday, I got a fake ID. This was they way my parents were like. Not exactly the most positive role models for a teenage girl.

Friends. Well to answer that question I've got to tell you that I have no friends. I live in a poor family, in a shack at the edge of town. My family has lived there since the beginning of our family history. No one has moved above the station of being poor, lowlife scum and we all live in this house as one happy family. Yeah right. We live in a shack, which is 5 x 5 and functions as a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom for 37 people. Needless to say, we aren't exactly comfortable but we manage somehow. This way of living didn't exactly endear me to my fellow classmates. The rich things thought that they were too good to speak to someone as poor and low-class as me and even the poorer kids in the class didn't befriend me because they wanted to end up rich and were afraid that associating with someone who would never become a higher class would cause them to lose any chances of becoming better. I can't blame them, I mean I would do anything to have a better life then this one and despite the amount of pain they caused me, I can see their point.

When I was younger in about first through sixth grade, I was teased and bullied mercilessly. I always came home from school bruised and battered with bruises in places that I didn't know I could. I would cry to my parents, grandparents and whatever other family lived in that house but I would always get the same response. The response, which was my family mantra, was "This is the way that life is. You can't change it so you better accept it."

Then one day in seventh grade, I noticed something. No one was making fun of me anymore. I was so happy with my realization that I began to jump for joy. And to my shock, despite the fact that this was in the middle of a class, no one seemed to notice. The teacher didn't comment that I was screaming during class or that I was out of my seat. Rather, he continued to read the book, acting as if nothing had happened in the past few minutes. Then, I finally understood what my life was going to be like from now on. No one made fun of me anymore, but in a weird way, I wish they did. They just simply ignored me and acted like I didn't exist. When I sat down in a chair, they would just push me out and sit down as if I hadn't been sitting there two minutes earlier. My teachers never called on me during class and my name was never called for role. It was as if I had died or something, or rather like I hadn't existed in the first place. If I had died, maybe some people would have mourned for me or at least noted my passing, but here no one commented and acted completely normal.

This pressure caused me to go insane. I mean, who would go insane if you were ignored all day long and your family told you to accept it and if you couldn't then to go drink a bottle of beer to help calm the nerves? This caused the prince charming dreams to leave pretty quickly. I mean, I didn't even have the time anymore to think about these things. I was too busy trying to get some extra money for more cigarettes, beer and other pleasures that could possibly make me feel slightly better then I had before this. I began to lose any hope of getting the life that I had dreamed about for years on end because face it, how likely was that scenario. In my world, there is no prince charming to come and whisk me away on his horse and to help me live happily ever after with and why should I waste my time trying to find something that could not possibly be found, by any stretch of the imagination.