Chapter 1:Bottles and Graves

I'm not sure if it was the fact that my body was bleeding or that I was screaming painfully loud that woke me up at five in the morning on a Saturday in the middle of June. But as soon as I sat up I knew it had been both, the bloody claw marks that I'd make with my nails zigzagged across my arms.
I stared at my arms in blankness, my body was hurt enough (another courtesy of my Father) to have anymore scars or bruises that would never fade away.

Taking deep breaths I looked over and grabbed the prescription medicine next to my head. I stared at the orange bottle in calmness and then the calmness vanished to be replaced with anger. The doctor had said that the medicine would help get rid of the nightmares, it was suppose to calm me down enough to make me sleep for once but…...I obviously hadn't.

Growling under my breath I let my anger show as I threw the bottle across the room where it smashed into a million pieces against a wall.

"Damn doctor, sometimes I wonder if they even know what they're doing." I tore out of the blankets still seething. I was usually in a bad temper nowadays and having no one to talk to didn't help; so I talked to myself.

My leg had a slight limp as I trudged over to the bathroom and swung open the door not even minding as the bottom of the door dragged across the top of my toe. Breathing the slight cold air I stretched and looked up at the mirror at my sad looking self. My short platinum hair glowed a pale color in the bright lights of the bathroom the dark purple highlights giving a weird shadow to my face in the process, pale icy blue eyes stared back at me with coldness that chilled me down to my core; did I really look so cold-hearted? Not to mention my once luscious body, I did have curves in all the right areas that would make a grown man's jaw drop to his feet but with such a thin looking body; I bet I wouldn't have many takers anyway.

Disgusted with my unappetizing body I allowed my eyes to travel up to the shelf above my mirror, the bottles of prescription medication seemed to taunt me as I grasped my hairbrush and yanked it through my ratty hair without a second thought to the pain it brought to my head; all 25 bottles of non-working medications gleemed down seeming to smile to me as I walked out trying not to listen to their temptations.

Fingers twitching to grasp one of the bottles I gripped my clothing instead and flipped it onto my body with quick and nimble twitch's. But before I had time to put my shirt on I stopped and placed my hand on my stomach tracing a long jagged scar that broke off into ten more going up to my chest and under the bra. Shivers and trembles rushed up my body as I remembered the day I'd gotten that scar.

"HAILEY, GET THE HELL DOWN HERE NOW!" His dreaded voice roared up the stairs to me where I sat reading under the bed. What did he want at a time like this?
Dreading that he was mad I put the book down and dragged myself from under the bed and down the hall.

Skipping down the cold stairs I stopped at the bottom staring up into the cold eyes of my Father; he looked extremely pissed for some reason.

"Yes." I was unlike my sister who cowered at his harshness, he was my father he'd never dare do anything to me. "You were supposed to make dinner while your Mother was away." His voice suddenly changed back to a dangerous calm, I knew that he was above being angry, that wasn't a good sign.

"I'm sorry I did not know, I will get right….." My Father went out of the room and came back holding something behind his back.

"No I'll make yummy RED smoothies, how about it Hailey hungry for something RED and juicy? I'll show you how to make them." I didn't like the way he was walking towards me as if a hunter on his hunt. His eyes glittered under the mass of brown hair and I knew that something big was about to happen.

"Let me show you how it's done, and you aren't allowed to tell anyone about how I taught you to make it got it?" Without even meaning to I nodded quietly as his hand grasped the back of my hair and pulling the head back, I was scared and unsure of what to do. Was this normal?

It was then that a flash of pain echoed through me and with wide eyes I gazed down to see a steak knife running across the skin.

We didn't have RED smoothies that night, but there was RED all over the floor; lots and lots of RED. So much RED that I could never get the image out of my mind.

I shook my head violently as I yanked the shirt over my head with a frown, it had been awhile since I'd allowed myself to look back into my past; I was frightened that it would set me off and I'd do something reckless. I breathed through the nose as I stood numbly at near my kitchen table, I was supposed to be at work in ten minutes; yeah I like doing things last second yet I didn't feel like hurrying.

Instead of worrying I'd be late I walked out and across the wet grass that made my sneakers squeak from sliding atop them.

Licking my dry cracked lips I stopped at the gate of my destination; no it wasn't work. The gates were open welcoming anyone that deserved to be there, she was one that was more then welcome so breathing in the clean air she stepped through the gates and breathed the muskiness of death and sorrow; the smell of any graveyard.

Water now squished between my toes that had seeped through the bottom of the sneakers making it quite uncomfortable but I didn't mind, I had barely noticed it when I stopped thirty feet away from two graves that I knew carried two specific names. I turned around and left, this was the twentieth time I'd come to the graveyard with determination to sit by their graves and to actually cry or poor out my heart but I still was unable to even approach the graves, I couldn't even be near them without feeling the thump in my chest and the voice saying: "You could have done something, you know you could have. You're the real reason they're dead, they'd still be here if you had done something." When the voice had first started I hadn't wanted to believe it I'd hit my head with my fists trying to get it to shut up but since that hadn't worked I'd been forced to listen to its tiny devil voice; and now I believe it. I knew what it said was true I could have done it I could have done something; but I'd only stood and watched like an idiot.

I couldn't save the two most important people in my life, it was my fault and I knew that that was why I couldn't go up to their graves; I knew that I wasn't worthy enough to look down on them with pity.

I knew I didn't have the courage to do it; damn I couldn't even say my last name without feeling regret, how could I ever face them?