Heather sat in her room, razor blade in hand. She had already taken 5 ecstasy pills, smoked 3 bowls, and drank away her sorrows in a 22 of Bacardi. She didn't want to remember this day at all. Now all she had to do was to wash it all away in blood. She pulled up her sleeve and stared at the criss-crossing of about 100 scars; some old, some new, red, brown, white. They were like the road map of her suffering. She turned her arm over and looked on the top. It was even worse than the under arm. Not in the sense of number, no, but because the scares on the top were far worse. They would never fade, like the insignificant cuts. These were burns, third degree burns to be precise, 16 of them; one for every shitty year of her life. It made her arm look like a tally board, 16 lines all in a row, metrically measured to be exactly half a centimeter apart.

She looked at the rest of her body now. There were scars and bruises all over, some from her, some from others. She shuddered at this thought. "Oh well," she thought, "if I'm going to have scars anyway, might as well cause them myself." With this, she thought back to the day so she would get into the state of mind to do what she needed to do.

~Flashback of the day~ (* will mean what Heather is doing in real time, while she thinks about the flashback)

Heather had been walking down the school halls, trying to get to the bathroom before she just lit up in the middle of the hall. She was femming bad. Her supply had run out and she hadn't been able to get a fix for about 5 days. The dealer had already been kicked out of school, and now she didn't know where to get her weed. Just today, one of the gromets from the 9th grade had past by her in the locker room and Heather got the opportunity to take her stash. It looked to be some good stuff, too.

Just then, her principal, Mr. Hail Hittler Haffey stepped out in front of her. "And where are we going, Ms. Walls." "Uh, just to the bathroom, Mr. Hittler, um, I mean Mr. Haffey." "Well, I think you can hold it for a little bit. I'd like a word." Heather mumbled something under her breath that sounded remarkably like the word "funk" and followed Mr. Haffey into his office.

*"Dirty little bastard, stupid little fuck" cut, cut.

Mr. Haffey sat her down in his office. Then he started the lecture. "Ms. Jones seems to think that you stole from her in the locker room this morning. She had a very convincing story, seeing as how her back pack was ripped open, her money gone, and her things found thrown around the locker room. Now, what I want to know is what could cause Ms. Walls, the student that gets along with all her teachers and gets straight A's to beat up on a little ninth grader. Would you care to enlighten me, Ms. Walls?"

Heather took a deep breath and tried to come up with a good excuse. All she could come up with, however, was a sarcastic remark, as always. "She looked like a guy, and I didn't think that a guy should be in the girls locker room." She said with a shrug and a smirk.

"No, no, I don't think so, Ms. Walls. Ms. Jones has already come clean as to what you took from her. Since this is her first offense, and since she told us herself to, how you say, catch a bigger fish, she will get off very easy. You, on the other hand, have had your third strike." Mr. Haffey then proceeded to do a thorough search of Heather, her clothes, her purse, her locker, and her car.

*"Rotten little fink, gunna kill that annoying little nark" slash, cut, blood running down the arm.

~Later in the day~

"Heather, I told you earlier that I would call you back to tell you your punishment. As you know, this is your third time getting caught in school with illegal drugs. Now, I just can't let you off the hook this time." Mr. Haffey paused, know that what he was about to say would change his student's life forever. "Heather, school policy calls for expulsion, but I want to help you, and not hurt you, so I called my friend Peter Scarbrow. He runs a school for at-risk-teens up in Canada. Now, I've called your parents, and we all agree. You will be leaving for Mt. Horizon tomorrow."

"But Mr. Haffey, you can't! Do you know what my parents will do to me?! They'll kill me!! You can't do this to me! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! I'll never do it again, I promise. I swear!"

"I'm sorry, Heather. It's out of my hands. You did this to yourself. Now go home. You're excused from the rest of the day to pack your bags." As Heather got up to leave, Mr. Haffey came and gave her a quick hug. He had tears and his eyes. She went to the door without another word. As she opened it to leave, she heard him mumble something that sounded like "good luck" and she left with her head down, tears in her eyes, and fear in her heart.

*"He really cares, and I let him down.again" cut, cut , deeper, more blood.

~Once at home~

"You stupid, stupid girl! How could you get caught for the third fucking time! You make our family look like a bunch of criminals! Now we have to spend our hard earned money to ship you off to some school for juvenile delequints! How could you do this to us!?" Her father raged. Heather know what was coming next.He slapped her hard across the face. She feel back, unable to regain her center of balance. He was over her now, kicking her in her gut until she could taste blood in her mouth. She tried to cry out, but he just kicked her harder. She looked for her mother. Sometimes she would come and stop her dad, if she wasn't too drunk already, but it was no use. She already saw her mother passed out on the couch, appearently having been drinking since she got the call from the school. Heather hated disappointing her mother, she was the one person she loved in this world. It was all her fault, though. She couldn't take back what she had already done. Her last waking memory was of her father standing over her, that gleam in his eye, bending down, unbuttoning her pants.

~End Flashback~

Heather didn't know if she had passed out from the pain, or from the sheer will to not have to be awake while her father raped her again. All she knew was that when she woke up, she was in her room with the door locked, and her pants and thong were down pulled up in a fashion that would suggest that it had been done in a hurry. That was when she had gotten into her secret stash and taken the drugs. She looked down at her arm now, and gasped at what see saw. It was covered in dry and wet blood. Appearently while she had been in her trance-like state, she had really let herself have it.

She looked at her clock. It was 10:00 pm already, and she still had to pack. Listening for any sign of her parents still being awake, she got out her library card and picked the lock. She tipped toed into the bathroom and took a hot shower. She had to get the dirty feeling off of her that was always left behind. She rinsed her arm and looked at her handy work. There were about 50 new cuts there, some very deep. She could probably use stitiches, but, oh well. She also looked down at her stomach. You could already see the dark purple and blue bruises forming, and see could also see where the dried blood made a line down her inner leg. It made her sick to her stomach. She turned of fhte shower and jumped to the toilet, emptying her stomach instantly. Not that this was new to her, she had been throwing up whatever she ate for about 5 years now, ever since her mother started to say she was fat, and her father started to say she needed to be prettier. She shuddered at that thought. When she started "become prettier," her father had started to touch her. Then the more weight she lost.but she didn't want to think about that.

After flushing the toilet and brushing her teeth, she grabbed from the bathroom what she would need to pack and turned off the light. She went back into her room and got out her suit case, and began to pack. Suddenly, she saw a good side to going away, she wouldn't be anywhere near her father. With a new found hope, she finished packing and went to sleep, awaiting the nexy day.

A/N: Ok, see, I told you this chapter yould hold more. It was kind of hard to write, seeing as how this is me, and I'm kind of putting everything that has ever happened to me out in the open, but oh well, had to some time I guess. R/R and tell me what you think please. Flames are welcome, but only if they're constructive. Ok, ba-bye now.