The Guardian

Chapter Twelve

Ali's POV

I stormed out of Niall's house, and the hot tears began to pour down my cheeks. I was upset, angry, and embarrassed with myself, and I didn't know what to do.

I fumbled in my pocket for my keys as I walked up my front steps, and thankfully after everything that happened last night they were still there.

I opened up my front door, surprised to see a stranger walking across my living room, and she was just as startled to see me. She resembled the stepmom from A Cinderella Story - the fake blonde hair, the caked on cheap makeup, and the very noticeable botox - everything about this woman screamed 'fake.' 

"James," she whined. "Who is this girl and why is she crying?"

My dad stumbled out of the kitchen, shirtless and in his boxers. It took everything in me not to vomit right there between the horrid sight in front of me and the amount of alcohol I had consumed last night.

"Oh, uh, this is my daughter," he said in his dry, monotone voice.

"I didn't know you had children," she replied.

"Yeah," he said, almost annoyed. "Alison, go upstairs and stop your crying, we were enjoying the privacy."

I rolled my eyes. "That's where I was headed anyway, have fun with your whore," I spat at him before bolting up the stairs and belly flopping onto my bed, miserable, conflicted, and confused.

I crawled on my mattress and reached for my one of my desk drawers, digging to the bottom and pulling out an old notebook of mine. I flipped through the pages and memories, both good and bad, flooded my mind. 

I hadn't written in ages. 

Ever since I was younger, poetry had always been an interest of mine, and I started writing when I was about eleven. Topics ranged from colors to seasons and everything in between, but looking back at my beginner’s work, it was quite embarrassing. Let’s just say as I grew older, my poems turned from cheesy rhymes to deep hidden meanings.

The last few poems I had written were dark and depressing. Sometimes I would write about my pain instead of self harming - it was a sort of therapy that Niall had come up with when he was helping me through my rough patch. But once I was clean for a month, I stopped writing. Because it no longer had the happy feeling it did when I was a kid, it just meant pain.

As I skimmed through the pages, a few poems in particular caught my eye. The first one was titled 'Scars.'

Your hand across my face

Leaves a sting for just a moment

 

The swinging of your fists

May leave a bruise that lasts for days