Chapter Fourteen

The story of Amelia Moore.

Amelia Moore, born into a wealthy family who lived in the suburbs of a polluted city. She went to a private catholic school were she was taught "Good Girl" etiquette. Her mother dressed her in layers of baby pink and white, pink suggesting innocence and white suggesting purity and richness.
When Amelia turned 14, by that time she grew breasts and was going through puberty, she was very beautiful and all the girls turned green when they realized how little effort she put into her outfits.
She knew her worth, and she didn't want to be belittled as a human being because her breasts were a little bigger than other girls, or her ass was a tiny more plump. She wanted to settle down with a rich guy and drink red wine by herself in a mansion reminiscing over her adolescent days.
When Amelia turned sixteen, her life started going downhill. Her mother would keep her hostage inside the house and tell her she's a walking target for men to come and suck the purity out of her. "Loosing your virginity is like a tarnished soul." Her mother would always tell her.
Amelia always thought loosing a part of yourself you'd never get back would be a bad thing, and it is.
In the tenth grade, she met a young, handsome boy who was rich and played on the baseball team. He would give her flowers everyday with little notecards that read sweet haikus. She thought he was perfect. He wasn't.
I mean, not in every way you'd imagine.

And every day, he would kiss her on her right cheek, the utmost pity would swell around her lips for a couple minutes after, because she knew deep down, the only thing he and every other guy she'd been in a relationship had one want in common.
They all wanted to fuck her.
She didn't have many friends, as they were all green in the face with envy when every guy sat down at her lunch table, they would all stare at her. You'd think because of her beauty, they'd stare at her beautiful blue eyes, her blonde hair that bounced off her shoulders when she walked. However, they stared at her thighs, her breast's, her butt. And you can only imagine what they were thinking.
As Amelia gotten closer with the baseball kid, every kiss seemed to get more passionate, and with that would lead to going down on each other in the bathroom stall.
He would ask her if she was a virgin, and she would say she is.
Which isn't a lie.
And he would ask to take hers.
She would say no.
The white bra she had on was a symbol of her purity and her pink, tight little skirt was an indication of innocence. Men liked when a girl was innocent, they had a fresh plate they could dirty.
He would ask her repeatedly and beg her.
Her answer would always stay the same.
No.
However, the baseball boy didn't care and blackened her white, tarnished her pink.
You can only imagine how traumatized Amelia was, she would tell her parents and cry every night had she done something to stop it.
"You need to believe me." She would plead to her mother who would make a mockery of her daughter.

No charges were pressed, nothing was done.

The baseball boy moved on with his life with equanimity, and Amelia wouldn't move on with her life, every man she's ever been with used her for the same thing. She resented men and told herself if she ever fell in love again, she would kill herself.
Then, she meets Charles in her sophomore year of college. He treated her well and it gave her deja vu because every relationship she's had always started with innocent kisses in a parking lot.
Until they didn't.
She fell in love with him fast, and surprisingly, even to her, they lasted all throughout college.
He loved her,
She loved him.
They would talk on top of his car telling her his dreams and how much he wanted to accomplish.
She would sit there and complain about her parents and how she was never speaking to them again.
Which stayed true, she didn't, ever.
They would talk about getting married after college and run away to a small town.
Charles did very well at hiding his true colors.
Behind his sweetheart layer was a traumatized drunk who only wanted power.
We'll get to him later. Back to Amelia.
They got married on December 14 and were ever in love. He wanted to wait for marriage and when he asked her if she was a virgin. She told him yes,
Which is a lie.
Well one of them was without her consent, the other two times she had sex, she was always in power and initiated it.

It wasn't like he could tell if she was lying or not, but in their bed after the wedding, he thought he took her virginity for the first time, which gave him a sense of power and now they'd be together forever. He was kind during their first few years of marriage until he started his illicit drug company, where they moved from their cheap and small apartment in Philadelphia to the town called, "Vanilla Valley." It was a perfect name, it sounded innocent and vanilla, which is the color white, meant purity and christian. A perfect town for a perfect family they would make.
They moved into the only gated community in town in a huge white house with a white picket fence and french black doors, with grand floor to ceiling windows.
They first had Andrew, who was raised for his first two years by a nanny due to Amelia and Charles who worked every day starting their business.
They then had me, Bailey.
And I was also raised by a nanny for the first two years of my life.
For four years we haven't been around our parents as much as we should be, but then their business was starting to make more and more money, and they had time to spend with us and mold us as they wanted. They dressed me in layers of white and baby pink and Andrew in layers of baby blue and white. Both suggesting innocence and purity and richness.
I grew up with people walking around eggshells on me, we were known as the perfect white American dream family. Little did I know the things that went down when I was placed in my bed to go to sleep, my mom would delicately kiss me on the forehead and would always say to me,
"Good night, tomorrow is going to be a better day."
Every single night she would say that.
Every night.

I knew very little though that when she went downstairs she was sobering up my father. Counting bills and arguing.
Things started to go downhill for Amelia and Charles marriage when their job got stressful and people were getting onto them. They used to be perfect for each other, not just perfect spouses but perfect business partners. Once the fear of people jeopardizing their business was a concern they would fight all the time, and usually, most of the time, Charles would take dominance over Amelia.
Ever since, Amelia's confidence went down and she grew an unusual silence that took over her.
She would, from then on, obey Charles.
He took control over her.
Not only her body and oath of silence
But her mind.

Present Time.
January 1, 1995.
1:34 AM.

"I'm Bailey Moore, and I'd like to report a crime." I tell the desk lady, she looks me up down.
I'm standing with dried blood on my hands, my hair all messed up, and my clothes all ruined by Andrews blood. And two molly pills in my pocket.
"Have a seat please, an officer will be coming to ask questions in a moment. In the meanwhile, is there any metal, sharp objects, wallets, or a cellphone on you?"
"No." I respond. My hands shake and I my legs feel weak and numb. I sit on the bench, my legs tense because I need to pee.
"Where's the restroom?"
"Go straight and then left." The lady tells me rolling her eyes.
"Thank you." I sigh and start speed walking to the bathroom.
My stomach hurts and I'm hungry.
Did she say left?
I go down an empty hallway with flickering lights that are surprisingly dim, I spot the women's restroom, I pray there's no one in there. My hands grasp the doorknob and holding my breath, I open it. Nobody's in there.
I exhale and run into one of the stalls. As I pull down my pants, one of the pills fall out.
"Shit." I whisper. I pick it up quickly before anyone could come in, as I'm peeing I stare at the pill for a long time. I gulp as I put it to my lips, I hold it there. As I open my mouth to take it, the door opens. Which is a good thing, because I probably shouldn't have taken it anyways. I get done and throw the pill that I dropped on the ground into the toilet and flush it. At least there's still one. As I open the stall my nostrils are flooded by a musky perfume the lady who just walked in sprayed on herself.
"Hello, sweetie!" She says with a smile.
My voice firm, "Hello."
The soap smelled like it's been there for a couple years as I lather it onto my hands and rinse it off. The lady smiles  to me as I walk out.
That was the most awkward thing ever.

My stomach growling as I make myself over to the bench again. I would hate to ask for food.
Sitting there shivering, it's New Year's Day and this is how I'm spending it. My mind focuses on nothing and it seems to go by pretty quickly as an officers voice interrupts my gaze at one of the "New Year Drive-In" posters.
"Come with me." Am officer demands, my eyes dilate and I can feel the sweat running down my arm.
This isn't going to end well.
The officer takes me to a small room that's painted white. There is absolutely no color and it's pretty depressing. There's a wooden table with a chair on each side. Licking my lips, I go to sit down.
"Okay, what's your name?" He pulls out his notepad.
I speak gingerly, "Bailey Moore."
He nods his head and continues writing. I fiddle with my hangnail and rip it off. Honestly, I couldn't even feel the pain as the blood runs down my finger. It seems to go on forever, the blood, it dripped all the way down onto my thigh where it then slid down my leg and out onto the floor. A red ribbon rolled across the floor and up the wall. "Bailey."
My eyes focus back onto the officer.
"I'm sorry, I'm just really-" I stop and take a breath.
"Nervous." I finish.
"Now can you tell me what happened?"
The only thing I can focus on is his pen and how fast he writes, my eyelids feel heavy. I stutter when I answer him, adding "uhm" and "uh" to my sentences. Everything kinda blurs out when I talk to him, his voice is echoey and indistinct but I'm answering him with real answers.
As soon as I know it.
It's over.
"Thank you." He says.
I nod my head and sit there patently as he walks out and leaves me there.
Blood.
Guns.
Drugs.
These words like a million echos in my mind. My mom pointing the gun at me.
"Kill me." I hear her voice.
Everything gets louder, and everything gets more confusing.
My heart beats fast against my rib cage, my breathing gets faster and heavier to the point where all I hear is my breath and my heart beat.
My heartbeat.
Then,
I hear nothing else.