Jade could remember, clearly, only one time when she had cried.
That was the day she stoppd being Jadelyn West.
She was 14 years old, and she could remember sitting on her bed in her pink skirt, staring at her flats as her parents' loud, angry voices difrted through the door. She could remember, vividly, the slam of the door as her mother walked right out of her life.
That was the day she traded in her bright colored skirts for black jeans and dark flannel shirts. Her cute little flats for heavy combat boots.
Her vulnerability for a tough facade.
Because no one was going to hurt her anymore.
No one.
Now, she sat on her bed again, and this time, she couldn't but wonder at what an idiot she had been for thinking she could fool everyone.
Because she was hurt.
Tears threatened to fall and she tried to hold them back, tried to be strong. Tried to be Jade.
But Jadelynn was creeping out, and she didn't think she could hold her in any longer.
She could hear her father moving around downstairs, and fear seized her entire being.
She loved her father, she did. But she knew he didn't truly care about her. She knew, deep down, that he had blamed her all those years ago when her mother had left him.
He didn't realize that she had left her too.
He didnt realize that she was hurting too.
Jade felt her phone vibrating in her pocket and she quickly slid it out.
She knew before she checked her texts that it was Beck. No one else cared enough.
Jade, I'm worried. Come over. -Beck
She slid the phone back into her pocket, her shoulder aching with a dull pain.
She wouldn't tell anyone about her father.
She wouldn't tell Beck that she was still painfully waiting for the day when he would change.
She coudn't help but think that somewhere deep down, her father still loved her.
That he still cared.
Suddenly, the movements downstairs became still, and a silence enveloped the large house. Jade sa montionless, her leg shaking to the beat of her frantic heart. In a moment, footsteps sounded on the stairs, a sound that sent Jade panicking. Time seemed to stand still. Jade's mind wandered in a frenzy. What did she do this time? She tried to remember her day at school. Had she gotten in trouble? Did she forget to take the trash out?
A picture of Beck flashed in her mind and for a breif moment she wished she had listened to him.
The door swished open in a quick, angry motion, and Jade braced herself for the inevitable.
After it happened, Jade wondered how, again, she could be such an idiot.
You're a stupid, stupid idiot.
She was an idiot for believing her father could ever change. That he could ever stop blaming her for her mother's actions.
She left because you're an asshole.
Jade sat up and glanced at herself in the mirror. A girl she didn't reconize stared back at her.
A girl with smudges of mascara running down her face.
A girl whose face was half covered in large, purple bruises.
A girl with vacant eyes.
She touched her face and instantly wicned at the pain that radiated through her thin, weak body.
She knew in that moment that she couldn't do it anymore.