I was eight when it started; it wasn't much at first, the odd argument maybe once or twice a week: blazing rows that made the house shake, or that's what it appeared to do; at the time I thought it was how everyone lived. How wrong I was...

By the time I was nine, they were arguing nearly every day, and it made the whole atmosphere at home tense, because it was such a small house the air was choking with tension and fear. They always argued at night; it started when he came back from a night at the local club, more then once he brought a 'friend' home with him and if my mother didn't accept it he got violent, so very violent. I hid upstairs because I was scared of what was happening, I felt guilty knowing there was nothing I could do to save her; every time I heard the sickening smack of flesh on flesh, I cried so much, do you know what it's like to deal with something like that?

I was eleven when my mother stabbed my father to death; I came home from school, opened the door and my mother was sat on the staircase. It's strange; I can picture her sat there every time I close my eyes: she was pale, her brown eyes were glassy and unfocused. I knew something had happened the moment I saw her, so I went into the living room and there he was lying on the floor. He had a kitchen knife next to him smeared in his blood, such bad blood. She must have killed him a few hours before I got home because the cast off on the walls was dark where the blood had stained the peeling walls. I didn't cry and I didn't miss him. I feel ashamed of saying that now, but it's true, he hurt and broke up our family to me; he was never a true father, one who taught me how to ride a bike or read; he was much happier to go and get pissed at the local club because I didn't matter to him; I was in the way.

The police arrested my mother, that was when she started to cry, slow at first then harder and harder, her body shaking under the strain of the unspoken tears. I turned away as she was driven off; I didn't want to remember her like that, as the person who killed him, it just didn't seem right. I knew where I was going to end up; I knew the moment the police arrived, when the lady arrived to take me away I couldn't let go of her hand, but I can't remember her name. I took one more glance at that house, the house filled with pain and fear, before I got in the car, to start my new life, even though I knew it would never be the same again.

The day I went to back to school was hard. I always loved school; it had always got me out of the house and I soon found out that, when I concentrated on my work, I was actually quite clever. The stares started the moment I walked through the gates; I had become the girl whose mother stabbed her father to death, those years were hard, the comments in the hallways and the stares in lessons. I began to work harder and harder, as a way for me to escape, and I quickly became top in most of my classes. It was when I moved into my foster home for the first time that the real trouble started...