Hey! I'm sorry about not updating Don't Take Life Too Serious. But I have serious writers block, so if you have any ideas to help me out, please feel free to pm me with them! This story was inspired by Mi ChIbO's Confusing Love With Lust. So please read her storys too 'coz they rock my socks! So please read and review.

Hi. My name is Ulrich Stern. I'm 29. And this is my story so far.

Ever since I can remember I was never loved by my family. I was beaten and insulted by them. My siblings, upon seeing their actions did the same. We were a wealthy family and so had the luxury of maids, butlers, chauffeurs, nanny's, chefs and my parents even had their own personal assistant. All of these treated me the same; except one maid, Cristina. She used to sneak me luxury meals of a night to stop my parent's not so secret plan of starving me. She would buy me gifts that I would have to hide away underneath a loose floorboard. I used to hear her cry in the room next to me as I did with my father beating me in the corner of my room.

When I started elementary school nothing much changed. I got bullied and I was left out. I was the quiet child; the weird kid in the corner often crying. I soon found out that the teacher had been reporting my strange behaviour to my parents and had recommended me seeing a counsellor. Yes, you guessed it I got beaten that night as well but the difference was my mother joined in too; angry that this counselling would tarnish the family name.

I soon after started counselling. At first, I recall enjoying it, talking to Mr Baton about all of my problems thinking it was the right thing to do. I soon found out it wasn't, for you see after I revealed that social services got involved for this reported child abuse. My sister, Anna, made me tell the social services that I was lying and that I had a vivid imagination being the six year old I was.

I think after my beating that night I was unconscious for days. The only reason I probably survived is due to Cristina forcing me to drink in my sleep.

I reached ten years old being the same underweight, weird, pale child that I was when I was six. The only possible difference would be that I had discovered the art of poetry and music. Oh and growing too. I had also found comfort in using a blade to carve into my thighs to ease the pain of being unloved and uncared for. That year was also the year I started a diary too. I know it's girlish but it too was also a comfort. And in some ways my diary was also my only friend.

My family then sent me to boarding school when I was eleven, All the way in France to Kadic School. I thought I was going to hate it. And I did when I got the same reaction with the other pupils as I did with all my past schools. I think people may have avoided me when they saw the several scars whipped across my arms.

I remember seeing this attractive girl who was helping us new ones fit in and get acquainted with the school. She was obviously Japanese with short black hair. She wore a black polar neck jumper but with her navel showing. She also wore black jeans with black combat boots. As soon as I saw her I couldn't take me eyes off her.

That was the point that a blonde haired boy with glasses sat next to me.

"Her name is Yumi Ishiyama" He told me.

I looked at him and he pointed at the girl that my eyes were fixated on.

"She's a lovely girl" I simply nodded.

"So what's your name?"

"Ulrich, Ulrich Stern" I replied

"I'm Jeremie Belpois" He told me holding out his hand to me.

I took out and we become friends.

Yumi came over to Jeremie.

"Hey Jer, how's things going?" She asked looking over at me.

"Great thanks Yumi, this is Ulrich" I smiled at her. She returned the gesture.

"I'm Yumi" She informed me also holding her hand out to me. I took it and I saw her eyes glance over my scarred arms.

"We'll stop you doing that too" She winked at me. I noticed Jeremie smiled at her comment.

A couple of days later a latecomer arrived at Kadic. His name was Odd Della-Robbia. I found out that I and he were sharing a dorm and immediately I dreaded it. He was an alright guy but he was well very out there to put it politely. He had blonde hair sticking up like a cone with a spot of purple in the front. His clothes were all of purple and the worse of it all was that he was already breaking a major school rule by hiding a dog in our dorm.

He always tried to get me to tell him all about me even after the thousand times of saying no.

After a couple of months he gave up and I noticed that me, him, Jeremie and Yumi were forming a group together. I couldn't believe that it took me so long to realise that I had friends.

Life then took an interesting turn for you see Jeremie found a virtual world which was inhabited by a pink haired girl named Aelita. She was trapped in a the virtual world called Lyoko and this was controlled by the virus named X.a.n.a.

X.a.n.a would try to kill us all on different occasions because of Jeremie trying to free Aelita of this world. Me, Yumi and Odd would travel to and from Lyoko to help Aelita reach a tower without being killed by X.a.n.a's monsters.

During all of this me and Yumi seemed to be getting closer. According to everyone it was obvious that we loved each other, except to us. Well I knew I loved her; it was Yumi that I was so unsure of loving me. It was such a hard concept to believe that someone could love me after all love was an unfamiliar feeling to me at the time.

I had three years of fighting X.a.n.a before we finally shut down X.a.n.a with Aelita safely with us on Earth. She and Jeremie was an item within days of her permanent stay. I was happy and jealous of them. They were so happy, and it seemed that without Lyoko I wasn't needed. Yumi had gotten closer to William, the guy in her year. Odd was constantly with his new girlfriend, my old stalker. Jeremie and Aelita were always glue to each others faces. I, again, felt so alone.

My old haunts of cutting myself reappeared again. I hid it this time by wearing long sleeved shirts. I had become quieter and I kept myself to myself. No-one bothered with me due to being too busy with their own lives. I couldn't blame them, I wanted to be busy with mine but the truth was at the time the only thing I would to look forward to when school ended was returning to my dorm, putting Evanescence on and cutting myself.

And so I did that everyday until the end of term when I had to go home.

I remember that break as if it was yesterday. It seemed like my father had missed having me there for the only reason of beating me up. I was unconscious for four days then. But when I woke up it wasn't Cristina attending to me, it was her nine year old daughter, Olivia. I soon learned that Cristina had passed away but her daughter hadn't told me the truth of how she had died. For you see, I overheard my mother laughing with my father of how they was going to raise Olivia as their own now that they had rid of Cristina. What I heard after that had made my blood run cold. I heard my father telling my mother how he enjoying plunging the knife into her trembling body.

I remember crying for days and vomiting for hours. Poem after poem of death and hatred I wrote. Cut after cut I afflicted upon myself. I hated thinking of my father doing that to a person I regarded as more of a mother to me than my own. I hated seeing that image of her inside my head. I hated what voices inside of my head told me to do. That was the worst break in my life and I amazingly was glad to be back at school to go back to my normal routine and to get away from my twisted family.

I remember doing my exercise down in the grounds of Kadic at six in the morning. I didn't expect to see anyone that mattered so I wore my usual short sleeved top for exercise. As I was lying down, exhausted from my exercise I heard a gasp from behind me. Behind me was Yumi. I didn't know she was in shock so was speaking normally to her. Until, that is, I didn't get a reply. When she got over her apparent state of shock I got an earful about my self harming.

She used everything against me. And I recall standing there and taking it. That is until after she finished and she had walked away from me and left and I fell to the ground and cried.

That was the moment of my life that I knew I wanted to end my own life. The gang still tells me now how much I scared them when they saw me later that night in the dorm about to end my life. I was all set for slicing my neck open and bleeding to death. I had already set my suicide note up on the wall in my own blood. It had read:

"Goodbye. I apoloise to whoever has to clean my blood up"

Things were pretty bad I guess. If I had known that Odd was bringing the whole gang over then I probably would have rethought my actions but he hadn't told me.

Odd had run to me and knocked the blade away from my throat where it was in position. Jeremie had started yelling at me for scaring them and how I should have gone for them for help. Aelita was pretty silent, mind you, she had gone pretty white. And Yumi, well she wouldn't take her eyes from me or my suicide message beside my bed.

Once Jeremie had finished I remember feeling the most depressed that I ever had, even more than ending my life. I was in my dorm with my friends who were all watching me when I was feeling my worst ever. I couldn't run, I wanted to, but my legs wouldn't have carried me. So I broke down to the floor and cried. Yumi was the one that came to me first. Everyone else was too scared to. She held me in her arms and let me sob on her shoulder. She rocked me back and fourth, whispering words of comfort in my ear. I cried myself to sleep in her arms.

Waking up in the morning was a nightmare. Social services were involved again and I admit I thought about covering for my parents but now I was sixteen I didn't need them. Nor did I want them. I told them all that I knew. I had to give police statements. Attend court cases via video link. And hear my family get sent to prison for life for murder and child abuse.

Meanwhile, I was being put on anti-depressants and receiving counselling and therapy. The gang was too worried about me to not tell the head teacher, Mr Delmas about me and my worrying actions.

I didn't hate them but at the same time I didn't like them because of all the attention I was receiving. I've never been fond of attention, I still don't, but back then I was worse.

Odd and Sissy had split up and I still have suspicions it was because of me because ever since then Sissy had hated me. William was afraid to come by Yumi when she was around me.

I was a freak around school again. I was feared, and all because I tried to take my own life.

I spent that summer with Yumi and her family. Her parents had happily and kindly taken me in. Me and Yumi got very close that summer and that's when we shared our first kiss. The only bad side of this was that when I returned to school after that summer I was without my girlfriend because she had left Kadic. She went to a university not far from Kadic so we were still able to see each other on weekends. From that first kiss between me and Yumi, life was so much better for me. I was happier than ever before.

Returning to school after my amazing summer was hard. For a start of I was still a freak but now I was being called an emo; not that it really bothered me anymore. Due to it being my last year, teachers were working us like dogs to achieve everything that we could, to our best possible standard. And then the last thing that made it really hard was missing Yumi so hard.

We saw each other every weekend. It was fun but it was also really hard to say goodbye for another week. I had started noticing Yumi acting differently with me. Becoming distant and hardly talking to me. I didn't say anything but I later wished that I had as seeing her with him made me old habits come to life again and crying myself to sleep resurfaced.

She was cheating on me. With William who was also attended the same university with her. I watched them kissing and cuddling and I saw that smile that she gave me when she was truly happy.

I used to go early to watch her with him, then see him leave and I'd arrive to spend the day with her. I didn't say anything but I know I acted differently. We departed with a lingering kiss.

I didn't see her for three years after that. I had text her telling her everything I had seen. It was awkward seeing each other again. We literally bumped into each other at a local café. She had changed a lot. She had blue streaks in her hair, wore short skirts with little revealing tops and also wore a lot more make up than she used to. I shouldn't have been too surprised when she noticed that I had changed. I had changed, dramatically. I had dyed my hair black, got my eyebrow pierced and wore eyeliner. I wore black tight jeans and sleeveless vests with heavy gothic boots. People called me the typical emo.

We sat down together in the café and caught up. I found out that William had broken her heart by cheating on her, just like she had done to me. She told me it was what she deserved.

From there, we stayed in contact. And gradually got closer again until one drunken night with the gang we ended up in bed together. Luckily nothing bad came from it and we got back together. True, she forced me to stop harming myself but it was for the best.

And now ten years later I'm happily married and my wife is expecting. Yeah, you guessed it. I married Yumi and have been now for six years.

We're still the same people we are three years ago, minus the self harming.

Just last week I visited my parents in prison. They were apologetic but I stopped it. There was no way I was ever going to be able to forgive them for all that they had caused me. I left them with a smile on my face. Life had turned out just the way it should have done. Sure, it took a while but the best things in life don't happen tomorrow, they take time, as Yumi says.

And as for the gang...

Jeremie and Aelita got married a month before me and Yumi and have had twin girls, Jessica and Amanda, who are now three. Jeremie and Aelita both work in making computer games and I hear it pays a lot too...good for them, 'eh?

Odd got married to his old haunt Sam two years ago. She is also is expecting. Odd and Sam work alongside me and Yumi at Ravena; a store that we created for the wants and needs of people like us. We surprisingly earn a lot more than we expected but hey, life needs to send me some fortune after everything else it has sent to me in the past.

Life moves on in wonderful ways. And only when you look back do you realise that. Getting hurt, crying and wanting to die is apart of that. Just like, crying tears of happiness and wanting time to stand still when you're enjoying life too much for it to end is.

Fifteen years later...

Looking back on what I wrote about my life, I realise that being 29 was the prime of my life. Being 44 is no picnic. I believe the phrase "life begins at 40" now. It sure does begin; begin to make you feel old.

I and Yumi had a beautiful baby girl, Amber. She loves teasing her dad about all the boys at school that like her. I always promised to myself that I wouldn't be like Yumi's dad about boys but I broke it when she had her first boyfriend.

Seeing Amber grow into the fifteen year old beauty that she is has made me feel complete. And her mother, well everytime I see her I know that she saved my life. And that without her, this autobiography wouldn't have been possible.

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