Prologue

“Oh, fuck off.” Isabella Sanchez mumbled to her alarm clock as the steady high-pitched beep invaded the sanity of her dreams. She had already reached for the snooze button approximately three times, and knew that a fourth venture would result in a tardy mark for her eight o’ clock English class. Isabella was not the type of girl to care about a tardy. In fact, Isabella was not the type of girl to care about much at all. Yet another visit to the principle’s office seemed too much to bear for an already crappy week.
Giving her alarm one more resentful glare, she murmured. “You win this time, you bastard.”
It did not take Isabella long to get ready for school. She didn’t take particular care in her looks because she didn’t believe that she was very beautiful. Furthermore, she didn’t care what other people thought about her looks. After putting her hair in a ponytail and slipping on a new shirt, she stumbled through her dirty house and struggled to get to her refrigerator to try to find something to eat. Her older brother sat at the grimy kitchen table, eating a piece of toast. Isabella could barely see his face, the table was piled so high with junk.
“Good luck finding anything.” George said sarcastically. “I had to cut mould off this bread.”
Isabella groaned. “Why hasn’t Mom got any new groceries yet? It’s been two weeks.”
“Give her a break.” George said. “She’s doing the best she can with her third job now. If you’re gonna blame anyone blame Dad.”
“Yeah, I know George, don’t get all defensive. I’m just hungry and bitchy.”
George held up his toast. “Want some?”
“No, whatever. I get food at school anyway because my History teacher found out.”
“Found out about both of us, Bella, I get food at school now too. Even Rosie is getting food, her teacher told me about it at conferences last week. Fucking lucky they don’t give us to child services.”
“Maybe they should, then maybe Mom’ll leave Dad.”
George just shook his head. “I only got one year left, Bella, then I can work full time and you, me and Rosie can get out of here, okay? It would kill Mom for us to be taken away and maybe if we leave ourselves we can convince her to come too and Dad can deal with this shit.”
Isabella sighed, not wanting to think about her situation or her future. “Whatever, I have to go or I’m gonna be late.”

* * * * *

Lana Wei woke at exactly six twenty-nine in the morning before her alarm rang and stared at her alarm clock until it began to ring. At exactly the first ring she turned off the alarm and got out of bed to begin her day. She straightened her thick, dark brown hair, carefully dressed herself, and applied make-up in her bathroom mirror until she was satisfied. She then brushed her teeth for a full two minutes before applying lotion to her hands and legs.
Walking out to her kitchen she saw a familiar, spotlessly clean, and unoccupied kitchen. Lana walked up to the fridge and took out a meal that had been prepared by her family cook containing an array of fruits. A note had been left by her mother warning, as usual, not to eat any more than the serving the cook left or else she might lose her figure.
Lana Wei was five feet four inches tall and weighed one hundred and five pounds. She had always been on the thin side since as long as she could remember, yet her mother never failed to criticize any part of her body she could possibly think to criticize. Her mother was a working woman, and her career as a designer was extremely important to her. Her father was also a working man, and a traveling businessman. Sometimes gone for weeks to months at a time, Lana had never really developed much of a relationship with him. Lana saw her mother most nights, and those nights Lana was criticized; for her body, for her school performance, for her looks, for everything.
What was most troubling was that this was not the only side to her mother. Besides being hypercritical, Lana often found herself taking care of her own mother when she fell into intense episodes of depression. On a few occasions Lana had called the paramedics when she watched her mother swallow a handful of white pills, or on another occasion when she had slit her wrists. Each time her mother had made up excuses to avoid visits from psychologists.
Staring at the fruit dish in front of her, Lana felt very alone. It was a feeling that often came to her. She was a beautiful girl, and very well loved at school. Lana was everything every girl wanted to be, but Lana did not want to be herself. She wished every day that she could be someone else.
Shaking her head, she put the dish back in the fridge, and went to collect her things to go to her English class.

* * * * *

Tia Bennett woke up crying. Breathing heavily, she turned off her alarm and continued to cry for a moment. Her mind was full; she had hoped so hard that she would just never wake up. Waking up was too painful because seeing a new day only meant that it would happen again come dark. She hated the dark. She hated going to bed.
Tia dreaded the dark, because a few nights a month at the strike of midnight, when her mother and father had been in bed for a few hours, she could never fail to hear her door creak open. In only a few seconds after she heard this noise, she could feel a foreign body sit at the edge of her bed. A body of a man she did not want to see. Or to touch her.
For a moment she cried even harder, but then quickly calmed herself down and wiped her tears away. She went to her mirror and opened her makeup drawer. She had a few bruises she needed to cover up on her neck before she went to school, and her eyes were puffy from crying. She hated crying. It made her feel weak. Everything made her feel weak. She was just a child. She wanted to talk, she wanted to say something--but she was only a child.
She applied cover up to her pale skin, which needed a thick layer due to the bruises on her neck. Her light blue eyes scanned the work she’d done before brushing her long, white-blonde hair. Tia took a moment to look at herself, judging whether or not she looked normal enough to go outside and greet her family.
“Tia?” a small voice said from her door.
Tia started, but then quickly put on a smile. “Lucy, good morning honey. How are you?”
Lucy tipped her head and Tia couldn’t help but notice how much they looked alike. “Tia your room was noisy again last night, did you have another nightmare?”
Tia struggled to keep herself from crying in front of her little sister. “Yes, Lucy, I had a nightmare. Just remember don’t worry about me when I’m having nightmares.”
“But I could come and wake you up and hug you so it will be all better.”
Tia shook her head. “No, Lucy, you can’t come when I’m having a nightmare. I’ll be fine, I promise, I’m a big girl.”
Lucy frowned. “Well, okay, but do you need a hug now?”
Tia smiled, and this time she wasn’t faking it. “Yes, Lucy, I need a hug.”
After embracing, Lucy ran to go watch morning cartoons before she needed to get dressed to go to the second grade. Tia continued to patch herself up in the mirror until she thought she was presentable, and then quickly got dressed before getting ready for English.

* * * * *
Aden Levy slept past his alarm and woke to his mother screaming at him.
“Aden James Levy get your ass out of that bed right now!”
Aden sighed and said sleepily. “Mother dearest, your language is killing me, not to mention your volume...”
His mother smiled, standing above him from his bedside, pillow in hand. “You’re going to be hearing more of it if you don’t get your lazy behind out of that bed. Do you know how long I heard your alarm go off for? How do you sleep through that?” She said, hitting him with the pillow for emphasis.
“Talent.” He replied, winking and dodging the pillow’s second hit at his smart aleck response.
Claire shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I better see you out in the kitchen for breakfast in five minutes or there’ll be hell to pay.”
He smiled to himself as he squinted and watched her walk out of the room, but quickly frowned as he saw a large bruise on her forearm. He had heard his father stumble in late that night and wondered if bruises would be the result. He could smell the alcohol from two rooms away.
“Oh, fuck it.” He said to himself. The issue of his father’s abuse was one that Aden found more pressing than his mother did. His mother avoided the problem altogether. His father didn’t beat up on him, only his mother, and in his mother’s eyes, she could take it. As long as he wasn’t hurting her baby, she didn’t see why it was a problem.
He got out of bed and looked for something to wear. His room was a mess, and he ended up putting on some clothes he found on the floor. Catching a glance of himself in the mirror, he quickly tried make his shaggy, dark hair presentable. His bed head untamable, he shrugged and began to leave, but stopped once more to look at himself. Who was he that he just sat by and let his Mom be thrown around by his alcoholic father? Who was he that he didn’t do anything?
But what was he supposed to do? His mother didn’t want him to do anything, and Aden sure as hell wasn’t strong enough to throw back a good punch at his father. His father was a big man. He was growing, but he wasn’t very strong yet. Yet.
Shaking his head, Aden grabbed his backpack and wondered if he could sleep through his English class.

* * * * *

Jeremy Duncan calmly turned off his alarm, but was afraid to go to the bathroom. He could hear his parents arguing from his room, and he didn’t feel like dealing with the noise. He knew as plain as day that his parents were on the edge of divorce. They couldn’t stand each other anymore. After seventeen years of marriage their only volume was loud and their only tone condescending; at least when it came to talking to one another.
“Oh, shit, they at it again?” He heard his brother say from the bunk above him.
“Don’t curse, Kyle, you’re only twelve.”
“Fuck that, I can curse if I want to. I just don’t know why they have to put their problems on us. This is fucking stupid.”
“They’re just working their problems out.” Jeremy said mechanically.
“Bull shit.” Kyle said, with passion. “When they finally call it off things are gonna suck. I don’t want to have to visit one of them, you know Mom’s gonna get custody!”
Jeremy shook his head. “Just shut up Kyle, I don’t want to hear about it right now.”
“Yeah. You just watch.”
“I’m going to get ready now, so you better go back to bed unless you want to see me naked, because I’m changing clothes.”
Jeremy heard his brother turn around, and he got up to get ready. He could hear his Mom begin to cry, and he sighed. Somehow his English class was looking more appetizing than home.