Everyone left the house, leaving me by myself with all the mess in the living room. The coffee table is all dirty with muddy shoe prints all over it from Dylan and William. There's broken beer bottles everywhere, underwear on the floor and on the couch, cigarettes on the table beside the couch and cigarette ashes on the arms of the couches.

Trey could be here in any minute!

I carefully and quickly cleaned the living room with pounds of glass cleaners for the coffee table, tv and windows and bleach for the couch. I threw the underwear and cigarettes away and vacuumed all the glass up off the floor all in 20 minutes.

I'm still in pain from all the hitting and punching from William and my freaking butt hurts. I can barely walk straight because of the pain in the insides of my thighs, ribs, back, arms and face.

I carefully limped up the stairs and went to the bathroom to have a look at myself in the mirror. I turned the light on and my beaten face popped in the mirror covered in scratches and bruises.

"Oh my gosh." I covered my mouth as my eyes start tearing up.

Look at me. I'm a walking bruised doll.

I lifted my ripped and wrinkly shirt and my skin is dark red and dark purple on my left rib. There's bruises on my arms and legs, about five of them each. There's a dark red painful hickey on my neck and finger prints from when William would choke me. My throat feels really dry from smoking that cigarette and I keep coughing.

I ran the cold bath water, even though I hate cold water, for the pain. I took off my destroyed clothes and sat in the cold bathtub. Just looking at my beaten body, I begin to bawl out crying.

The unbearable pain is killing me and the memories are coming back from when I was eight years old. William has been abusing me ever since I was eight. He wouldn't say that he would kill me back then because he was too young to own a gun. He would say that he'll tell his uncle to kill me and his uncle would watch and tell William what to do to me. He didn't rape me, he would just beat me up really hard with a chair or something harder. His uncle did shoot me before but it didn't kill me and that was when I was twelve. So he went to prison for that and William start doing more things to me since then. He bought a gun and start to say that he'll kill me and my family if I tell or refuse to do anything he says and rape me like always...

So I'm stuck. Sometimes I just wanna die so I won't be dealing with all this. My life is just dark and everyone thinks I'm a happy person but I'm not. Sometimes I eat so I can ease the pain... kinda a bad idea because I'll gain weight...

I grabbed my broken phone from the bathtub ledge and it says I have 20 missed calls and 10 unread text messages from Prince. My heart starts to beat fast reading the text messages that Prince sent me.

"Hey. Wanna come over for dinner?" 2 hours ago.

"Hello?" 2 hours ago.

"Where did you go?" 2 hours ago.

"Call me when you're available." 1 hour ago.

"Ariel. You usually answer faster than this. Where did you go?  1 hour ago.

"Are you okay 😰" 1 hour ago.

"I texted Trey and he said that you're home." 1 hour ago.

"Please answer me 😭" 1 hour ago.

"I'm coming over there if you won't answer." 45 minutes ago.

"I miss you already. I wish you'd answer back. Did I do something wrong? 😨" 30 minutes ago.

I stopped crying and wiped my tears away.

"No. I was busy." I texted back.

I heard a soft knock on the door. I took a shaky breath in.

"W-Who is i-it?" I answered.

"It's that you Ariel?" I deep voice asked.

"Yeah. Mhm." I sniffle.

"It's Trey? What are you doing in there?" He asked.

"U-Uh. Um. I-I'm taking a bath." I stuttered.

"Are you okay in there?" He asked.

"Yeah. I was just um laughing." I lied.

"Okay. I bought you a smoothie. It's downstairs on the table." He said.

"Okay. I'll be o-out there. Ha." I tried to make my voice sound happy.

I unplugged the drain and got out of the tub quickly grabbing my towel off the counter. Then I quickly put my pajamas on and left the bathroom. Mama's door is open across the hallway so I ran over there and saw that the bed is messy and pillows are everywhere.

I turned the light on and quickly covered the bed with a blanket and put the pillows back in place. I looked over at the wall and there's a huge hole on the wall where William threw my phone.

Dammit.

Footsteps getting louder and closer to the door...

I quickly ran and put my back against the wall to cover up the hole.

"Ariel?" I heard Trey's voice.

"Y-yeah?" I answered.

He walked to the door way and saw me on the wall.

He looked at me puzzled and laughed.

"What you doing in here?" He asked.

"I-um- I-" I stuttered.

"What you hiding behind you?" He sound serious.

I shook my head nervously.

"Nothing."

"Why is Mama's room so messy? You did this?" He walked in and looked around.

I didn't really make the bed up neatly.

"Y-yeah. I fell asleep in here." I lied.

He looked at me weird.

"Ariel. You're acting weird. Why you on the wall like that? Get off. And plus you're not supposed to be in Mama's room." We walked closer to me.

"Maybe I wanna stand here." My voice shook.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me off the wall gently. I heard him gasp while he walked to the wall.

"Ariel. What you do to the wall!?" He looked at me.

"I- I- Uh- I punched the wall." I lied scratching the back of my head.

"Ugh. We gotta fix this before you get in trouble." He looked at the hole.

He looked back at me and raised his eyebrow.

"Why you punch the wall for?"

"I was mad." I mumbled.

"At what?" He shrugged.

"I punched the wall Trey. I just punched the wall." I got a little irritated from all the questions he's asking.

I walked to the door and he followed me.

"Well I bought you a smoothie." I heard him.

"I know." I mumbled walking slowly.

He walked passed me and skipped down the stairs.

Good. He thought it was true.

I limped slowly to the stairs with my face scrunched up in pain and carefully took a step down.

27 more to go...

I held the banister with two hands tightly and turned my body sideways, like what babies do...
I put one foot down on the step and my socks slid off of it making me loose my grip on the banister and stumble down the stairs. I screamed loudly in pain stumbling until I got to the floor.

I heard a few footsteps coming my way.

"Omg are you okay?!" I heard Chanel.

"I-I'm fine! I'm just a little clumsy!" I held my head.

I felt someone grab my arm and help me up.

I think it's Trey cause I smell his cologne.

"What is wrong with you?" I heard him ask.

I opened my eyes and their faces look shocked and confused. I nervously laughed a little making it look like everything is okay.

"Nothing's wrong. I'm okay." I lied.

"Now where's the smoothie?" I asked limping away from the stairs.

"On the table." Trey unsurely said.

"Are you okay?" He asked again.

"Yes. I'm fine." I tried to walk as normal as I can towards the dining room as they followed me.

I spot the smoothie sitting on the table and I grabbed it. Chanel and Trey sat down in the dining room chair still staring at me.

"What happened to your face and arms?" Trey looked at me up and down.

All these questions...

"Well duh. I fell down the stairs Trey." I lied and rolled my eyes.

"You need an ice pack?" Chanel asked.

"No. It can heal itself." I mumbled.

"Where's Sabrina?" I thought she'd be home by now." Trey took a sip of his drink.

"I don't know." I shrugged.

"Call her and ask her where she's at."

My phone vibrated showing an incoming call from Prince.

"I gotta call Prince first." I walked away and carefully limped upstairs quickly to my room.

"Hello?" I cleared my throat.

"Ariel! Where did you go? I was worrying about you!" His voice was loud and it shook my eardrums.

"I'm so sorry. I was really busy." I sat on my bed.

"Busy doing what?" He asked.

"I was at the hospital with my mom." I said not including what happened next.

"Oh. Okay. Well, I missed you."

"Prince. How? You've been hanging out with me for hours earlier." I chuckled a little.

"I just wish I can hang out with you longer."

"Aww. I love you Prince." I blushed.

"I love you too. And are you okay? You sound sick."

"Yeah. I'm okay." I lied.

"Good. I have a basketball game on Tuesday night."

"I know. I have to cheer at your game."

We learned our cheer routine and we're going to perform at the pep rally for the first time. I hope all this pain go away before Tuesday.

"I'm going to be watching you." I heard him chuckle a little.

"Okay."

Prince and I chatted about things until we both fell asleep on the phone.

His sleepy voice is just so warm and kinda deep. It's really cute.