Paradise

XII

Sadness is knowing you are the first person to ever care about her.

Parker walked into the last doorway on the end of the hall. Looking down to see a sleeping Paradisr on a lumpy and stained matress. It was obvious she had just got home. He sat on her floor, watching her chest move up and down, drinking in the sweet smell of her perfume that she desperately sprayed, trying to keep the room habitable. He sat there for hours, just watching her sleep. His eyes watered and he quietly sobbed, imagining the years of pain his Paradise endured. He needed a cigarette, but he refused to leave her. He needed her safe, he needed her happy, he needed her.

More then he needed air.

He needed her to be his.

When sunlight broke through the broken blinds that hung from her single dirty window, he cleared his throat, standing. He opened her drawers, picking out an outfit for her and laying it on the edge of her bed. He went down the hallway and turned the tap, sticking his hand into the water to test the warmth. Luckily enough, the house had warm water.

Parker walked back into Paradise's room, kneeling by her side and watching as her icy blue eyes that reminded him of frozen lakes and clear skies opened. "Parker?" she questioned, and he shook his head, lifting her in his arms.and carrying her down the hallway.

He set her on her feet, lifting her arms above her head and removing her shirt, placing a soft kiss to her forhead. He then kneeled before her, pulling down her underwear and kissing her protruding hipbones. Paradise didn't object. For the first time in years, she felt taken care of. She felt safe. He lifted her again, gently lowering her into the warm water.

"I still don't understand. What are you doing here?" Paradise asked, leaning her head on his arm as he ran a warm wet cloth over her back. "I'm taking care of you. Someone has to." he replied, kissing the crown of her head. "Your not my dad" she whispered, barely audible, but Parker didn't know that.

"That's kinda the whole point" he murmured. She drew her knees up to her chest, and he dripped warm water down her back. "I deserve it though." she murmured into her knees. But Parker couldn't hear her. He wouldn't ever know to what extent her psyche was damaged.

We wouldn't ever know the truth behind the girl whom was nothing more then an ellaborate ruse of large shirts and baggy pants and long sleeves rubbing against new cuts and playing with sickly looking greenish mashed potatoes and lying on the cold, dirty, cracked linoleum floor in a puddle of her own tears. And angry red slashes on wrists, and the sadness that was held in each of the purple bruises that littered her perfectly imperfect face and icey blue eyes that reminded a certain boy of frozen lakes and clear skies, and dark circles under those eyes that were cold, but not hateful, with words that were a symphony of melody and beautiful harmony.

The girl who's father was an angry drunken junkie liar, and though he was a terrible father and a horrible human being, Paradise was a daddy's girl.

She was just a depressed, stressed, hot mess, who enjoyed the burn of alcohol in her throat and the feeling of numbness that came with it, but hated hangovers.

But even more so, she hated herself.