Hello everyone! I know, I'm awful for submitting a new multi-chapter story when I have so many I need to update. I promise, I will get to those, but I got this idea for a fic in my head and it wouldn't leave me alone. Sooo, I had to write it. However, while this is a multiple-chapter story, it will only be a few chapters long. I was considering just uploading it as a one-shot, but then it would have been extremely long.
Trigger Warning: This story contains mentions of severe child abuse, self-harm and multiple suicide attempts. Character deaths.
In other words, this story will be very dark and agonizingly heartbreaking. It does not have a happy ending. This story is sort of similarto Chains, for those of you who have read that.
It will be told in first person from Hanna's point of view. Emily/Aria are just a little side story. If you know me, you know I almost always (okay, always) have to have the four girls paired up together in my stories. :P
Enjoy the heartbreak!
I really hate how hard it is to hide scars and cuts. If it's too hot, you can't wear long sleeves or you'll get heat stampede or whatever it is. Makeup doesn't work well because it can be easily rubbed off. If you cut yourself on your wrists, you can wear a ton of bracelets, but that kind of looks suspicious, doesn't it?
I cut myself because it's the only thing that makes me feel alive. I believe that I have no other reason on this Earth other than to suffer and feel pain.
My name is Hanna Marin and I live a life of self-hatred. I don't really think anyone has a life worse than I.
In Rosewood, Pennsylvania, the sun always seem to shine, warming residents with its rays. The houses all look like they belong in a Better Homes & Garden magazine and the citizens are all gorgeous and model-worthy. Except for myself. I'm a stout duckling amongst a group of beautiful swans.
Manicured hedges whip pass me. Trees as tall as buildings past by in a blur. My mother and I are on our way to the local hospital. We were out at the mall when she received an emergency call, but I couldn't hear what it was about.
My mother is a children's psychiatrist, which means she deals with fucked up kids who use sex as a weapon or pump drugs into their veins just to make themselves feel worth while. She's very sharp and observant, yet she doesn't see how far her only daughter has fallen. Isn't that the definition of the word irony?
My mom pulls into her assigned parking spot at the hospital and practically leaps out of the car the second she's turned the engine off. Geez, if I did that she'd bitch at me for a day. Parents can be such hypocrites.
The hospital is alive and buzzing with chaos. Nurses rush around, doctors are talking to their patients and for some reason, there's a purse drive in the lobby. Are the patients supposed to trade in their colon bags for Kate Spade ripoffs?
We ride up the first set of elevators to the fourth floor - the psych ward. When I was little, I used to be afraid to visit my mom at work. I used to think that I would turn crazy just by being in the same room as someone who 'was nuts.' But that was when I was just a kid. I know better now, obviously. I'm with my mom at work more often than I would like to be (you go for a joyride while drunk one time and you're branded for life, God) and I've made a few friends in the past. I once befriended this woman who thought she was the mayor of some made-up town she'd created. I don't know what the disorder is called, but she would go from being herself to this mayor in two seconds flat. It was really bizarre.
Another time, when I was fourteen, I befriended this twelve-year-old boy who was in the hospital for a suicide attempt. The kids at his private school made fun of him for having a stutter for years and one night, he tried to down an entire bottle of sleeping pills. But his sister caught him (thankfully) and he had to stay at the hospital for eight weeks. He was a really sweet kid and his family ended up switching private schools. Last I heard, he had friends and did well in school.
When we pass the children's part of the psych ward that levels off into a narrow hallway, I know that this means there's trouble afoot. There are only two rooms down this hall: a wide observation room filled with toys, an easel and a TV. There are also little tables and books. Plastic chairs and rugs. Bright, colorful characters from Disney and Nickelodeon are plastered all over the walls. The carpet is a rainbow of blues, pinks, purples, greens and yellows. The room next to it is an actual patient room, but it only has a bed, a chair, a small bathroom and TV in it.
If you get taken down this hall - you're done for.
"Mom?"
"What, Hanna?"
"Why are we down here?"
Our heels click in unison on the tiled floor and she stops in front of the window of the observation room. Doctor Wells, one of my mom's closet friends and colleagues, stands in front of the window. The fingernails of his left hand (that seriously need to be cleaned, hasn't this dude ever heard of a manicurist?) tap anxiously against his clipboard. His other hand fiddles with that thing doctors use to listen to your heart - a telescope? - and he turns to my mom immediately.
"Dr. Marin, thank you for coming."
"It is of no trouble, Dr. Wells. Is what I've been told true? Did they-"
"Yes It's believed to be the worst child abuse case in the history of the state of Pennsylvania, given the conditions she was found in."
Holy shit, the second? Mom pulls Dr. Wells off to the side so they can talk privately and my eyes are drawn to the large window. At first, I don't see anything, just a wall-plaster of Hercules starting at me, but then I see her.
She's crouched under one of those little plastic tables, knees pulled up to her chest, with her arms wrapped protectively around them. She has long, knotty dark brown hair and she looks confused and terrified. The jeans she's wearing look like she hasn't taken them off in years and the green sweater she has on has more holes in it than the plot of an episode of Glee. She has bruises, dirt and scratch marks all over her face and hands, but underneath all of that, I can see her beauty. She's so skinny she could be a stick figure and I don't know why, but I start to feel this ache in my chest. It's weird. I raise a hand up to wave at her when she emerges out from under the desk. I couldn't see it before because of the shadows I guess, but she's chewing on a pen.
Uh. Okay.
"Mom?"
I twist my head around, but she and Dr. Wells are bent over a thick folder full of papers on what I assume to be are about that girl. I sigh and turn back to the window.
The girl inside has moved onto one of the plastic tables, the pen still in her mouth. Geez, she's going to get ink poisoning if it breaks.
I glance back over my shoulder to see if anyone's paying attention and then quietly slip inside the room. Somebody has to get that pen out of her mouth. When the doors shuts, the girl jumps, her head snapping up.
Whoops. I hadn't meant to scare her. She stares at me and a small whimper escapes the back of her throat. What am I supposed to say?
"...Your sweater is green and it's the middle of October. Green is more of a spring color," I pipe up. Well, that was intelligent. She only continues to gaze at me, chewing viciously on the pen.
"...It's..it's a nice green, though. It's a darker shade of forest green, so it could pass as a fall color, I guess." Jesus, why am I rambling?
Just then, she leaps from the table and her back collides with the wall behind her. My eyes widen in alarm and I rush to the window, but my mom and Dr. Wells are gone. What the hell? They just left me with this crazy chick and didn't even notice I was gone? I twist the handle of the doorknob, but it doesn't budge. Oh, fuck. That's right - it locks from the outside once it shuts.
I'm so screwed.
I nervously whip back around to see that she's sunk to the floor with her head bent down. She continues to chomp on the pen, loud and soft whimpers escaping from her throat.
Oh, son of a bitch.
I step closer to her. "Hey, hey, stop chewing on that! Do you want to get ink poisoning?"
I lunge for her and try to grab the pen out of her mouth. Wrong move - she starts to shriek very loudly and swats at me with her hands. Just as I grab on the free end of the pen, she opens her mouth and it snaps, exploding all over my sweater and hers. At first, I'm in shock, but it rapidly fades away to anger. My blue eyes fire up in a blaze.
"YOU'VE RUINED MY SWEATER. THIS IS CASHMERE AND YOU GOT INK ALL OVER IT. CASHMERE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?"
Instead of answering me, she squeezes her eyes shut, cups her hands over her ears and starts to wail. No sooner does she do this, does the door fly open and my mom, Doctor Wells and two nurses rush in. My mom yanks me back, her eyes sharp with anger while Doctor Wells and the nurses try desperately to get the girl to calm down. But she only kicks at them and screams louder.
Jesus Christ, I think I broke her.
"WHAT DID YOU DO, HANNA?"
"I-" My arms flail helplessly to the shrieking girl. "She was chewing on a pen and I didn't want it to break in her mouth! You guys were gone so I -"
"So you just took it upon yourself to sneak into a room alone with a girl who is under severe medical care to help her? Do you know how dangerous this could have been for you both?"
I can barely hear myself think from the girl's wailing sounds and I shrug. "Whatever, Mom. We're fine. I'm sorry, okay? But you should be yelling at her! Because of that -" I point at her - "freak, my sweater is ruined!"
"Hanna Marin!" Her voice is clipped and I know she's pissed. "You will never say such a insensitive comment like that again, do you understand?"
"Whatever." I've only now just noticed that girl's loud shrieking noises have turned into soft sniffles. Dr. Wells and the nurses have moved away from her and she's curled up into a ball on the floor, with her face tucked into her knees. "What is wrong with her?"
My mom sighs. "Hanna, she has a name. It's Spencer Hastings. You need to stop being so inconsiderate of others. She's lived an extremely traumatic life until now, and I imagine she's very frightened and flummoxed."
Flu-what? My eyes sweep over to Spencer and I feel a tug of guilt in my chest. Goddamn it. I huff and cross my arms. "Hey, uh, I'm sorry, Spencer. I'm sorry for scaring you."
Spencer only lets out a choked sob and starts to crawl across the floor, towards a purple beanbag chair. I'm about to say something else when my mother asks me to leave with the nurses so she and Dr. Wells can start Spencer's therapy.
I sort of want to stay to see what will happen, but then again, it's not like I care about her. She's just some damaged girl whose parents used her as a punching bag. It's none of my concern what happens to her. Besides, I need to get my sweater to the dry cleaners as fast as I can.
I pause in the doorway and glance over my left shoulder. Spencer is now hiding under the beanbag chair instead of sitting on it, like a normal person would. Geez, what a little weirdo.
"Well, I...bye, Spencer. See you in a bit, Mom."
I walk out the door and follow the nurses down the hall. But just before I pass the observation room, I can't stop myself from peering in the window. My mom and Dr. Wells are sitting a few feet away from Spencer on tiny red and blue chairs. Both of them look concerned and I can see their lips moving. For a split second, I want to march back in there and yank Spencer out from under the beanbag chair and tell her to sit on it, not under it. Then, I remember my sweater and my anger at her rapidly returns.
So instead I turn on my heels and walk away with my head held high. I do not care about Spencer Hastings and I'll probably never see her again. I've got no problem with that.
So, what did you guys think?
Please leave reviews. Reviews keep me motivated!
