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Another Alice-centred ficlet :) Cant wait for the second twilight movie to come out in October (or so I have heard...)!!!!!

Hope you like it!

I'm also gonna take this opportunity to make it official: I am gonna kill Daisy Drakulic as soon as I next see her for spoiling the plot of eclipse for me before I'd even read the first page. Drakulic- you are dead. Be warned, lol.

Disclaimer: Anyone who thinks I am Stephanie Meyer is seriously disillusioned as to who Stephanie Meyer actually is... But I would do anything to own Alice (to go shopping with), Carlisle (to give me words of wisdom), Edward (for the romance) and Jacob (cos he is HOT).....

Probably won't happen though.

When I can't cope any more, when it all becomes so much that I want to scream at the top of my lungs at the unfairness of life, just as an outlet for the emotion I have got so used to holding back that it's become like second nature to me, until I am empty and can't feel anything any more, ever.....that's when I run.

Not AWAY- I've never actually run away, not really; I always come back home.

I've never run away from home.

But I wish, with every fibre of my being, with the whole of my mind, with a desperation that consumes me when I really imagine it.... I wish I could.

I am tied to my home, to my family, with invisible ropes.

I'm like the moth that keeps forcing itself to cling to the tongue of the flame, even as it feels it's own wings singe in the heat. It knows that if it stays upon the flame, it will be burnt, and yet it endures the pain because the alternative- flying away into the unfamiliar night- is worse.

I try not to think about the moths that die when the flames engulf them.

I want to leave home. Oh god, I'd give anything, anything in the world to have anywhere-anywhere- else to go that wasn't my home or the streets. I'd do anything, live anywhere...as long as it was far away from here.

But there is nowhere else!

I have no other family, except father and mother.

And I am terrified of living on the streets.

I know that in some ways it would be preferable, and some days I have to fight hard against the voice inside that screams at me to run while I still can....

But I can't leave. If I do, that will be the end, I know it will be!

I've lived in this city all my life, I know it so well, and I've seen what happens to you when you let the streets swallow you whole.

I've seen them all- the girls little older than my age, sixteen, standing on street corners, the street lamps casting shadows across their faces, waiting for the next man- old, young, it doesn't matter as long as they pay up when it's all over.

I've seen the dead eyed boys slumped in doorways staring into nothingness, or gasping and shaking and sobbing, begging for just enough money for one more hit....

There are so many of them, cold and hungry and desperate and alone, teenagers who will live out the rest of their short lives on the streets, who will be on the streets until they die because there's no going back.

I know there isn't, I've seen it myself, and I can't let that happen to me.

I don't want to die on the streets.

That's why i'm still here, at home.

At least I know I can survive here.

It's the single thought that keeps me living day to day, that I murmur like a prayer in my sleep: there is nothing here that I can't survive.

I keep telling myself that. Whatever scalding words Mother may throw at me, I can still survive it. Father might beat me, lock me in the attic, refuse me food....but he has done all of that before, and yet here I am, and I am still alive.

I have survived for sixteen years and ten months. I can survive a little longer, long enough for me to get a job so I can support myself.

And then I will be free.

Freedom.

I have dreamt about it for so long, I can barely believe it could ever come true for me.

But until then, I have no way out.

And it's because of this that I run.

I can't run in the daylight, of course. I have school, then my chores to complete, and mother would never allow me out of the house if I asked.

But at night, when the house is asleep, when everything is done, and I know I have at least a few hours when I don't have to walk on eggshells, waiting for the next episode- then I can steal from the house, and revel in my precarious freedom.

I'll always have to come back.

But when i'm running fast, plunging into the inky black shadows between trees, the wind whipping my hair, the only sound the crunchy dry leaves under my feet...i can almost believe that i'm actually running away.

I run until my lungs are about to burst, until all I can think about is trying to breathe and everything else is blotted away, and I don't have enough breath to scream or even whisper...

For those few moments, I can forget my father and whatever he did to punish me a few hours ago. I can forget my mother, and that she never wanted children, that she blames me for how her life has turned out, and that she believes I was sent as a punishment for her from god...or the devil.

When I run, I always end up at the same place. It's a big house, on the edge of town, half hidden behind a thick cluster of trees. At the edge of the miniature wood, it's peaceful, it's beautiful...and if I peek out from my hiding place, I can see into the living room of the family who live there.

I know it's strange. I know it is. It might even be illegal.

It's hard to describe just how much I get just from watching them, except to say that it helps me to see real, solid proof that normal families really exist, even if i'm not part of one. Like a starving person will stand for hours outside a bakers window just to smell the fresh baked bread and stare at the food from behind the sheet of glass...that's what I do.

It restores me, mostly because they act so damn normal, but it also hurts, a physical ache for what they have and what I will never know.

A mother, a father, two sons and a daughter. One of the boys is my age, the others are older. The father is a doctor the hospital. I don't know their names.

Sometimes I can hear faint piano music drifting from the open window, and sometimes I can hear people laughing.

I have no memory of anyone laughing at home.

Outside looking in, I ache with longing for what they have.

Sometimes I dream that I could be part of their family too.

It's a wish that burns because I want it so much.

I know it's impossible.

I was not meant for love.

Tell me what you think!!!!

Please review! It will totally make up for the fact that eclipse got ruined for me! I need something in my life and fanfiction is all I have left lol !!

Hugz xx