PLEASE READ
A/N: Okay, Ellie is going to seem really bratty at first, and yes she has anger issues. I'm trying not to make her too tragic/angsty and I will attempt to refrain from making this some sort of sappy 'I have such a hard life story' because, after all, she doesn't have it as bad as she could have it, or as bad as others have it. So anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Just as a warning there may be some scenes with cutting, I'm not sure yet, let me know what you think about that, I love input.
Ellie was pissed. Really pissed. How the fuck was she supposed to get any better at the piano if her parents would never let her fucking practice? From the time they awoke in the morning until they went to sleep the television was on. Every moment of their waking hour was occupied by the news or the God damned history channel. The only time she could practice was when nobody else was home and those instances were few and far between.
Hot tears stung her eyes as her throat constricted. She sat on the edge of her bed, fuming, barely noticing as her kitten rubbed up against her leg, crying for attention.
If she didn't get better at the piano she would no longer be the best and she had to be the best. If she wasn't the best then she wasn't good enough. Her parents wanted her to be the best, and were always upset when she wasn't at her twice yearly recitals, and yet it seemed that they couldn't make the connection between practicing and ability. They seemed to think that she just pulled these songs out of her ass and was immediately able to play them.
Her father insisted on going to every recital he was in the country for (his business took him over seas) even though she never wanted him to. She told him not to come and yet he did. It wasn't for some pride in her that he came. It was because he liked to see everyone else be in awe at her. He liked the praise he got for "such a talented daughter." Meanwhile Ellie would sit back and watch him soak up the praise.
The simple answer would be to lie to her father about the date of the recital so that he wouldn't be able to go, yet she couldn't bring herself to do it. She couldn't bring herself to deliberately hurt his feelings no matter how many times he did it to her.
Sure, she got her revenge in her own little ways. She would take extra long, extra hot showers in the morning so that they would have no hot water left. She would eat the last cookie in the box when she knew one of them wanted it. She would pierce her ears even though they thought that the earrings were tacky.
Ellie hissed in pain as she felt six sharp pinpricks in her skin. She looked down to see her kitten using her as his own personal tree so that he could more easily gain access to the bed. She pulled him off her leg and set him on the king sized mattress. She had inherited the bed when her sister moved out, as her old one was only a twin.
Her sister had always had the advantage of size over her in all the fights they'd gotten into. They had some pretty rough tumbles. Her sister had once hit her in the back it a baseball bat (tapped, according to her) and she had returned the blow with a bottle of bleach. Harsh? No, it was a normal occurrence when they were younger.
She stood and fumed. Her parents always had sided with her sister on things like that, saying that Ellie was simply ill tempered and a bad child. She wasn't, though, to her friends she was always very nice. She cared for them (some of them) and did not lose her temper with them as she did with her father and stepmother.
For the most part she was ignored by her stepmother who liked to pretend that nothing was wrong in the house, but she knew. She knew when Ellie's father would yell at her and call her stupid. She knew when Ellie had to go to the counselor's again because somebody had tattled about her cutting. She knew when Ellie had to go to the hospital for a suicide attempt.
Yet, her stepmother always tried to shift the blame, shrug it off as nothing. Her teacher had gone with her to the emergency room and when he'd left Ellie's room to check and make sure that the stepmother was still there the stepmother had sat him down and told him about what a lazy, selfish child Ellie was. Later that night, when Ellie got home, her father called- he was out of the country at the time- and called her a dumbass. She was told how much she'd wasted her stepmother's time by making her leave work to go to the emergency room.
Ellie had cried furious tears that night, realizing for the first time that her family would never be a close, happy family. She had realized that no matter what she did she would always be low to them, but the part that hurt the most, the part that had cause her pain for weeks to come was the realization that after all the shit, deep down she wanted their approval. She craved approval, hence her having to be the best at everything she did.
It was all or nothing with her.
Ellie heard the sound of cannons firing from the living room. Apparently it was the history channel tonight. How she wished she could mock them to their faces, mock their mindless enjoyment of their media induced stupor. If she were to mock them, however, she would be sent back to her mother, and that was not an option for her at present.
She slowly stood and tugged her jogging shoes on, put on a light sweater, and stepped out of the house. Her breath blew out in a foggy cloud before her. The sun was just setting over the horizon and as it was early December it was getting rather cold out. She began jogging immediately, warming up her already chilled body as she did so.
She heard the wind whistling through her small hoop earrings and smiled. She would just have to practice a lot more tomorrow, seeing as her recital was tomorrow night.