• CHAPTER ONE: Sticks and Stones

    "Come on!" She yelled, her voice sounding aggravated. When I first arrived here, she was nice, caring, and she fed me more than two meals a day, unlike she does now. Now, she just commands me to do everything - wash the dishes, vacuum the living room, clean her room, clean my so-called-room (which by the way barely passes for a broom cupboard), and wash all the windows in the house - without even once bothering to register me for school. Let alone, register me as a human in the "system" that the government calls a law. Whatever, who cares about the government anyway?! Not me, that's for sure. "We don't have all day! You know everybody's hungry."

    "Coming, Ma'am!" I simply reply. My feet feel heavy as I trudge through the dining room.

    "Hurry, before we leave you!" I hear the car door slam. She probably would leave me, but I wouldn't care! That's just a chance for me to run away from this shitty place that one wouldn’t dare call a home. The windows are more than tattered, the doors are cracked and without locks (all except for the front door), the linoleum floors are cracking, the carpeted floors have years of stains on them - coffee stains, chocolate stains, dog pee stains from the previous owners, and some other unidentified messes - and worst of all, the walls could collapse at any moment, literally. Now, does that sound like something you would call a home? Would you want to live in a horrible place like this? I didn't think so.

    "Yes Ma'am." As I'm walking through this place - this cell of tortures and hell - I suddenly feel bored. I get this feeling all the time, but now, it seems sort of out-of-place. Like, 'How could you feel bored at a time like this?! If you are bored, maybe you should get your a** out of the house and go to McDonalds like the b***h is trying to get you to do!' out-of-place. You know what I mean? Well, whatever.

    "Cassy, damnit! COME ON!!!" I open the front door, walk through its wobbely frame, carefully close and lock it behind me. I watch her grab a newly fallen stick off the ground. 'Oh, god. Here it comes.' I think to myself. She whacks me in the back with the stick. It hurts - and I know it's going to leave a mark - but I don't even dare make a noise, because I know she'll do it again and tell me that I'm getting what I deserve for taking so long. Somehow, she can tell it hurts, so she takes another stab at it - pardon my French. "That hurts doesn't it?!" The stick rams into my back again and again. My eyes get watery and I start to cry, the tears running down my cheeks and falling to the damp ground.

    "Oh, stop crying, girl!" That's my "name" around here, most of the time. Like: 'Girl, do the dishes!' or: 'Girl, iron my clothes!' "You're getting what you deserve!" I told you she was going to say that! See, it's like a routine: I do something wrong (or Nancy comes home from work angry), she finds something hard, hits me about twenty times with it until I get tears in my eyes, then she tells me to stop whining, and that I'm getting what I deserve. How do I deserve this?! What the hell did I do? Think that I wanted to go to school? That I wanted to meet some new people? Is it so wrong to want to meet new people and go to school? I wouldn't think so, and I don't think the rest of the Americans would either! "You should be happy that I'm providing you a roof to live under and two meals a day!!! There are other people out there who don't have a thing, but do I care about them?! NO! I chose to love you! You should be gra---"

    "I WOULDN'T CALL THIS LOVE!!!" I cut in. "Love is when you hug your kids! When you tuck them in at night, and read them bedtime stories! When you teach them how to ride a bike! When you cry on their first day of school! THIS," I point to the house and the stick, giving her an I’m-right-and-you’re-wrong look. "IS NOT LOVE!!!"

    "SHUT THE HELL UP CASSY!" She swings her fist at me, aiming for my face. I dodge it, grabbing her wrist, and twisting it, forcefully. "OWWW! DAMMIT CASSY!! LET GO!!!"

    "No. Why should I? You always hurt me!" I hold her fist - still twisted - with a look on my face that says 'I'm not scared of you!' "Give me one good reason. Give me one good ******** reason I should let go of your arm and let this s**t go on for god-only-knows how long! Huh?! SPEAK UP! I can't hear you!" I demand.

    "I'm your mother," She emphasizes the word 'mother', as if it's the next best thing in the entire world. Hah! Doesn't she wish! "so I'm allowed---"

    "NO! You are NOT allowed to hurt me! And you're not even my real mom!" I twist her fist even more,and that's when I hear a loud cracking noise, like an Indian trying to creep through the woods and accidentally stepping on and breaking a large stick. I look down and I can see her bone, drenched with crimson/maroon blood. Who knew blood looked sort of purple-ish? That's wierd, I never even realized that, after all the times I bled. Maybe everyone's blood is different? Do you think it's pssible for someone to have green blood then?! Nah, only in fairy-tales. Maybe if unicorns were real their blood would be green. But then again, in the Harry Potter movie, it's more of a silver/clear-ish color. Who knows?

    "AAAAUUUGGGHHH!!!!!!!" She's freaking out, like a chicken with its head cut off, but instead of her head being cut off, it's her wrist that is broken.

    "I'm leaving, Nancy. You're not my mother. You are just another b***h who broke a promise of keeping me safe! No, wait, I take it back. You are the WORST b***h who broke a promise! ******** you, Nancy! ******** you!" Calmly, I grab my bag (which I take everywhere with me) - the only thing I own - and run down the sidewalk, cutting through yards and dodging trees. The maple leaves are all raked up into neat little piles, some of them in sort of heaps that are screaming 'Little kids were jumping all around in me when they were supposed to be putting me in a neat little pile!!!' I can hear stuff jingling around in the bag. Inside of it are many things. I have a picture of my real parents, before they died, holding me (they died in a car crash a couple days after I was born and somehow I survived), a couple pairs of clothes, twenty-three cents in pennies and a rattle I had the day of the crash. As I'm running down the sidewalk, Nancy goes inside the house, I assume she's calling the police, or ambulance, or someone of high authorities. I keep running, never once daring to go back. I turn around for just a second, only to see my foster dad sprinting after me, like a dog after a bird who pooped in his water dish. When I face forward I run into something at full speed and it hurts like hell!!! All I see is black, all around me. WHAT THE HELL?! WHERE AM I?! ********!!! Not cool! Not cool at all!!! What happened?!

    CHAPTER TWO: Hospital Times

    The sun is bright, and shining in from a humongous two panel window that is resting on the wall beside me. Narrow tubes and wires weave in and out of the tall, narrow, matching metal poles. And is that.....? Is that the smell of latex? "Where am I?" It's hard for me to speak with this plastic thing on my mouth, - let alone, breath - so I take it off and automatically it gets harder to breath. I sit up, with some relief, and it's a little easier to breath. I'm in a hospital! Oh, God! How did I get here?! I think to myself even though it's almost out loud. A nurse walks in wearing a white-with-yellow-stripes uniform and yellow-with-white-stripes nurse loafers.
    "She's conscious!" The yellow-and-white nurse calls behind her. Her plastic, yellow name tag reads: "Hi, my name is: Debbie. I am: a nurse in training." A nurse in training?! That's horrible! What if she messes up on something she's doing to me and I bleed everywhere?! WHAT IF I DIE?!?!?!?!?!
    Yellow-and-white-nurse-in-training Debbie sits down next to me and starts humming the national anthem. God, I hate that song! It doesn't even make any since! nobody says 'star spangled' or 'oh, say' anymore! Sheesh! She puts the plastic thing around my mouth again. A weird beeping noise comes from the machine next to me. Wait! What is this plastic thing?! What if it stops my breathing?! What if this is what kills me?! What if.....what if.....what.....wha..... It's black again.

    * * * * * * * * * *

    Everything is spinning around me, fading in and out, in and out, in and out of my vision. People with needles, clip boards, and a metal pole with a bag of red liquid (that I am assuming is my blood) surround me. Everything blurs along, passing me, and I know I'm being pushed down the hall by doctors and nurses, frantically. I can only wonder what's happening to me - and what will happen. Debbie, and a strange looking doctor with grey/brown hair, Victor, are conversing while rushing down the hall with me in the hospital bed. The other nurses Allyson, Ted, and Gloria - the ones pushing my hospital bed - thrust the bed sideways and I'm in a room labeled E.R. E.R.?! That means emergency room! What the hell is going on here?! What's wrong with me?! Why am I in the emergency room?!
    "What......what's happening to me?" I mumble to Gloria. She looks at me and tells the others I'm conscious, not even caring o look me in the eye.
    "It'll be okay, honey. Everything will be just fine, you just need to settle down and let us do what we have to do. We're here to help you, not hurt you. Shhhhh, it's okay, baby girl." She puts her hand on my eyes so I can't see anything. When she removes her hand, I see a bunch of other doctors and nurses - all with knives - surrounding me. They come closer to me with the wickedest looks on their faces, and they start cutting open my chest and stomach. I try to scream but my voice is caught in my throat. Why are they doing this to me?! Why are they cutting me open like I'm some deer that they caught and can't wait to eat. I can't move either, and there is blood everywhere, sinking through the covers on the hospital bed, and through my clothes. All over me and the floor, even the nurses' and doctors' long, white, fake-leather robes. What the hell?! What the hell are they doing?!


    * * * * * * * * * *


    I wake up, sweating, and Debbie is standing next to me. "So, you're finally up, eh? You were asleep for quite a while, honey. Do you know your name? There is no record of you in any of the files. Do you know anything about yourself?.

    "My.....my name?" It's hard for me to talk with the plastic thing on my mouth. When I take off the plastic mouthpiece, I see I.V.'s in my arm. Oh, my god! This must be really bad, if I have I.V.'s in my arm! I think to myself. I try to speak again, even though it really hurts my throat. "My.....my name is C.....Cassy. W.....why am I in the hos.....hospital?" I ask, quietly.
    "A while ago you ran into a tree. It wasn't the tree that did it though. When you're parents - the ones who brought you in - said that after you ran into the tree you fainted, and fell into the street, which caused you to get hit by a car. I'm just surprised that you lived, after getting hit by a car of such great speed!"
    "I wasn't hit by a car! They.....they beat me! My foster mom and dad. They hate me! They do it all the time! See! Look at my back!" I pull up my shirt in the back and show her the scars from all of the times Nancy had beat me. They're bleeding and I'm surprised nobody noticed them when I came in. She doesn't look like she believes me and I'm sure she doesn't.

    "Honey, when your foster parents brought you in, they told us those scars and cuts were self-inflicted. You can't try to blame others for what you've done, and you can't take it back, either. Cassy, we know you do this to yourself all the time and we want to help you. That's why we've signed you up for a rehabilitation center."

    "No! No, no, no, no, no!!!" I pull the I.V.'s out of my arms and sit up. Immediately I feel pain in my back where Nancy had whipped me many times. I don't stop, though, because I'm used to the pain. I grab my bag from the side table and start running, faster than ever before. I can't go to rehab! It's not me! Nancy should go to rehab! Why me?! Why does my life suck so much?!? WHY DOESN'T ANYONE UNDERSTAND?!?!?!? I think to myself, still running, even though I have no idea where I'm going. But, wait. What's that? Is it...? YES! An exit sign! I see an exit sign in front of me, glowing bright, for everyone to see! When I reach the door, I thrust my hands out in front of me and, surprisingly, the door opens with no hesitation. CRAP! I didn't even think about the alarms! Now all the nurses and doctors will be chasing after me! CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!!! Why am I so STUPID?!? I'm running through a parking lot now and cars are blurring past me, there license plates a blur, as well. I see one that is red. Bright red! s**t! THAT'S THE COLOR OF NANCY'S CAR!!! She must have known I would have done this! The red car starts up, and when I look over I see Nancy in the front seat! WHY?!? WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO BE HERE?! Please, God, don't let her get. I'll do anything! Please, I beg of you! But my prayers don't work, because I find myself face down on the cement. YUK! Cement tastes like s**t! Nancy gets to me before anyone else, and she acts all nice and lovey. IT'S JUST A SHOW PEOPLE! CAN'T YOU SEE THROUGH HER MASK?!?!? SOMEONE HELP ME!!!" I'm in the arms of the 'b***h who won't tell the truth', now. My face is bleeding but it's only a little cut.

    "It's okay, everyone. She's my daughter. I'll take her from here. You can go back now. Thanks for everything." Nancy puts me down in the back seat of the car, like some two-year-old-who-just-fell-off-her-bike-five-miles-away-from-her-house-and-is-more-helpless-than-a-cat-in-a-tree (or so the legends say). We're on the way home and I hope Nancy doesn't realize that I'm trying to make a plan. Every time I look in the mirror, she looks back at me with this I-will-kill-you-if-you-try-anything look. s**t! I'm HOPELESS!!! Just, hopeless. What's going to happen to me now? She's really going to kill me! I can tell!!!

    CHAPTER THREE: Karma’s First Verse

    Where are we going, now? You going to take me home and beat the living s**t out of me? I mean, brilliant plan, seriously! Self inflicted? How could I cut my ******** back!? Nancy....... I'm going to get you. I'm going to make you suffer in so much pain you wouldn't dare do this to anybody else! Oh, but wait. I shouldn't say that. Because you wouldn't be able to do this to anyone else! Because you would either be in a wheelchair, or dead!" I can feel my face turning crimson red. "Say something!!!" My fist are pounding into her seat, and she looks calmer than the Queen of England, sipping tea. So calm, it's almost creepy. "SAY SOMETHING, NANCY!!! What!? You're too much of a coward to confront me while we're driving? Is that it?" Her face cringes.

    "SHUT THE HELL UP, YOU STUPID SON-OF-A-b***h!!! When we get home your a** is going to be bleeding so much you'll be begging for me to kill you. To put you out of your misery and---"

    "NO IT WON'T!!! 'Cause you'll be the one bleeding! Trust me, Nancy! The only reason I've held myself back for the past thirteen and a half years is because I had no where else to go! But now, I don't care where I go! I don't care if I die! I just don't want to ******** be your little doll anymore!!! You are the ******** she-devil!!!" My face is crimson-red with anger now, I feel like I'm literally going to burst! Nancy calms down because a cop has decided to pull us over. GREAT!!! This is my chance! I can tell the cop everything that this b***h has done to me!!! YES!!! Nancy tells me to calm down as well, and not to try anything with that look of hers, again. Oh, don't worry, Nancy. I won't try anything, because I don't have to try. I will do something, but I won't try something! Hah! Gotcha now, don't I!? The cop gets out of his state police car and walks up to our bright red car.

    He's carrying a notebook that has a a picture stapled to it. When he reaches the drivers window he puts up the the notebook and asks Nancy, "Have you seen this child, Ma'am?" The picture is of a two year old boy wearing tan overalls with no shirt underneath.

    "No sir, we haven't seen that little boy." According to the notebook his name is Jesse.

    "Excuse me, sir?" The cop looks back here and asks me what I want, but not in a rude way. It's actually the most polite thing I've heard in the thirteen years I've been alive! "Um, well... You see..." Nancy glares at me with her "don't-do-it!!!" look. I don't care what she wants! There is a cop here so I know she can't do anything!!! "Actually, sir, the thing is," I lean in to his ear and whisper, "She - my foster mother - abuses me! I have marks on my back and I actually just got out of the hospital from her abuse." He looks at me like he doesn't believe me. I show him the scars on my back, neck and face, from when Nancy beat me. His face lights up, and he asks Nancy to get out of the car. She does so with no hesitation, but gives me the I-am-really-going-to-kill-you-now look. Wow, it's amazing how many looks she has! The cop tells her to put her arms behind her back, turn around and lean against the car.

    "AM I UNDER ARREST!?" Nancy freaks out, but the cop doesn't say anything in response. He just unhooks the handcuffs from his belt and wraps them around her wrists, clicking in to place. Ka-chack, Ka-chack, Ka-chack. That's what the cuffs sound like as the cop is tightening them. He asks her to just cooperate, then leads her to the back of his police car, opening the door and forcing her in. "I CAN'T GO TO JAIL!!! NO! I HAVE TO CARE FOR MY HUSBAND, PLEASE!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!" The cop doesn't care what Nancy is going on about. Once he gets her into the back and locks the doors by hand, he walks back to me.

    "Do you want to stay with your foster dad or go to an orphanage? Your choice honey." He looks at me sincerely.

    "ANY place is better than with my foster parents!!! I'll take the orphanage! Even if I had to live on the street, it would feel like heaven!" He asks me to get in the front of the police car, politely, and I cooperate, because I know I'm not in trouble for anything!

    "You know, you never said your name..." He looks at me sincerely, yet again.

    "My name is Cassy, and Miss abuse-a-lot's name is Nancy. I'm not sure of our last name, she never said it, so I can't help you with that part. Sorry if I'm not much help." He hands me a pack of gum - strawberry banana flavoured - and I grab a piece and un-wrap it.

    "It's okay, Cassy. At least we got this abuser off the streets." He whispers, almost so quite that I can barely hear him. "Then he turns around. "Nancy, what is your last name?" Nancy spits in his face, and he grabs a handkerchief and wipes it off, like it's only a bug.
    "Tell me your last name, Nancy!"

    "Cosumay. It's Italian. Why do you care?" She gives him a bitchy look, almost as bitchy as the look she gave me when she saw the police about to pull us over.

    "I care because we will need it for your record. I don't really care that it's Italian, though, so you didn't have to tell me that." Nancy stares at me like she wants to kill me. "Well, Cassy, aren't you lucky we got her when we did? Haha!" He looks at me like he's my real father.

    "Yeah! Haha! So, what's your name, officer?" This gum tastes delicious. I LOVE strawberry banana gum!

    "My name is Jonothan Carter. Buckle your seat belt, honey." He buckles his, and I do the same. We're driving now. I see the houses, each one perfectly as even as the next, flying past us.

    "Jon...? Do... do you think you could be my father?"

    "Well, I could be, but I'd have to see to it that the misses approves. As soon as we take your foster mother to the station, we can cruise to my house - in my car - and ask her. How's that sound?"

    "AWESOME!!! That would be fabulous! Thank you so much, Jon!" I want to give him a hug so bad right now, but the seat belt is digging into my shoulder. I try to loosen it but there's no point. We're already at the police station. Officer Jon pulls into the drive-way and escorts Nancy inside. About five minutes later he comes back in his regular clothes. We transfer cars, and start on the way to his house. His car is Navy Blue. It's so beautiful!
    * * * * * * * * *
    As we pull into his driveway three people rush out of the house to greet Jon. The tallest one - a guy who is about fourteen - has shaggy black hair, which is much different from Jon's hair, and the other two. The smallest one - a girl, about seven - has bleach blonde hair that goes halfway down her back. She is so cute! I just want to pinch her cheeks! Then the middle sized one - their mom, and Jon's wife (I'm assuming) - is a little pudgy with bleach blonde hair just like her daughters, except hers is cut in a bob. It looks so...what's the word? Sophisticated. That's the word. She looks sophisticated. I bet if she put it back in a pony tail only the back of it would stay! That’s how short it is. I chuckle, quietly and hope that nobody hears. Wow, such a bland family. The fourteen year old is sort of cute. Okay, not sort of. He's sexy! I want to lick his abs (assuming that he has abs)! His figure is that of an athlete. Tennis, maybe? Or soccer?
    The mom comes over and welcomes Jon home with a peck on the lips. "Who is this fine young lady?" She looks at me with a deranged face. I don't think she wants to adopt me, and her face says it all. God, this was a huge mistake. Why am I so stupid sometimes?!
    "This," Jon gestures towards me, "is Cassy. Her foster mother - who is now in jail - abused her. Her real parents died in a tragic car accident a couple days after she was born." I cringe when he says this, because it pains me to think about my past - all things considered. "Cassy, and I were just talking. We thought that - if it were alright with you and the kids, of course - that she could stay with us. You know... Adopt her? What do you think?" I look back at the mother. Her face is a mixture of sorrow, pain, and tragedy, like she's heard this story a million times before. She's looking at me like I'm a cat lost in the rain that she feels bad for but doesn't really want to help. Damn! I told you this wasn't going to go over well.
    There is silence for a while. Someone has to say something. "Honey...?" She seems to be spacing out. "Blair?" Jon comes to my rescue.
    "Well...I just don't know Jon. I mean..." Her voice trials off. Oh, god. I knew it. I just want to fade away right now. Damn it, all!