Mari pushed around the cole slaw on her plate with a fork while her father watched from the living room. She stuck a tiny bit in her mouth, chewing with disgust.

"Hurry up, Mari." her father scolded. She groaned in response. "Dad, you know I don't like cole slaw, and yet you give it to me anyway."

"Hey, cut the attitude. You should be grateful for that meal! When I was your age, I didn't know if I would get to eat dinner!" her father yelled.

"Grateful? Grateful for what?" Mari snapped back. "Grateful for the meals I don't like? For the tiny servings I get?"

She stood up from her seat at the table and turned to face her father. "Should I be grateful for the anxiety and depression you gave me? Should I be grateful for the fact that you make me feel like I'm worthless? That whenever I try to take care of myself on my own, you treat it like it's some kind of miracle? That you make me feel like my opinions don't matter?

"Should I be grateful for the hypocrisy you show me? For the promises you never keep?" Mari couldn't stop now, the words were flowing out of her mouth like water out of a hose. "Should I be grateful that whenever you spend time with me, you treat it like some kind of favor? Should I be grateful that I feel more like a slave than your daughter? That you scare away every friend I make? That I feel like I have no freedom? That I feel like crying every time I'm alone with you? That I flinch every time you lift your hand? Tell me if I should be grateful for all the things you do to make me feel like I'm nothing."

There. It was over. Everything she's been bottling up for the past five years has finally been let out. Mari's eyes stung. She didn't try to stop the hot tears falling down her face.

Instead of showing sympathy or guilt, or any acceptable emotion, her father's face contorted with rage. He grabbed an ashtray off of the coffee table and flung it at her, missing by barely two inches.

Mari took this as a sign to leave, to run away. She bolted for the door and swung it open. She ran, not bothering to close the door behind her. Her vision was blurry from the tears in her eyes.

She ran, not a clue where she was going. She felt the grass, asphalt, and gravel under her bare feet. Several times rocks would cut her feet, but she ignored it. The only thing on her mind was getting away from that toxic person, from that toxic house, from her toxic life.

It was just as the tears stopped and her vision cleared that she tripped and fell, tumbling down a hill. Mari's body got cut on sticks and rocks and roots in the forest ground. She couldn't stop or slow down, just roll down the hill like an idiot.

It only stopped when Mari hit her head on a rock, knocking her unconscious. Her vision went black and her body went limp, landing on the flat ground beneath her.