Origins

“No…No…No!” I scream as the man ties a gag in my mouth. Hot tears pour down my face and I look at Bronte unconscious in the corner of the room where the man had so callously tossed her earlier on. The man begins to shake me and I scream even louder.

“Frankee? Come on Frank you need to wake up! It’s me Scott come on baby girl nothing is going to hurt you,” are the words I hear as I get ripped from my nightmare.

“Oh Scott thank God!” I sigh and clutch to the shirt he wears to bed when he comes to look after me, “It was horrible, the guy he threw Bronte against a wall and she was bleeding from her temple and nose and then he tied me up and was describing all the things he was going to do to me and her, and he pulled this tray of knives and scalpels up to where he had me tied to the chair then he gagged me cause I was screaming too much.”

“It’s okay Frankee I promise you that its okay now, none of that is ever going to happen to either of you I promise. Tomorrow is the beginning of Mark’s week to stay with you, but I’m going to see what we can do to get you to a doctor,” Scott tells me cradling me in his lap like a baby when really I’m a fully grown over 15 year old. The nightmares have gotten worse and worse every night for the last 6 months and my two best friends Scott and Mark have begun to take shifts where they spend two weeks each with me in my room making sure that they wake me up from the nightmares. My nightmares for some reason cause me to scream and kick and cry but I can’t wake up unless someone else wakes me up. It’s horrible but with Scott and Mark with me to wake me up it makes a great difference. The boys are like brothers to me and nothing more than sleeping and waking ever goes on between us when they share my bed with me. My parents aren’t aware yet of the new routine but sooner or later they’ll find out, hopefully later rather than sooner because I really don’t feel like explaining the exact things that I see in my nightmares.

“What time is it?” I ask him wiping the tears from my eyes.

“It’s about 6:30am, why?” He asks frowning.

“I have school today, first day at my new school,” I tell him as I climb out of my bed and after checking on Bronte who is soundly sleeping in her cot in her room I walk into the bathroom. I look at myself in the mirror, last week I had dyed my hair back to its natural golden blonde colour, I grew it out and it’s beginning to form ringlets again seeing I hadn’t been straightening it. I took out my two lip rings so now I look sort of like the girl next door seeing that I’m also letting the light smattering of freckles under my eyes and across my nose show instead of covering them with conceilor. I smile and see Scott standing behind me and I kiss him on the cheek, telling him that I need to shower. He leaves and I get into the shower and wash my hair.

*

I emerge from the bathroom with my hair curling and the towel wrapped around my body. Since the baby I had lost a lot of weight, I had run and worked it all off so now I have a very flat stomach, toned legs and toned arms, showing off my natural hourglass figure well. I grab some underwear and my new school dress and walk back into the bathroom. I dress and dry my hair with my towel, opting to let it dry naturally so that it will curl more. I walk downstairs with Scott and make breakfast for us both.

“You looking forward to the new school?” Scott asks taking a bite out of his toast.

“Sort of, I mean look at me, this dress goes down to my knees, it shows off my figure sure but I look like a friggin’ nun,” I sigh twirling around in my dress then sitting down.

“If you had to dye the colours out of your hair won’t you have to take the black off of your nails?” Scott asks holding my hand so he can examine my nails.

“Shit, I forgot to do that,” I curse and take a huge bite of my toast before running upstairs and getting some cotton wool, nail polish remover and some clear nail polish. I run back downstairs and sit at the table.

“You want me to do it while you eat?” Scott asks as I fight with the lid of the nail polish remover. I sigh and hand it to him with a smile and begin eating again. When he’s got the lid off he takes my right hand and begins removing the nail polish, by the time I’m finished eating all the black nail polish is off and the clear stuff is on. I smile and kiss his cheek in thanks then blow on my nails as we walk back upstairs.

“Thank-you Scotty, don’t you have work today though?” I ask as we walk into the bathroom and I begin brushing my teeth.

“Yeah, but I told your dad that I would drive the two of you to school cause he’s sick remember,” Scott smiles. I nod and spit the toothpaste out then finish getting ready. Before we leave I feed Bronte and then put her back to sleep, Aunty Emmalee will be awake soon to take care of her. Anna is finished too so we say goodbye to our parents who are both still in bed and pile into Scott’s car.