The only way to get through with hearts and wrists intact is...

I sat cowering away in the corner as far away from the door as I could possibly get. The few boxes of junk that I had attempted to barrier myself in with at the door quivered as the door shook. I buried my head in my knees and cried softly to myself as the lock on the door began to make sounds of giving in. My platinum bleach blonde hair fell delicately onto my shoulders and tumbled down onto my back, covering my face and hiding what was happening from my view. The door stopped shaking and my room descended into silence. All sounds swept away and hidden in the darkness.

I lifted my head up my light blue eyes peering out into that darkness trying to see if anything was there, but all I could make out was the door wide open.

I panicked and threw myself up off the ground, foolishly giving away my hiding place. As I ran desperately towards that door I was stopped before I had even had time to scream out. The door swung closed with a click and his hand suffocated me. His massive muscled arms held on tightly to my tiny fragile body, almost crushing the life out of me. My warm tears trickled down my cheeks and onto his hand as he whispered into my ear.

“Hush, Brooke. What did I tell you about making noise?” His cruel voice leaking into my brain like poison, making me whimper with fright.

“No,” I said. “Nooo!” I tried half-heartedly to twist away, knowing that their was no escaping him. All the passion and the anger had just leaked away from me, the first and the second and the third and the fourth times had taught me what he could really do. I was too afraid to even remember those times that I had scratched out of my memory forever. But still I begged and pleaded with him every time, seeking out a part of him that still had some human left inside of him. Looking for some part of him that would finally realise what a monster he was. But that man had long gone, he had disappeared almost 7 years ago. The man I used to call father was now just an object of fear and hatred to me. And now I couldn’t even bring myself to call this house a home.

As I wept and begged, I felt his hands going along their weekly course. His hard, cold hands trying to grab on to the non-existent fat on my tiny body. His hands journeying to places that they had no right to go to, to the places only one person had permission to go. But he was not it. There was nowhere to go though, nowhere to hide. My mother and two younger siblings slept in the next rooms completely unaware of what had been taking place for these horrible 7 years. He towered over my short figure and slobbered over my skin. All I could do was close my eyes and look away and think of the place where I could be safe. The place where you never had to grow up and be responsible. Where people like my father didn’t exist. Where there were magical forests, fairies that danced in the gentle darkness, mermaid’s that graced the ocean and pirates that sailed the open sea’s. One day I would get there. One day I would be safe in Neverland with the boy that I loved.

As I climbed down the drainpipe a few hours later I didn’t regret the decision I was making. I refused to live in fear of this man any longer. I refused to spend my day’s avoiding him and my nights in hiding, praying that something else played on his mind. The one thing I regretted was leaving behind my younger siblings and I would make sure that they would never fall victim to the cruelty that has been thrust upon me and kept me silenced in the darkness.

I ran quietly across the freshly cut lawn, past the hundred-thousand dollar cars and out onto the road. The cold night air bit at my bare skin as I ran down the city streets to the one place I knew I could be safe. Past the cars, past all the strangers on the street who ignored the crying girl fleeing down the street. The car fumes blocked up my nostrils and I hated it. One thing I knew for sure, this city was slowly killing me. So I kept on running, running until I had blisters on my feet and I was gasping in the bitter air. Running until I finally reached the place. And there he was, sitting down with his back to me at our spot by the river. Before he had even heard me I had thrown myself into his arms weeping into his chest and whispered repeatidly.

“Don’t make me go back. Don’t make me go back.”