Well, hello there! It's been a while, right? Months. So I started writing this story a while ago, and realised I never posted it to this website, so I thought I would in case there was anyone still out there who would be interested in reading something I had written. Let me know if you're reading this and whether (or not) you like it in a review. Constructive criticism is always welcome, just please don't be rude about it. This story is not yet complete, and as I write this I have uploaded only four chapters so far, so if you're wondering why it stops so suddenly, it's because I'm yet to write the next chapter. I'll stick in some little author's notes here and there, but I hope to keep on top of this story as I've really enjoyed getting back into writing.

If you are reading, thank you. And if you are a regular reader of mine, then thank you for your continued support. It is very much appreciated.

Onwards!

Chapter 1

"Annaliese, can you please focus on the task at hand?" Mr Capon's decrepit voice broke me out of my daydream trance and brought me back to reality. His brow was furrowed making his already prominent wrinkles even more defined.

"Yeah, sorry Sir." I sat up straight in my seat whilst Becca and her minions sniggered at how I had spaced out again. I tend to do that a lot. Imagination is where I'm safe. Reality is where people get hurt.

My name is Annaliese McCoy, and I'm a senior in high school. I've been fairly incognito throughout both Middle and High school so far. I don't have any friends, only acquaintances in a few classes. No one I can hang out with outside of school. That's fine though, I don't want any. I don't want to be attached to someone like that. They'd think I was a freak soon enough. What's the point in getting attached to someone if they're just going to leave again? I lived with my mum and dad. I loved my mum to bits. My dad; not so much. I didn't have any brothers or sisters. Just me. That's how I like it. It's always been me, on my own.

As the clock ticked by slower than I think it ever had, I decided to just get my head down and start the essay on the civil war that Mr Capon had set. I think that if anyone was suited to teach the civil war it would be Mr Capon; the oldest teacher in the entire state of Maryland. He probably fought in it. Once I had started the essay and forgot about the time, it seemed to go by so much faster. The bell signalling the end of the school day tolled and everyone rushed out of their seats and out of the door. I wrapped up the sentence I was writing and shut my notebook.

"Wait, Miss McCoy. I'd like a word, if I may." Mr Capon stopped me as I was about to walk out. I nodded and made my way to the front to stand in front of his desk. "Now, Annaliese; I know you have quite the active imagination but it seems to be getting in the way of you paying attention in my lessons. I can't comment on your other lessons, but I can assure you that spacing out in every lesson is not going to get you the grades I know you deserve. You're a bright girl. Don't let that go to waste."

"Yes sir. Sorry sir." I bowed my head slightly and left the room. I was always as polite as possible to my elders, a trait I had acquired at home. The hallway was bustling with teenagers excited for the end of the day. A group of jocks ran past me, one of them knocking me slightly. Luckily I had a tight enough grip on my books so that they didn't fall out of my arms and onto the floor. That was something I learnt to do back in middle school. I had grown tired of having to pick up all my books and always being late to my classes.

"Sorry!" the tall guy shouted back as he continued to run. He seemed to be one of the nicer footballers. Most of them aren't usually that considerate as to apologise for something like that. I continued to walk on to my locker. I put a few books away – ones I didn't need for any homework assignments – and shut it again. I didn't fancy hanging around, so left without looking back.

My car was parked at the far end of the parking lot, by the football fields so I put my hood up to remain incognito and started to power walk towards it. As I slipped into the driver's side of the car I took a moment to just sit and prepare myself for whatever I would find when I got home. I hated going home. There was never anything good waiting for me. A loud bang on the windshield was what brought me out of this particular daydream. It would seem a football had been kicked towards my car. That's what I get for parking by the football field, I guess. Someone ran over quickly to pick up the football. When I looked, I saw it was Alex Gaskarth, one of the guys from my music class. He wasn't an overly popular kid. In fact, he was fairly regular, and was just goofing around with his friends after school.

He picked up the ball and mouthed an apology at me. I simply nodded and started the car. He threw the ball back at his friends and ran after it. I got out of there quickly. If I was late home, my dad would kill me. He always said to me be home on time, or don't come home at all. Of course I'd always take the first option.

When I got there I was greeted with the usual scene as I opened the front door. My mother was sat in the living room, a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. My father was nowhere in sight. He was probably upstairs, or maybe not home from work yet.

"Hey sweetie, how was school?" My mum asked, not taking her eyes off the TV screen, which I only now realised was on.

"It was okay, nothing special as usual."

"Any homework?"

"Yeah, I was just about to go upstairs and do it. Is dad home?" She stayed quiet for a moment, like she was figuring out what to say.

"No, but I'm not sure where he is. Best be doing something constructive though for when he gets back, eh?" Mum knew better than anyone what the consequences would be if he came home to find me watching TV or on my laptop.

I didn't bother to reply; I just went straight upstairs to my bedroom and shut the door behind me. I put on my favourite Green Day album and turned the volume down so that it wouldn't be loud enough to upset my dad. I pulled out my notebook from my backpack and continued to write out my history essay on the civil war.

After an hour or so I had come to a dead end. Writer's block came and went quite often with me, but I couldn't seem to get past it this time. I could hear the sound of tyres on gravel outside the window, which meant dad was home. I heard the front door open and slam shut fairly hard. He was in a bad mood. That didn't bode well.

"ANNALIESE!" His voice was almost loud enough to make the walls shake as he shouted up the staircase. I shot up and ran down the stairs.

"Yes, sir?"

"What have you been doing since you got home from school?" his eyes had the look in them that I dreaded.

"I was just finishing an essay I was given today on the civil war, sir." I looked down at the step I was stood on. He grabbed my chin between his finger and thumb and forced me to look at him.

"Is it nearly done?"

"I'm halfway through, sir." My jaw was aching already from his firm grip. His expression grew angry.

"That's not good enough, Annaliese. It should be done. And you should be making dinner or doing something useful instead of loitering in your room, listening to that shitty noise you seem to think is music. Jesus Christ, are you just completely useless?" I stayed silent, fear starting to consume my emotions. Wrong move. "WELL?!" he shouted in my face, his grip tightening.

"Yes, I'm useless sir." He nodded and pushed on my jaw hard enough to make me fall backwards.

"I think you should make your mother and me some dinner." My mum spoke up then.

"Oh no, honey that's okay. I was going to make dinner tonight-" she was cut off.

"I wasn't talking to you. You have no say in the matter. Annaliese will cook tonight, won't you Annaliese?" he turned back to me.

"Yes, sir." I didn't dare argue.

"Good girl. I think a nice steak would be nice tonight." I nodded and made my way into the kitchen to start cooking. I didn't bother making any for myself. He specified that I was to cook for him and my mother. He never mentioned making anything for myself, so I was very careful to stick to that. I didn't want to give him any reason to be mad at me.

After they had both eaten the meal I had conjured up, I was left alone to do the dishes and to clear up. As I was stood at the sink washing up some plates, dad came back into the kitchen.

"You disappointed me tonight, Annaliese. You should have finished your homework by the time I had gotten home."

"I'm sorry, sir. I got stuck," I tried to explain myself but he cut me off.

"Listen, I don't know if you think that life is just a big game, or if your grades mean anything to you or not, but you will finish your homework on the day it is set to an A grade standard. You are a straight A student. If your grades slip, so help me God, I will be forced to issue a punishment. You don't know how lucky you are. You have a roof over your head. A family. Food. Everything you need, and yet you take that for granted you spoilt little bitch." I let him rant, but he was only making himself angrier with every word he spoke."

"I'm sorry Sir, I'll try harder," he cut me off again, but this time with a smack across the face.

"Don't you DARE speak out of turn you worthless little girl. God, I look forward to the day I will see the back of you and you leave this house. Now I want you to march your ass upstairs and finish that fucking essay, do you hear me?" I stayed quiet for fear of saying something wrong. That was the wrong thing to do.

"I SAID DO YOU HEAR ME?" He stepped closer to me, giving me another slap. My cheek was throbbing by this point and I assumed I would possibly end up with a black eye.

"Yes, sir." My voice quivered in terror.

"Good. Off you go." He stepped aside as I ran past him and up the stairs into my bedroom. I shut the door behind me and slid down it, tears running down my face. I heard my mother start to shout at him, and things turned ugly very quickly. I heard glass breaking, punches being thrown, slaps on bare skin and screams on my mother's part. I tried to block it out, pushing my fingers into my ears, but I could still hear it. And then it suddenly went disturbingly quiet. This was a usual thing though. If I dared to go downstairs now, it would only be me who was the subject of a beating worse than what I had experienced already tonight.

Instead, I did as I was told. I completed the essay. I was done by 10pm and decided to just get into my pyjamas and get into bed. I was scared that if I went outside my bedroom, I would get into more trouble. In bed I just laid there, staring up at the ceiling. Tears were running silently down the sides of my face and I couldn't stop them, no matter how hard I tried.

I was replaying every insult my dad had ever said to me, and they each stung like a hornet's sting. Most of all, because I knew how right he was. I truly was pathetic, worthless, disgusting and a waste of life. If my own dad couldn't love me, who the hell else could? But then I had to think of my mum. I knew she loved me. But I ended up putting that down to mother's instinct. She had to love me; she gave birth to me.

The worst thing about all of this was I couldn't excuse anything he had said to me. I couldn't just say "he had a rough childhood" or "he's an alcoholic". There was no excuse, so everything he said was true. He really believed all of that. And why wouldn't he without reason?

The insults echoed in my mind until I couldn't feel a thing anymore. I had become numb. The tears kept rolling down my face but I didn't feel anything at all. It was like I was floating; only this was an unsettling feeling. I wanted to feel something again. Anything. So I did the only thing I could in this situation.

I got up out of bed and took off my pyjama bottoms. I rooted around in my dresser until I found the blades I was looking for. I had quite the collection. Pencil sharpener blades, razor blades, safety pins… All sorts of sharp objects lay in my hands. I stared at them for a moment. They looked so inviting, so promising. I picked up one of the razor blades and starting to twirl it between my fingers, thinking over what I was about to do. I knew that I wanted to feel something. I was desperate. Feeling numb is a terrifying and lonely feeling. I didn't want to feel like that.

And before I knew it, I had dragged the blade across the top of my thigh, drawing a considerable amount of deep red blood. I whimpered lightly and did it again, digging the blade slightly deeper this time. This wasn't my first time, as you could probably guess from the extensive collection of sharp objects I had stashed away. I was adding to a collection of thick, white scars lining my thighs. I was careful to do it there rather than my wrist. I did that once before, and acquired a beating once my dad saw what I had done.

I felt pathetic for resorting to this but I was desperate. I had nothing else. The cuts were more like gashes and the blood started to run down the outside of my thigh leaving a trail of dark red that was so tragically beautiful to me.

I sliced into my legs a few more times until I realised that I was feeling something now, and the goal had been achieved. I waited as the blood continued to run down my legs. It eventually stopped and this was the point I began cleaning myself up with wet wipes I used to remove my make-up. I slipped on my pyjamas bottoms once more, dried my tears and laid back on my bed. It wasn't long before I drifted into an imaginative sleep, my dreams better than reality.

Like I said before; I liked my imagination. I was safe in there.

Reality is where people get hurt.