She {one-shot} [Emo love story]

A solitary girl sobs into the pillow in her arms as she lay across her bed. The room she was in was a small, simple room. She had painted the walls black and the only furniture it held was her dresser and bed, not even a window to look out. "It's not fair!" she screams, knowing that although both her father and mother were home, they either couldn't hear her or didn't care. Her father was an abusive alcoholic and her mother was too afraid of him to get either of them help, it was as though she just didn't care. She was very glad that she took after her mother, she was a scraggily girl at 5' 6" tall and 130lbs with dark black hair and piercing icy blue eyes. Her father and her were complete opposites; he was 6' 2", 240lbs with the demeanour of a mad-man. Andrew, her father has started being abusive to her and her mother when she was six years old, she was only a child. She suspected in the nine years since he first hit her that he hated her and her frail mother Megan because after she was born; her mother was unable to have another child. She knew her father had wanted a son.

She had taken enough of this, not only did her father beat her and her mother but at school she was bullied too. "Trigger" they called her, it didn't matter to them that her actual name was Anastasia Trigila. She suspected her name was Italian, although she had never bothered to ask her father what her family descent was. She could only remember living in Canada and she had lived in the same house on Vancouver Island, British Columbia all her life.

The kids at school never liked her; she got the nickname, Trigger because everyone at school thought she was suicidal, judging by the way she dressed. They had called her trigger since the sixth grade when her father had given her two black eyes and broken her nose. She liked the way she looked so wore all black with excessive black eyeliner and nail polish ever since. She had never known any friends and was a loner who always stayed by herself except, when being bullied.

It was in her third week of grade nine when she had come home crying because the kids at school had taken her sketchbook full of drawings and photocopied them to distribute through the hallways. Her artwork was always depressing pictures of black roses and things that were very morbid. She never realised what would happen if others saw them now regretted ever owning a pencil.

As she lay screaming and crying into her pillow, which had absorbed far too many tears in its lifetime, she decided she had taken enough of this. Tomorrow, she planned; she would take anything they threw at her, whether metaphorically or literally. She washed her face, got undressed and went to bed.

The next morning she awoke early, got ready and walked to school. As she walked into the main building she remembered there was a school dance that night. She then went to the office and bought a ticket, she thought this might be her chance to have fun for the first time in her life.

She gathered her things from her locker and headed for English class, all the while ignoring the people shouting ugly remarks like "Emo!", "Trigger!", "Goth!" and "Freak!".

She entered English as the final bell rang and sat in the far, back corner of the classroom. They were seated in single rows and there was no one around her. The teacher addressed the class but she wasn't listening, she was busy with the next day’s homework when the classroom door opened. She looked to have her breath taken away, there stood a boy about her age with dark brown, almost black hair that nearly, completely covered his deep brown eyes, two lip rings, one on each side of his lower lip and adorned with a black hoodie accompanied by dark-wash jeans. "Ah!" the teacher exclaimed "Welcome, this is our new student who just moved from Alberta, Damien." he continued with an apprehensive tone "My name is Mr.Batali." The forty-something, balding, overweight man said with contempt after looking over Damien. "Hi." the new boy stated simply. Damien then took the seat at the corner of the room closest to the door. Mr.Batali began addressing the class again "Now, last week’s poetry assignment will be handed back, most of you passed." Ana suspected that no one but herself liked poetry until she saw Damien perk up at the word and suddenly take interest in what the teacher was saying. Ana found herself staring at Damien as she realised how attractive she found him. She had always related boys with her father and avoided them at all costs for fear that they would hurt her. But he was different, he seemed not to care what people thought of him by his appearance and demeanour. She could swear that he was even wearing eyeliner which made her smile for some reason. Just then he turned to meet her gaze as she felt herself flush red. She then realised that Mr.Batali was talking to her. She looked up to see him handing her poem back with the whole class's eyes fixed on her. "Well. Ana?" Mr.Batali asked expectantly. "Well what?" she replied back. "I was just saying how impressed I was with your poem and was wondering if you'd mind reading it out to the class?" She tried but failed to remember what she had written about and knew she had to answer so she replied "Ok." in a quiet mumble. She stood and began to read, her heart dropping with every word she said "Who am I?" she began "Am I who I think I am or am I no one like they say I am. I may be everyone and no one at the same time, not able to feel my own emotions but able to feel the pain of others wherever I go." Her voice now quavered at a barely audible whisper. She silently wished she had never written this poem as she continued. "Why am I so un-happy, so lonely, so depressed? I am surrounded by family who say they love me and say they care. But do they?" She was glad she had masked the entire truth by saying her parents loved her. "If I were to disappear and not come back tomorrow, would they notice? And if so would they care? It doesn’t matter though... All that matters is that I don't know who I am anymore." She finished and sat down. Mr.Batali was now back to the front of the classroom and all eyes had averted back to him except Damien’s who lingered on her almost as if trying to see inside her soul before they looked back at Mr.Batali. "I do not like this poem because of the grammar, spelling or rhyme scheme; I like it because of the emotion. A poem is just words without emotion." Ana paid no attention to the rest of her classes which went by uneventfully. She was busy planning what to wear to the winter semi-formal dance that evening. She would wear her simple black dress which was basically a tube with straps but flattered her figure well. She decided she would do nothing special with makeup and leave her hair down in loose curls.

Ana ran home and for once didn't cry, she ignored both her mother who was doing chores as usual and her father who was watching T.V. Ana ran straight upstairs and got ready, taking her time which consisted of the entire three hours between 3:30 and 6:30 before the dance. She descended the stairs and ignored her father hurling a rude name at her. She slipped on a pair of green Converse shoes and began walking to school where the dance was taking place. She arrived on time and entered the building without event. The gym of her school was crowded with kids and decorated with blue streamers and paper snowflakes. There was a DJ nestled in the corner of the room. Ana watched some of the other girls dance for a while and eventually got into the beat of things. She danced randomly, alone in the center of the dance floor for the remainder of the dance. She did not know that the other people at the dance were reacting badly and laughing at her.

As she was leaving the gym a blonde girl in a pink, strapless mini dress approached her with a piece of paper in her manicured hand. "My friend is having a party tonight, you should come." and with that she handed Ana a paper with an unfamiliar address near her street on it. Visions of her in the popular crowd danced wildly in her head as she walked to the party, she decided she would stay for a while then go home; just enough to establish that she had been there. Ana had no curfew because her parents simply didn't care, although she did not like to stay out too late.

Without even looking at the address in her hand, Ana could tell what house the party was at. There were drunken teenagers all over the front lawn. "Disgusting." she thought to herself as she turned to leave when she was grabbed by a group of teenagers who were obviously drunk. The ring leader of the attack was the blonde in the mini dress. They lifted Ana up, at least one at each limb. The girl with the mini dress had her hand over Ana’s mouth, which she quickly replaced with duct tape. They carried her to a near-by dead-end alleyway where they set her down and circled around her like a pack of lions dying for sustenance. It was the blonde who spoke first. "Poor Trigger, she actually came to the party thinking she was one of us." she muttered and slurred her words with disgust and contempt thick on her tongue. Ana couldn't tell clearly which of the following comments came from whom but she did remember them laughing at her as they said things like "Freak!", "No one likes you!", "You don't belong!" and "I heard you are your Daddy’s play thing." They called her down until the blonde piped up again and said "Why don't you just kill yourself trigger?" And with a sickeningly twisted smile she nodded at the others who pounced like vicious animals, ready to kill. With gruesome memories of her father flashing through her head, she was unable to escape the emotional pain that now accompanied the physical. They beat her until they got bored with it and left but by then she was nothing more than a pulp, badly bruised and bleeding everywhere. Barely able to walk still, she staggered home, a shell of who she once was and managed to collapse on her bed before becoming un-conscious from pain.

She awoke the next morning in extreme pain, resolving not to go to school. Ana nursed her cuts and bruises, cleaned herself and sat weak, bruised and defeated in her room until 8:00am, when tears streaming down her face, she began to write. Many times she restarted and began again until it was perfect. The last thing she did before she went to bed was retrieved her fathers handgun from his dresser drawer. He was out getting waisted she presumed as she slipped it and the note into her black backpack.

The next morning she awoke, showered, dresses, ate and left for school. When she arrived she ignored the things being yelled at her, just like the teachers did, they were oblivious to it. She walked directly to the girl's washroom and waited in the end stall for the bell that signifies the start of first class to ring. She carefully exited the stall, backpack in hand and walked across the deserted pathways to the empty office building. Ana then stepped un-noticed in to the PA room. She stared out the glass door's window through which she could see the class's buildings in the distance followed by the courtyard of the school and locked the door. She carefully placed a chair against the door knob so no one could enter through the door.

She turned on the PA and very slowly began to read what she had written the day before "My name is Anastasia Trigila but you all call me Trigger. All my life I have wanted nothing more than to feel safe and loved. You either bully me or look the other way pretending you don't notice but let me tell you some things you don't know. My father is an abusive alcoholic; he beats me and my mother. When you hit me or call me names I guarantee that you are not the only ones to try and destroy me. I have put up with what you have done to me but now I'm over the edge. The night before last I was beaten until I had no blood left to give, no rib un-cracked and no inch of skin un-bruised. You destroyed me because I'm different and you told me to die. I am here to tell you that I am taking your advice, at 9:30 I am going to kill myself and through the glass of the PA booth you may watch. I would first, though like to read you a poem I wrote... With those drugs you light your way to a broken world, to an open grave. The drugs I speak of simply are not, not E, not speed, not crack, not pot. They are the drugs of pain, the drugs of hate...the drugs with which you sealed my fate." Ana simply stopped reading, looked up at the clock, took her hand off the PA button and sighed. It would be at least two minutes for people to realise what had just happened and get to the PA room. It would be four minutes before she would kill herself.

As she looked out the glass window once more she saw Damien running towards the door. She could hear him yelling in a pleading voice "Please just come with me and if you don't like what I have to say I won't stop you!" He was pulling at the door knob as Ana decided it couldn't hurt. She let out a defeated sigh, grabbed the gun, moved the chair, unlocked the door and ran with him as he took her hand and led her to the janitors shed. Damien quickly locked the doors behind them, knowing no one had saw then enter, it was a very big school and people would just now be arriving to the PA booth to see it empty.

Damien turned to her to see sorrow in her eyes and a look of clear defeat all over her."Please don't do it Ana." he said with extreme empathy in his voice and concern on his face. "Why. I have nothing to live for and honestly what's the point?" she yelled. "You have to trust me, you don't want to do this." "Why the hell not? You couldn't possibly understand what I'm going through, there's nothing left for me in life!" she screamed at him and with that she put the gun to her head. Ana turned to see Damien with his head down and a look of defeat on his face as he managed to squeak out "Please, wait." He then began to gently roll up the right sleeve of his hoodie and as he turned his wrist upward, he revealed a freshly healing scar, a deep slash mark across his wrist.

"I understand more then you could ever know." Damien looked up to see Ana with tears in her eyes as she dropped the gun that rested against her temple in shock. "You?" was all she could manage before Damien said, "I was as depressed as you are, being bullied because my dad ran away when I was born, claiming I wasn't his son. I was bullied and teased until I finally snapped. My mom found me face down on my bedroom floor in a pool of my own blood." Damien sat down on the floor and Ana followed suit "It was in my last moments of consciousness that I realised suicide wasn't the answer. That's why I moved, to start a new. If you'll just let me, I'll show you that life is worth living." He reached his hand out to Ana along with his heart and she took it. Both Ana and Damien stood up and he took off his hoodie and handed it to her. "Put this on and we'll walk to the counsellors building together" Ana and Damien stepped out of the closet, hand in hand and went to go get help so they could finally start their life.

Four months later Ana and Damien were now a happy couple walking into a school on the Mainland. "Ah, you must be the guest speakers." said a sharply dressed woman in her early thirties, obviously the principal. They both nodded as the woman led them to the gym where the students were gathered. "When did you first know that you liked me?" Ana asked Damien as they walked. Damien smiled and said "Your poem." They both stopped and waited by the door as the principal introduced them. "Today we have two very special guests who are students just like you. They were both bullied and eventually one of them had their bullied arrested for assault and kidnapping. Please welcome Damien and Ana!" The crowd burst with applause as they took the podium and began to speak.