the big party

This is more of Marissa's story.

The next morning, I was walked back to Dr. Morrison's office. I didn't really want to go back, but I knew it was about the only way I would be able to get out of Breezewood anytime soon. I was three weeks from turning 18, and as soon as I turned 18, I had every intention of signing myself out. I would be consdered an adult and would be able to decide for myself if I needed to stay.

"Good morning," Dr. Morrison said cheerfully as I sat in the chair across from her desk.

"I don't know if it's good, but at least I'm here," I replied. I was sure she meant well, but I didn't want to seem happy when I was so miserable.

"Can I get out when I turn 18? I know I'll be an adult and I can sign myself out, right?" I held my breath as I waited for her to answer.

"Marissa, you're very sad right now, and even three weeks from now, you're still going to have to learn how to deal with everything that has gone on in your life. From reading your chart, there's a lot that you've had to deal with. I don't think staying for three weeks is going to be enough."

What? I have to stay here? What the hell is she talking about? Thoughts were running through my head that I couldn't complete. Everything in my mind was breaking up.

"Three weeks isn't long enough for you to make as much money as you can off me?" It was the first thing I could think of to say.

"I didn't go into adolescent psychology for the money," Dr. Morrison said. "If I was into psychology for the money, I would be into the experimental part of the field. But that isn't important. I would want to treat you even if I wasn't getting paid. I don't want you leaving here until I feel that you've developed coping skills and have a brighter, more positive view of yourself and your life. I want you leaving here with goals and a future."

I stared at her. I was at a loss for words. I sighed. "Where do we start today?"

Dr. Morrison looked through her notes. "You were talking about your sister and her kids. And about losing Josh."

I looked away for a moment, because even hearing his name made me want to cry. I took a deep breath.
 

"Carrie was the biggest party girl I've ever met. She didn't make it out of high school before she had Bryan.If there's an alcoholic beverage out there, she has probably tried it at least once. I've caught her smoking pot, and she actually offered me some. She drank while she was pregnant with him, the whole nine months, even though everyone tried to get her to stop. Bryan's okay, but everyone worried so much about him that they didn't see what else was going on.She ended up raising Bryan by herself for a while, because his dad wasn't ready to be a dad. Brad finally stepped in, after Carrie came home drunk off her a*s and dropped Bryan on the living room floor while she was feeding him a bottle. I can't stand Carrie. I don't know why she even kept having kids. She dumped Bryan on Mom and Brad. Natalie and Jacob have different dads. All three of them do. She didn't drink with the other two, but I still haven't met Natalie's dad, and she's almost eight years old."

I paused. Talking about Carrie gave me headaches. The thought of her stressed me out.

"How does that change how you want to be with your own children?" Dr. Morrison asked. "Do you want to be a mom?"

I smiled. I had basically helped my mom raise Carrie's kids, so I had an idea of what being a mom would be like. "I do want kids. I don't know how many, but I know I want them. I wouldn't do half the stupid s**t Carrie has done to her kids. She's left them with people she barely knows, that was mainly Bryan. She's left them when they're sick with me and Mom. I wouldn't do that. I would stay with my kids no matter what. That's what you do. I want to do fun things with them, like playing at the park and eating ice cream. I would be a million times better as a mom right now than Carrie could ever be."

Dr. Morrison raised her eyebrows. "That's interesting, Marissa. You've got more insight than I thought you did."

I smiled. Maybe she could see that I didn't need to be at Breezewood?

"It happens when your heart gets broken and you have to figure out why. It happens when your sister screws her life up and you have to take care of her kids." I was getting angry. I had never understood why my life had gone the way it had, but I didn't think talking about it would help much.

"You're right. Do you want to keep talking about Carrie and her kids, or move on to something else? You seem angry."

"Yeah, I'm a little angry. I mean, why me? What did I ever do to get stuck with such a screwed up life? I'm a good person, so what went wrong?"

"That's why you're here. You have to figure out where everything went wrong and learn from those things to make your life better."

"Well, then I'm going to be here for a couple of years. I think it'll take that long to tell everything. I'm not exactly enjoying this, but if it means I can get out of here and move on with my life, then I guess I'm gonna spend a lot of time talking to you, right?"

"Basically," Dr. Morrison replied. She smiled, and as she did, her eyes became a little brighter. I could see in her bright blue eyes that she was here because she had a passion for helping people. I was amazed at seeing that much in just a simple smile.

"I don't really want to talk about Carrie anymore. I've got plenty of time for her, because she wasn't my biggest problem. We might as well start with the big ones, right?"

"We can go with whatever problems you want to go with," Dr. Morrison said. "This is your time to talk and work things out as you tell me things. We don't have to spend a whole session on Carrie. I will bring her in at some point for some family sessions, because I think it will help you. She is your sister, Marissa, and even though the relationship between you may be ruined by her choices, it's worth a shot to at least try to repair it. Do you want to do that?"

"Not really. I haven't spoken to her since the final custody hearing when she signed the papers for Mom to get full custody of the kids. That was a year ago, and honestly I don't have a lot to say to her." I shifted in my chair.

"You might at some point. We'll come back to that idea. What else did you want to talk about today?"

"Let's go to Josh.Where did I leave off with him?"

Dr. Morrison checked her notes again. "He had broken off the relationship and you cried your eyes out. You've got about 20 minutes left for today."

Wow. She was keeping pretty good notes. I shifted in my chair again, and turned it towards the window. I figured looking outside would clear my mind to be able to talk about Josh.

"After Josh and I broke up, I was pretty upset, but then I figured, hell, I'm pretty, I can find someone else until Josh came to his senses."

"Did he ever come to his senses?"

"He was too late by then. I started dating Tyler, and that was a year later."

"Okay. Continue."

"I hated being without a boyfriend. I really liked the male attention. I didn't have much as a kid, so I figured I needed to make up for lost time."

"What happened to your dad?" Dr. Morrison asked.

"He left. That's it. I was about five when he left, Carrie was sixteen.I don't see him much. But we can go into that another day. That sucks more than Carrie and losing Josh together."

"You sure you want to leave it at that?"

"For today I do. Let's just say he's remarried and I've got a half brother and sister, but I don't think I've seen them more than twice and they're not much younger than me. I think Frances is 12 and Nathan is 10. He and Bryan aren't very far apart in age. I feel seriously scattered here. I was talking about one thing and jumped to another about four times here. It's annoying as hell. Can we just stop here?" I stood up. I was frustrated.

"We can.You seem really frustrated. You probably need to calm a little bit. Do you still have your notebook? I saw that you had one in your chart. " Dr. Morrison stood up and opened her office door.

" Yeah, I wrote in it last night."

"Keep writing. I'm not always here when you need someone to talk to and you need to get out the things you're feeling. Do you mind bringing it with you from now on? We might not use it all the time, but it would be helpful."

"Sure. I'll probably write some today." I walked out of her office. I really did feel scattered. I couldn't concentrate on anything. I went back to class but couldn't concentrate on what my history teacher was saying. Not being able to concentrate there reminded me of not being able to concentrate at my regular school.

 

While I sat in history class, I began to think of all the fun times I had in school. Josh was behind quite a few of those memories, but after we broke up, we kind of drifted apart. It hurt me that letting him know how much I cared ruined our relationship. I went on with my life, making new friends, meeting new boys. This is around the time I started hanging out with Danielle more than ever. She introduced me to Jamie at a party, and my life took another bad turn. I didn't see it coming then, but he would change how I saw men forever.

Danielle, Karenna and I were at my house, getting ready for a party. There were going to be a lot of guys there, especially older ones, and we wanted to look our best. Danielle and I were excited to be getting to go to a big party, but Karenna, like always, was quiet as we dressed.

"Why are you two getting all dressed up? It's not like they don't see you like this everyday," Karenna asked. Karenna was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a tank top. She didn't really want to go to the party, but then, she didn't want to go home. She flopped down on the bed. Danielle turned away from the floor lenght mirror on my bedroom door. Her long brown hair swung as she turned, and her green eyes lit up.

"'Cause we can. This is what high school is about, Karenna. Partying. Have some fun for once."

 

Karenna sighed. "Whatever," she said. "I never have fun at those parties anyway." Karenna was very quiet and didn't like being in big groups very much, but Danielle and I thought it would be a good idea to bring her out of her shell a little bit. We didn't want to leave her out. Karenna tried her hardest to keep us from getting into trouble, but it didn't always work.

Danielle finished her hair and put on a pair of tight jeans and a tight- fitting black t shirt. I put on my makeup and put on khaki pants and a red button up shirt. I pulled my hair up, leaving some down and took a final look in the mirror.

"Are we ready?" I asked. I wanted to go where the fun was. I wanted to forget about messing everything with Josh. Danielle smiled and Karenna just nodded. Karenna would never make a good party girl. She was just too quiet. We walked out of the house and down the street to Marty's, a diner on the way to the party at a senior's house. We had a habit of going to Marty's before a party or anything else fun. I loved to eat, so I was always ready to go there. We even had our own table. Melissa, Marty's wife, gave us our own table because we were there so much. The table was in the back corner and we loved it. It was almost like we had the place to ourselves, and I think Melissa understood that.

The three of us ordered our usual. I ordered the buffalo wings and baked potato and a Cherry Coke, Karenna got a chicken sandwich, fries and a Mountain Dew and Danielle got a burger with fries and a Dr.Pepper. Again, this was a tradition. As we waited for our food, we talked about the party we were going to. Danielle had heard about it in her gym class, which was mostly seniors, and had gotten to talking with Ariel, the girl that lived next door to the kid that was having the party. We didn't even know his name, just the kid that was throwing the party. Ariel had told Danielle she could come and to bring some friends with her. Of course, the first people Dani thought of were Karenna and I. Danielle had heard that there were going to be a lot of cute ROTC guys at the party, because Ariel and the kid that was throwing the party were in ROTC. None of us had thought about joining, because we thought it was too hard.

"Most of those guys are seriously hot," Danielle said. "Maybe we'll even find you one, Karenna. I'm not worried about you, Marissa. I know you can find someone." She laughed. Karenna, on the other hand, didn't laugh.

"What's that supposed to mean? I can find my own guy but I just don't want one yet," Karenna said. "I've got a really overprotective dad.. you have no idea how much of a pain that is. I barely got to go out tonight."

Karenna had a point. Her parents rarely let her go to parties with Dani and I. Her dad was really overprotective, and we weren't lucky to have dads that cared that much about us, if at all.

Karenna sipped her Mountain Dew. Dani smiled. "There's this one guy, Jamie, that's gonna be there, and he's beyond hot. Or there's Paul."

Karenna laughed. "What about the kid that's throwing this party? What's his name?"

Dani laughed. "I have no idea. We probably won't even see him and even if we did, he doesnt know us. He doesn't know every last person that is coming. This is the party of the year."

Karenna shook her head, and I laughed. Dani had a plan for everything. If that one didn't work, she always had a backup plan.

"I haven't met either of those guys," I said. "I don't want anything serious. Josh seriously broke my heart. Unless you find his clone, I really don't want another guy right now."

Dani sighed. "Do you want to forget about Josh for one night?"

"That was the idea."

"Okay. Then there is someone there that can help you with that."

Our food arrived then, and we ate quickly. The party was supposed to start soon, and we were walking. The party was just a block away. As we ate, I could tell my friends were thinking about different things. Karenna had a distant look on her face, like she wanted to go with us, but didn't. She was probably thinking about her violin lessons or something she had fought about with her parents. Her parents were strict Russian immigrants and didn't allow much breathing space for their children. Dani, on the other hand, was thinking about the party and who she could meet and hook up with. Dani was in the same situation I was in. She lived with a single mom and her mom also worked a lot. I doubted her mom even knew she was going to this party because she worked the night shift at a hospital and usually wasn't home until after Dani came home from her nights out. I was thinking about Josh and how I needed to forget about him. I was only 14 and there were so many other boys to meet at school.

After we ate, Karenna, Dani and I walked to the party. It was getting dark outside, and getting pretty hot inside. As soon as we walked in, a tall redhead ran up to us and hugged Dani.

"Hey, Dani!" the girl cried. "You're gonna love this party. It's kicking a*s already."

"I thought so!" Dani said. "These are my best friends, Karenna and Marissa.Y'all, this is Ariel." Dani was from Mississippi, and her accent and language had never gone away. She had lived in Broadsville for almost 7 years and still said things like "y'all."

"Hey, Marissa and Karenna. If you want anything to drink, legal or otherwise, it's in the kitchen. Have fun. Come find me before you leave, okay?" Ariel walked off into the crowd.

We walked around the house for a while, saying hello to the people we knew and meeting a few we didn't. Karenna, in her usual way, said hello and then went silent. Dani was being her loud, funny self, and I was just there. I was having fun meeting people, and the music was good, but I wished I was there with Josh instead. I knew I would be having more fun. We walked out to the backyard and sat on a big porch swing. We had been there over an hour, and I knew Karenna was ready to leave, but Dani wasn't even close to being ready. We sat quietly for a few minutes, and Karenna finally spoke.
"Ready to go?" she asked.

"I am, " I said. "I haven't met anyone worth staying here for."

"For once, I haven't either, " Dani said. She was disappointed. Dani was always able to find at least one guy she liked anywhere she went. Danielle stood up. "Let's go," she said. "We can go back to my house and watch some movies or something." We walked back inside to say goodbye to Ariel and the other kids we had met that night.

I was saying good bye to Iris, a junior who loved to write like I did, when I felt someone tap my shoulder.I turned around and looked into the bluest eyes I had ever seen. If I had known then what was behind those eyes, I would have grabbed Karenna and Danielle and ran like hell out of that party. I didn't, and it would take some time before I would. For a minute I was speechless.

"Hi," I said. " I have no idea who you are. I'm Marissa."

"I'm Barrett. I'm in ROTC."

Damn. I'd heard those guys were cute, but usually self absorbed. I smiled at Barrett.

"Hey, Marissa! You leaving or what?" Dani yelled. She and Karenna came over to Barrett and I. I introduced my friends to Barrett, and they stood there wondering what would happen next.

"I'm not going to leave you here by yourself," Dani said. "So me and Karenna are gonna sit somewhere. You lovebirds have fun." She and Karenna laughed as they walked off.

Barrett and I sat on a couch. Barrett had short blonde hair and blue eyes. He was tall and built very well. I loved guys who were built like football players, and Barrett was. We talked for a while, and I stood up. "I should go," I said. "I've got to find Danielle and Karenna."

"Okay," he said. He wrote his phone number on a sheet of paper and slipped it into my hand. "Call me." I smiled. "I will." I walked into the crowd to find the girls. They were in the kitchen, watching a drinking game.

"Dani, let's go, " I told her. "It's late."

We left the party and walked back to Danielle's house. The party hadn't been a total success, but at least I had met someone.

"I'm suprised that you didn't get in on the drinking party," Karenna said to Danielle. "Usually, you're the first person in line."

Karenna was right. Danielle was known for her drinking adventures in middle school. She would drink almost anything.

"I didn't feel it tonight. I don't know what the hell Ariel was thinking in telling me that was the party of the year. It wasn't. Not even close. If there had been some more guys like that one that Marissa grabbed right at the end, I might have," Danielle said, laughing. "Does he have a twin?"

"Not that I know of. If he does, I'll let you have him." All three of us laughed. "I'll ask him when I talk to him." I pulled his phone number out of my pants pocket.

"You're going to call him?" Karenna asked.

"I don't know about tonight," I said. "I probably will tomorrow. He was really cute, wasn't he?" Karenna and Danielle nodded. We linked arms and walked the rest of the way to Danielle's house linked together. The three of us took our friendship seriously. We were so different but we loved that about each other. We were there for each other when needed and always had each other as backup. We were unstoppable.

We went into Danielle's room. Her room was decorated in pink and purple, her favorite colors. She had a huge bed, but usually Karenna and I slept on the futon Danielle's mother bought just for us. The bed had enough room, but all three of us moved too much in our sleep. Karenna and I unfolded the futon and Danielle flopped on her bed.

"Maybe you should call Bennett," Danielle said. She loved to encourage Karenna and I to do what we were afraid to.

"I don't know. He's probably still at the party."

"So? It's his cell, isn't it?"

"I don't know."

Karenna glared at Danielle. "She's not a mind reader, Danielle. You call him if you want to talk to him so bad."

Danielle sighed. "That wasn't what I meant, Karenna. I was just trying to get Marissa to call the kid. You can tell she liked talking to him."

I blushed. "I did, but I talked to him for all of twenty minutes." I slid "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", one of our favorite movies, into the DVD player.

Danielle grabbed her cordless phone. "It does have speakerphone, you know."

I laughed and took the phone. "You're funny, Dani." I figured I needed to get calling Bennett over with. I always hated calling guys for the first time. It made me nervous, but then, everyone gets that way.

picked up the phone and started dialing. Karenna and Danielle were sitting on beanbag chairs right next to me. They knew I needed their support.

All I got was voice mail.

"Bennett, this is Marissa, the freshman you met at the party tonight. I guess I will try tomorrow? Bye."

I tossed the phone onto the bed. "Oh, well," I said.

 

Going back in my memories always made me tired. I sat my head on my desk. This class was too boring and too long. As soon as my head hit the desk, the bell beeped. It was time to go back to Dr. Morrison.

"Marissa, let's pick up where we left off."

I rolled my eyes. I didn't know where that was and didn't know where to begin. It was hard thinking about everything that had gone on in my life and then trying to remember where I'd left off with her. "Whatever. Let's just start."

Dr. Morrison flipped through her notes. "I believe you were talking about your dad."

"Let's not. I really don't want to talk about that now. He was the least of my problems. Carrie is up there and so was losing Josh, dating Bennett, and of course, Tyler."

"Start wherever. You can always come back to your dad. I have a feeling that he's probably a bigger problem than you think."

"That's cool. In fact, I forgot to journal about this, but earlier, I was thinking about when I met Bennett. I didn't mention him earlier because I had basically forgotten everything, but I was thinking about one of the parties that me and the girls went to and he just popped up."

"That's fine, Marissa. What were you thinking about?"

I told her about the party and how if I had known what kind of guy Bennett was, I wouldn't have thought of calling him back after that party.

"Did you call him?"

"Of course I did. He was a cute junior and I wanted to have a guy around. Don't even ask why, because I'm not ready to go there yet."

"I won't, but you pretty much guessed what I was about to do." Dr. Morrison smiled.

I leaned back in my chair. " I ended up calling him back the next day. I waited until I was by myself in case I said something stupid. Karenna and Danielle would spend forever reminding me of it."

"What kind of friends are they to you?"

I sighed. "They were my best friends. Karenna is the one that ratted me out and got me sent here. She's been here to see me but I was really mad and let her know it. Danielle got me started in everything and she hasn't even thought of coming to see me. I don't know why. We were almost like a set of triplets, only one had a Southern accent, one was really quiet and the chaotic one. We met when we were in elementary school and were inseperable after that."

"Have you thought about the fact that Karenna ratted you out because she cares about you so much? She didn't want to see you die? I can't tell you why Danielle hasn't been here, but maybe you should try to call her."

"I'd rather not. I have thought about why Karenna went to the prinicipal. She had been worried about both Dani and me for a while." I sighed. "Anyway, I'm gonna go back to Bennett, because he ruined a lot for me. If I've gotta talk about my problems, we might as well go in order. But then,Carrie pops up all over my life with her problems." I sighed again and shifted in my chair. All this talking was getting interesting. I was getting to really think about some of the things I had done, even if Ihadn't thought about them before.

Bennett and I talked for an hour when I called him. I was really glad I called him, and even more glad that Danielle wasn't around to bug the hell out of me while I was talking. I found out that Bennett lived with his grandparents. His mom lived across town with his two little sisters,Berlin and Briana. He didn't say why he didn't live with them, but I figured he would tell me some other time. Bennett's dad had been out of his life since he was a toddler. He loved cars. In fact, he had his driver's license revoked because he was caught speeding with Ian, his best  friend. Bennett had already gotten two speeding tickets, one for racing on the highway, so his license was revoked. Ian just got a ticket, because he hadn't gotten any other tickets.

I was surprised to hear that about his license, but I didn't think anything bad about it. I just thought he liked to have a lot of fun, and that was his way of doing it.

"He didn't send off signals with that?" Dr. Morrison asked.

"Nope. I wasn't thinking about all that. I really liked this kid." I shook my head.

I told Bennett about Carrie, well, some of the story. I just told him that my sister was a huge party  girl and had kids she didn't take care of. I told him that I loved to roller skate, and that I loved to write. That was all I could think of at the time. After an hour, we hung up, and I was really excited about talking to him.

Things moved kind of fast with Bennett after that. I was amazed because he really acted like he cared. He would call me at home everyday, almost as soon as he knew I would be home from school. He even came to Dani's house one night to try to get to know Dani and Karenna. He knew how important they were to me. Dani liked him a lot, but Karenna, being her usual cautious self, didn't. She couldn't explain it, but she just couldn't stand him. I thought she was being too picky and left it at that. I went to his mom's house with him to meet his mom, Berlin and Brianna. His mom, Stella, seemed really nice, and so did his sisters. I let him meet my mom, and Carrie's kids, because they were always there, but for some reason, he barely met Carrie in the whole year we were together.

"Were you afraid to let Bennett meet Carrie?" Dr. Morrison asked.

"If you mean that Bennett would like Carrie better, no. She wasn't into guys that didn't do drugs or other stupid s**t."

School was even getting better. I had made some more friends,and of course, Josh was in the back of my mind, but he and I just remained friends. We didn't see a lot of each other for a while, and that was okay with me. I couldn't deal with him and not be with him. It was just too hard.

"So if everything was getting better, then, Marissa, what made you hurt yourself?"

That was the million-dollar question.

"It was a lot of things.. not just one," I said. I would have loved to show Dr. Morrison my journals, but I didn't have them. Those notebooks had in them what I could never say to the people that hurt me. "Carrie started just leaving the kids with Mom and I had to take care of them all the time. And then she just left. Bennett couldn't understand why I had to take care of Carrie's kids,and he got pissed and started hitting me. Karenna was pulling back from everyone and not telling everyone what was going on. It was just too much stress, and one night, I was at Dani's and she was cutting herself.. after I basically kicked her a*s for hurting herself, she explained why and it made sense. Sometimes you have to hurt to make yourself better, you know?"

Dr. Morrison paused before she spoke. "There's more to your pain than I thought there was, Marissa. You have a lot to work through."

No s**t?

" I know. I keep telling you that. So let me keep going. I'm actually starting to like talking about all this, because it helps me think back and it's a lot clearer now. I feel like at some point I can put all this behind me." I sipped my Cherry Coke and sat back in my chair.

 

I took a deep breath.

"Do you want me to start where Bennett started hitting me or where Carrie walked out? Cause it happened about the same time."

"Let's start with Bennett, because that happened first. It's not much fun to go into, but I guess I gotta start somewhere." I sighed.

" Okay,so we're at my house one day, and we're in my room alone. My mom didn't like Bennett so I only had him come over when I knew she would be at work. She thought he was too nice and too into me. Now I know she knew what I didn't. He was just mean."

I looked at the clock. My hour was almost up. "Do I have to stop here, or can I keep going?" I looked at Dr. Morrison. I didn't really want to stop because I was afraid I wouldn't get myself able to talk about this again.

"No, you can keep going. I think it's important for me to get to the beginning of why you were cutting yourself."

"If you wanted toknow that, then we would have to start from when I was a little kid. My dad  and all. That sucked, but Bennett was worse. Okay, so we were at my house, and my mom was gone. We were laying on my bed, talking and listening to some music. I was only 14, you know, and I wasn't really thinking about sex at this point, but Bennett apparently was."

"You remained a virgin?"

"Until Tyler and I had been together a year. But that's much later." Dr. Morrison nodded.

" So we were kissing and all that fun stuff, and he decided that he wanted to take things a little farther. I just wasnt ready yet, I liked Bennett and all, but I wasnt ready yet. And he started trying to get me to take off my shirt, which I took off. By then, I had done that a few times, so that wasn't a problem."

"So where did you get into trouble?"

"When I told him no. I didn't want to get all the way naked because I knew what was going to happen next. I hadn't even known Bennett a month. So I told him no." I sighed. I knew what I would have to say next.

"And he hit me. Not just a slap, but a full out hit."  My eyes began to water. This was why I wouldn't talk about this. I hated to cry.

"Marissa, do you want to keep going?"

"Not really. I got that out. I mean, it hurt like hell. He almost broke my cheekbone doing that, and it was only the first time. He told me I was a complete b***h and he wasted his time even coming over, and he left." I looked out the window and drank some Cherry Coke.

At that moment, I actually felt peace. I felt like a weight was lifted. I hadn't told anyone about Bennett hitting me before, not even Dani and Karenna. I had kept it all inside, because I didn't want them to worry about me. I didn't want to get Bennett into trouble. I explained this to Dr. Morrison.

"That's good that you feel peace, Marissa. You should have more moments like that. Did he hit you anymore?"

"Oh, yeah. Lots of times. He actually did break my cheekbone once, almost broke my nose, and pushed me down the stairs and I almost broke my ankle. After that, Dani must have figured it out, but didn't say anything. I think I want to stop here. This is too much s**t for me to talk about." I grabbed my can and walked out of Dr. Morrison's office.

As I walked back to my room, I almost walked into Fallon. I was so deep in my own thoughts, I just didn't pay attention.
"Look where you're going, b***h! I'm gonna kick your a*s next time." Fallon glared at me. I stopped walking and faced her. "It's not even worth it. You're in here stuck just like me, so you ain't no better. Leave me the f**k alone."

Fallon stepped closer, and my adrenaline rose. My blood started pumping in my ears. "B***h, I'll fight you here. I don't give a f**k." Fallon came closer.

"You need to get the hell outta my face. I'm trying to get the hell out of here the second I turn 18. Your a*s is gonna be here for a while because you dont know how to f*****g act."

"B***h, I dont start s**t!" Fallon yelled. I quickly glanced around. It was just me and Fallon in a hallway. Screw this, I thought. This little b***h is not going to take me down. She was a huge liar. I usually stayed in my room if I wasn't needed somewhere, like school, the cafeteria, the group room or Dr. Morrison's office. I'd heard Fallon yelling at everyone over everything. I'd seen her in the cafeteria pushing people in line. She'd hit her roommate and had a single room.

I heard people coming down the hallway, but it was too late. We were going to fight. One of the people coming was Maria, a nurse. She ran to us.

"Girls, stop this! It's not worth it and it's not going to get you out any sooner."

We glared at her, and kept yelling.

"Whatever. Bring it, cause I'm not even scared," I yelled. "I need to get some s**t out anyway."

Fallon swung at me. "How's getting this out?"

Maria cried, "Fallon, no, stop now!"

I hit her right in her jaw. I didn't feel it break, but at that point, I didn't care if she would be drinking out of a straw for a year. I wasn't going to let Fallon kick my a*s. Fallon wasn't even 5 feet tall and she was a big girl. I was 5'6" and thin. I wasn't letting her win.

She jumped on my back. I swung at her the best I could.

I heard Maria screaming, "I need backup! Now! I'm in the blue hall and have 2 girls fighting!" She threw her walkie-talkie to the floor and tried to separate us. It didn't work. Fallon and I fell to the floor, pulling hair, hitting and screaming. I don't know how long the fight lasted, but I felt myself being picked up and started kicking.
"What the f**k! Get off me! I'm not even close to being done with her yet!," I screamed.

"I think you are," a male voice said. I looked at Fallon, and her lip was busted. Her hair had fallen out of its ponytail. Her left eye even looked a little bruised. I didn't feel bad at all. I just wanted to be left alone so I could go back to my room and write and I get into this s**t? I was so angry.

I was put back on the floor and Maria was right by my side.

"You go to your room now. I think you need to think about what has happened and what you can do to move foward."

"Maria, all I wanted to do was go back to my room and that little b***h just got in my face. I gotta fight when people get like that with me. I don't take that s**t. Do whatever, but at least you know what's up."

I walked off to my room, slammed the door and grabbed my notebook.

Author's Note

What do you think? What can I change about this chapter.