Post by cleo elizabeth cole on Nov 13, 2010 19:59:39 GMT -5
cleo elizabeth cole.
eighteen. freshman. waitress . lisa ruocco.[/font][/i]
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dear journal (it sounds so much better than diary),
who would have ever thought life would be this hard to deal with. i want to go back to the days i was a baby. even though there were still cracks there, the cracks were yet to cause a split in the earth and so everything seemed simple. i want to go back to that total naivety, because with that i was happy and comfortable. now i know too much about the world and all it's troubles.
i suppose everything started falling apart when i was four. yes, i know it's such a young age for things to start crumbling apart, but they did all the same. that was when dad would come home drunk and shouting his head off. i always found it so odd. he treated me like i was an angel. really. he used to buy me all kinds of cuddly toys, tell me i was a princess and an absolute star. yet, he was so horrible to mum, and to rion actually. i think it was only me and elena who he was actually nice too. yet, i barely have any memories of this good side of him, when i wasn't afraid of him and he was just my dad. when i was four though, and dad came home late shouting, it would wake all of us up. either i'd creep into elena's bed, or we'd sneak down the hall and see rion. it was nice to all be together then, i received some comfort from that. despite the shouts that echoed through the whole house.
it only got worse from there. two years we all put up with it. that's a longer time than it seems. he wasn't always like that, some nights he was fine, and during the day especially he would become my wonderful father. but, i was still afraid of him. for a while it was just him shouting at her, and this was only when he got drunk (which is now why today i refuse to touch alcohol). but then, it progressed to him hitting her and other things. he even broke her ribs once. it was horrible. you can't understand what it's like to go through listening to that, and then to see my mother, battered and bruised, pretending that everything's perfectly fine. i was the youngest and yet, i could still plainly see what was going on.
i was afraid to tell anyone because i was afraid if i did, my dad would turn on me. but he never actually did. i suppose i'm a bit of a coward, yes, i was too scared to stand up and protect my mother when it would have been so much better for her. luckily there are people braver than me in my family. rion, who had been on the receiving end once or twice of my father's drunken attacks, stood up and told someone. from then he was arrested and convicted, with a sentence to never see us again. i must admit i was sad, he was my father and so i loved him, but there was also relief there. after all, what he'd done was just wrong. after that though, things went even worse. not just for our family, but for me as well.
mum killed herself. or at least, that what the police said, it was suicide. i'll never get that image out of my head, walking down into the kitchen and seeing her hanging from the ceiling, feet dangling there... god! it's just so disgusting. it makes me want to throw up thinking about it, just as i did back then. they sent me to therapy classes for at least a year after it, and yet, i still can't get that image out of my mind, as much as i try too.
we moved in with auntie katie after that, and i suppose here begun my downward spiral. rion was mixed up in his own world, with his friends and his life as the new jock of our school, as well as with his new found passion for acting. elena fitted in really well too, and she started hanging out with her new friends instead of talking to me. what about me then? well, i didn't fit in at all. i was that really clever kid that everyone hated because of it, and i received a lot of name calling. on top of that, i had just been told i was bi-polar. my siblings didn't even notice, or care. that was what hurt the most actually, not the names, but the fact that they didn't even notice or care. after what had happened to us, we were supposed to be there for each other, but they were all too busy trying to escape it. they hadn't seen what i had seen, and so they could try and move on. of course, i was stuck with that image behind my lids.
with everything that was going on, i turned anorexic. it wasn't so surprising, not when my only comfort was aunt katie's dogs, and they couldn't even reply to my worries. anorexia, bulimia. i did them both. mostly i tried not to eat anything, skipping breakfast and throwing the lunch that was packed for me down the bin. but dinner was more difficult, when we were all sitting there i had to eat something, which meant i had to get rid of it later.
it's safe to say they noticed eventually, but not until i'd lost a lot of weight. my siblings suddenly pounced on me and spied on me everywhere. hanging out with me and school and watching me eat every last piece of food i was given, while elena even came with me to the loos to make sure i wasn't about to throw it back up. i still managed to continue it though, until one day, i fell down the stairs and broke several ribs due to how weak they were.
god, it hurt like hell. every breath i took was painful, but i'd lived through seeing my mother's dead body, so i could live through this. i was monitored 24/7 and even went back to therapy. i hated it. i was unable to do anything i wanted, and at the sessions i was asked stupid patronizing questions. but it kept going on until i was back at a healthy weight, although i'm still rather skinny now. that's when things relaxed a little bit and i was allowed more of a life. i was still watched of course, but not as much. at least my siblings spent more time with me, elena especially, so i wasn't so alone. but, things were so difficult. i became a bit of a mess, but i suppose the plus was i was yet to resort to alcohol. and still yet too actually.
the age of fourteen was a rocky year for me too. things were a bit disastrous again, life officially sucked, and i ended up losing my virginity in the back of a car to a guy i barely knew. i'm not going to get into how. i got a bit of a pregnancy scare, but it turned out to be nothing, which was a huge relief, so i went back to life, trying to move on from it and turn things around a bit. elena was the only one i ever told, and it's a miracle she's managed to keep it a secret. if rion had found out... well, i don't want to know what would have happened. while this was going on with me, rion was getting his big acting break. this meant, as the year progressed and he became well known, we moved to america. i was glad to go. not only to escape everything that england held for me, but also to flee the rumors that were starting to spread around school. i was glad to get to america and have a fresh start. where maybe i could be myself.
i've just kept my head down at school while i've been here. high school was good, and i really feel i fitted in well. i found a few people just wanted to be friends with me because of rion, but i stuck to those i knew wanted to be friends with me, and not the next girlfriend of my brother (not that he does girlfriends). rion even got me a horse due to my love for horse riding that i took up back in england, i don't deserve it though, it makes me feel spoilt. i got good grades after high school, and have now just started at university. i quite like writing, so i'd like to see what i can do with that, but we'll see where i can go from here, hopefully not making an even bigger mess of my life.
i wonder if when i write in this journal again where my life will be.
cleo.
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[/color]becca. fifteen. rion cole.[/font][/i][/center]
