Headfirst for Halos

I had heard of people doing it in school. The 'emos'. I had heard horror stories of it all going wrong, people dying. The scarring seemed irrelevent. The control and power you felt seemed to make up for it all. The pain, the lengths you had to go to to cover up. It was one tiny thing in a persons life that they could control, they had power over. And it helped them deal with it all. All the shit life threw at you. All the shit you couldn't control. All the shit others seemed to rub in. I couldn't help it. I had to do something. And that something was to cut. 'Self Harm' to give it the proper name. I much prefer 'stress release', for that is what it is. To me, anyway. A way for me to cope with life's problems. My unique problems.

Billie Joe and Brad.

***

Month passed. The same routine was put in place, the only additions were that every Thursday Brad would rape me. Taunt me. Humiliate me.
Then I would go home to my room and cry. I would draw lines with blades, knifes, scissors, anything sharp enough. Lines down my arms. Lines of blood and raw flesh. I would control the bleeding. Make it start. Make it stop. I had power over something in my life.

I would clean my arms and go shower over and over and over again, trying in vain to rid myself of that filthy feeling. The feeling of Brad.
Friday morning would always come too soon. The time to face Billie Joe. His beatings had gotten worse over the passing weeks and months. His punches to my stomach harder aswell as his kicks. He never hit me in the face though, he only hit me where no one could see.

And the weeks passed that way. The weeks into months. And as the months passed ever so slowly my arms grew weaker, slower. Wounds refusing to heal.

Even my own body had turned against me.

My mother and father were clueless. My mother overjoyed at me having new 'friends'. She would call Ollie and gush. She was proud of my false pretences. My act. And that hurt. Alot.

To know that my own mother seen me as a loner, someone with no friends ate away at my insides. She was proud of me for having made up friends. Friends I have never had. Probably will never have. Friends I used as a cover act while I was really being abused and bullied.

I was ashamed to be me. Ashamed that my mother was proud of me because of lies I had told her.

Ashamed.

My father was different though. It was as if he wanted to believe me. He had managed to convince himself that I did have friends.
How I wanted for him to hug me close and tell me everything would be okay and he would make sure of it. How I wanted to be his innocent little girl again, to be wrapped in his warm embrace away and shielded from the cruel and harsh world. I wanted him to protect me. To know all the answers.

But he didn't know Anything.

And then that day came. It was a Thursday. And like all Thursdays before, Brad had taken me to the beach. He raped me twice that night.
I went home, straight to my room. I let the tears flow. I took off my many layers, down to my t-shirt, exposing my frail arms. I began my stress release. Drawing lines of red down my arms using the shiney craft knife I had found in the kitchen drawer. The blade felt cool against my skin.
I let out many sobs, each making me cut a little deeper than the last.

I was in my own world now.

Sobbing, cutting and watching the crimson red blood roll off of my arm and onto the carefully layed out bedspread that covered the floor. The blood spreading once it reached the soft cotton.

But this time I was disturbed.

A knock at my bedroom door. At that split second my main thoughts consisted of two words; 'Oh Shit.'

My parents never waited at my door for an answer, they just walked in. And right on cue in stepped my father, flicking the lightswitch as he went.
"Honey, why are you sitting in th-fucking hell!''

Never in my life had I heard my father swear knowingly in my presence.