Have you ever wanted to get up and run away? Leave behind everything and just go? Forget about who you were and start a new beginning being who you want to be? I typed quickly and surely, but I erased it in the end. I started a new line going “Whataya want from me?” but then I realized no one really wants anything from me. No one ever did. No one probably ever would. Writing short stories seemed to pointless to me, I was to self conscious to let others read what I wrote, and I knew that I would have trouble sending what I wrote into an editor so I gave up. I got up and walked away from my Mac Book sighing. Everything I tried to do didn’t work out; I tried sports and horribly failed. I tried cheerleading and being preppy and like the first time I tried I failed horribly. Finally I decided to try writing, I was good at it, I knew I was, but I would never let anyone else read what I wrote, not even a family member or friend so like I did with cheerleading and sports, I gave up and walked away from it. I didn’t want to, but I did. I told my mom that I deleted everything I wrote, even though I didn’t, because that was too big of a risk, because maybe for some odd reason I might go back with a burst of self confidence and send in my work and become tremendously famous, though that’s just a fantasy thought up by none other than me.
My names Elizabeth Finn, my friends call me Liz. You could probably classify me as the middle class at my school, or even lower class. I wasn’t popular, and I wasn’t gorgeous like everyone else. I was pretty much monotone after I lost my parents in a freak accident and was adopted by my new lovely step parents. Rich step parents. They spoiled me rotten, and they knew it. Then there was my best friend, she was so bubbly and happy. She made me seem happy and bubbly like her, but only she knew how monotone I really was after my parents died. I had a sister once, but god knows where she is now. She was old enough to live by herself when our parents died, I haven’t seen her since she left the hospital after they pronounced my mom dead on arrival, and said my dad had a matter of hours left. She told the nurses she didn’t want to be around when they announced his death, so that left me to sit in the hospital room looking at the bloody mess I had once called a father. For all I know my sister is a prostitute living on the street, my best friend said it was bad to think of my older sister that way but when you look back on it, she never was much of a sister leaving her, at the time 11 year old, sister to fend for herself. I considered Hayley, my best friend, more of a sister then I considered my real one. Enough about me babbling on about my oh-so-tragic life, it gets really annoying after a while if I don’t say so myself. So let’s start where my life went completely tragic once again, hey?
My sophomore year I met a guy who turned my monotone self into a bubbly happy girl, things went well until we started nearing June and the beginning of summer. I could tell by the way he was acting things were going to end soon, and I could tell I wasn’t going to handle it well. The days began to become long and stressful, and we fought more often. He stopped answering my texts, and my calls. We didn’t talk for close to two weeks, when he finally called me and asked to meet me at the park. I had agreed because I really did want to talk to him again. When I got to the park I saw a sight I never thought I’d ever see. Jacob was sitting on the park bench with his face in his hands, and soft sobs were escaping him, I walked up behind him and touched his back lightly. He jumped and became rigid; bracing himself towards me like he was about to punch me. I backed up quickly, and stared at him with horrified eyes. He quickly recovered and began apologizing, promising me he wasn’t going to hit me, I could come closer to him again, and everything along those lines.
Basically acting like a man who had just hit a woman, using the same excuses saying everything would be fine, etc, etc. Me, being the stupid sophomore I was at the time, walked up to him. I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tightly; he was still rigid but returned the hug. I whispered quietly into his ear that I loved him, and he didn’t return it, but sighed loudly. I knew then something was wrong, and I wasn’t going to like what he had to say. To my surprise, he said nothing to me at all that night, he didn’t break up with me, didn’t break my heart, he didn’t even mention anything along those lines. He just apologized for us not talking, he told me his parents took his phone and didn’t let him out of the house because he had done something terribly wrong, but he never did tell me.
Things between Jacob and I continued, we were still dating, and at one point things got really good again. Middle of August, things went downhill; we didn’t talk for two weeks once again. One Friday night, at midnight exactly, Jacob called me. Asking me to meet him at our tree in the park, and I had to agreed to be there in fifteen minutes. I showed up this time to see something completely horrific. Jacob was standing by our tree in bloody clothes, and a black eye. When I had asked what happened, he said nothing to me, but only came up to me and looked into my eyes intently. At that time, I’m not gonna lie I felt violated by him. How? I really don’t know, just the way he looked at me. I mumbled something about not having long to talk, and he shook his head. He said, and I quote, “You just don’t understand, do you Liz? You never have, and never will.” I fell into a world of hurt at those words, even if I didn’t understand what he meant by it, I knew he meant it offensively. I whispered quietly, asking him what I didn’t get, but all he did was sigh loudly like I was an idiot. He grabbed my arms tight, a little too tight for my likings, and looked me over, head to toe, and again he spoke to me offensively. “You’re a cute girl, Liz. Too bad you’re stupid and don’t understand what I’ve been giving you hints too. Look at me, I’m covered in blood and have a black eye. I guess you wouldn’t understand considering your real parents are dead, and your step parents don’t acknowledge you, just spoil you.” A tear rolled down my cheek, he was never so rude about my parents being dead and my step parents not caring about what I did. This was the first time I’ve ever known Jacob to be rude. I pulled back from him, and something clicked in my head. I asked him if the blood stained clothes, black eye, and the lack of talking we had, had something to do with his parents. He looked at me, impressed with my realization. We never had this problem before because we always had school to see each other, and he wouldn’t go home till late. Now it was summer, and he had all day to be home with them. His parents wouldn’t let him call me because he did “something wrong” and he had to sneak out at late hours to see me. He hadn’t really done anything wrong; his parents were always drunk so they thought he did. Things finally hit me, and I had nothing to say to him other than sorry, or offer him a hug. I felt useless, like I couldn’t do anything to help. I felt like I was the reason, because his parents just didn’t like me. I really didn’t know what to do with myself.
I stumbled closer to Jacob, and outstretched my arms to him. He flinched slightly but came to me, pulling me into his arms. As we stood there hugging, I heard a soft sob escape his lips again. I mumbled something about having to go, and pulled away from him, awkwardly walking away slowly. I heard him let out a sigh, and speak softly to me. “Liz, I’m sorry for what I said, can we meet here again tomorrow?” I turned to face him, and nodded my head.
Trying my best to smile, but failing miserably, I turned away again and walked off into the darkness. I couldn’t shake the thoughts of his parents getting so bad he wound up dead. The next night I showed up to our tree, waiting. He came at 3 A.M. while I was fast asleep on the grass near the tree, he woke me up and my eyes widened at the sight of him. He was a lot worse than he was last night, this time both eyes were black and swollen, his lip was bleeding, and his shirt had stains of blood and other various debris. He looked down at the ground, ashamed of what he looked like; I touched his cheek lightly, and looked at him as a tear rolled down his cheek. Wiping it away, I pulled his face to mine kissin
g his cheek lightly; he flinched at the pain of the lightest kiss, I sighed at the knowledge of how beat up he was getting. I looked at my phone, and saw the time. I frowned and stood up, “I have to go, I’m sorry. I love you. I’ll meet you here again tomorrow night; try a little earlier, please?” I kissed his head quickly, and ran off into the darkness. Hearing sobs as I walked away, I felt worthless and stupid, because for all I know tomorrow night he might not be even here.
The next few nights we kept meeting up at late hours, it wasn’t long before it was September and school started up again. Things went well the first few weeks of our junior year, his bruises and cuts healed up and no one but me even knew the horror he dealt with in the summer. I began wondering if that’s what every summer was for him, but I didn’t want to ask for risk of making him angry or upset. By the time October came, I began writing, and Jacob was supportive of it. He gave me the idea for my short story I wanted to write called, “Runaway.” The first few lines were
Tragedy of Life & Death Page 1