Number seven: Lonely.
Pairing: None.
A/N: The line divider is still not bloody working, so I believe we're all going to have to live with the messiness of my future chapters. I do apologise.
Ermm, this chapter is different: it's written as a letter. I don't know why, but I've always imagined Arra having a difficult human life, so – just to set the scene – this is when everything has become too much for her to handle and, well, it's a suicide note. Happy happy, huh? (On Microsoft Word, I wrote it using a font that looked like hand writing, so it was a lot more powerful.) Sorry if it's depressing: I don't mean to be, this is just the kind of thing I can write well though.
Disclaimer: See chapter one.
Dear Father,
I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this – it's not as if you'll care – but I feel it wouldn't be proper if I left without telling you my reasons for doing it. Just so you know, I jumped off the bridge – or I will jump, as soon as I have finished writing this. I suspect the water will be freezing, so maybe there won't be any pain, maybe the cold will numb everything. I hope it isn't too painful – why should I suffer? – but I know that drowning is never a painless affair. The cold water burns the lungs, fills them until you're choking and by then it's too late. I do believe you slip into unconsciousness after a while.
If you must know, the thought of drowning is terrifying, but...well, it's better than the thought of living another day.
My reasons behind this?
Simply I could no longer cope with life. It had become too much for me to handle. I want to get away from it all: and yes, I could have just run away, but that would have been too easy. The memories and emotions would have still haunted me. I would have never had a normal life, never a happy life. No matter where I went or what I did.
And that, Father, is because of you.
My one main reason for suicide is you. You have made my life hell: worse than hell. Everyday is unbearable, knowing what you've done, fearing what you will do, hating you every minute of every day.
I know damn well that you killed Mother: beat her to death. Yes, I was only seven, but she used to confide in me, tell me what you put her through. She told me that you were a vicious man, an evil man, but I couldn't see it: not when in public you'd act like a saint.
It was only after her death, when I sat there holding her cold, bruised hand, that I knew she had been telling the truth: and I hated myself for doubting her. And I saw you wash the blood off of your hands, Father. I saw, and that's when the hate and fear set in.
But what could I do? You had 'friends' all over town, and if I tried to run, they would follow, snatch me, take me back home where you'd be waiting. Punishment for me, pleasure for you. The things you did...no seven year old should have gone through, yet I did. And why? Because you were constantly drunk: constantly out of your mind.
And yes, sometimes when you lay on the floor, blacked out from the nights drinking, I stood over you with a knife, and I swore I would kill you. But the thought made me sick: if I did kill you, then I would become just as bad as you.
See, even though you ruined my life, I couldn't kill you. I know for sure that that makes me a better person than you'll ever be, and ever were. Though you were never good. I know that now. You were born evil, sick, and you had to bring that into my Mother's life: into mine.
The hurtful thing is that I used to love you: when I was young and naive, yes, but I did. Because you were my father and fathers are supposed to be good people. My friends had good fathers, so I believed it was my right to have one too.
I'm so unlucky.
...I still have those bruises, those cuts and scars and they'll never leave: I'll die with them. Isn't that funny?
I still have those memories, horrible memories, and no doubt I'll be thinking of them when I do step off the edge and fall into the water.
They haunt me every single day. They haunt me every single night: I know you've never heard me wake screaming from a nightmare, because you're always either out with some whore or drunk. They pain me, hurt me, scare me. And I don't have anyone to turn to because you've scared them all away.
I'm eighteen, and since my Mother's death, since you revealed your true colours, I've never had friends (you made me push them away), I've never loved (because you've made me scared to), I realise now I've never even LIVED. All my life I've been lonely: an empty shell almost, and you never cared. Never...
It's getting light out now: the sun is just starting to rise above the factory rooftops, so I suppose I should wrap this up.
Just, the worst feeling is that there is no one to talk me out of this. There is no one I can tell, and no one who will tell me I'm being stupid, tell me that life will get better, I just have to stick with it. I've never had that one person everyone in their life is supposed to have, and now I'll never meet them.
It's cruel, I know, but I want you to know that this is ALL YOUR FAULT. You killed your wife – my Mother – by your own hand and, consequently, years later you've killed me.
I hope it hurts.
A. x