Bad Girls Don't Cry

"I hate you!" I screamed, digging my nails into his skin.

"I hate your ass too," he responded, his hands making their way around my neck as he pinned me down on the bed. We spent the next ten minutes going back and forth like this, only it felt like an hour, or it felt like forever.

I gave it my all, I hit him with all my strength, but he overpowered me every time. It always happened like this until I ran out of strength and eventually gave up. I would stop fighting, he'd let me go, and I would just lay there and cry.

My mother always told me if a man hates you, he'll make you suffer; but what about a man who loves and hates you at the same time? A man who breaks you down, just so he can build you right back up.

I always wondered why: if he knew he had so much power over me, why would he put me through this instead of just taking away the pain? I often wonder how it got like this, in the beginning, it was all so innocent, then over time it began to rot and fester like a scab.

He would never hold me, never be sorry, never tells me he loves me, even though he knows he could end it all. Then he'd just come back, when he was ready, when HE felt like he wanted to make things right.

As I lay there in bed I closed my eyes and then let my mind drift to another time, before all of this even began. I was just a teenager trapped in a 20-something-old body, desperate to escape. I thought rainbows were waiting for me on the other side of the brick castle my parents built for me, but I soon discovered there was nothing but ravening wolves waiting to devour the girl in red.

3 months earlier...

I wasn't always so hateful. I started off innocent, in a pool made out of the insides of my mother, Helen. I faintly remember Ludwig Van Beethoven playing on a loop endlessly while I sploshed around and grew like a flower; until the vines of me tore through the first hole they could find.

The night I was born, June 20, 2001, while my mother was pushing me out through the water, another woman less than 1,700 miles away was downing her children in it. Her name was Andrea Yates. She drowned her five children to save them from Satan, and from her own evil maternal influences.

Now, I know I'll go under a lot of fire for saying this, but if my mother knew 20 years later, that she'd have a daughter that hated her guts, would she have drowned me that night too?

Instead, I grew slowly, in an upper-class mansion. I'm not really sure when the abuse started, but it took up my whole world once it did. I shut down at an early age. I think I was 10 when I discovered that I could create an imaginary world in my head that was for me and for me alone.

I made friends, best friends, enemies, and a new mother and father. I built up a world of magic and pretend to escape what my life really was, and everything was fine until one day:

"Charlotte, who are you talking to?" My mother asked as I conversed with my imaginary boyfriend.

"No one," I said, my head down.

She took me straight to a child psychiatrist the next day.

"It seems as though she has schizophrenia, ADHD, and she may also be bipolar as well, but right now she's too young to tell."

I didn't know what fancy word that was back then, all I knew was that I wanted a more normal life than I had, and I pretended that it was. I used to go to a coed private school until I started growing boobs and my mom found out I was getting rape threats from one of the older boys.

After that, I was forced to go to an all-girls catholic school. Little did my parents know, Joshua was no match for Sister Abigail. Every day during lunch, she'd take a girl up to her classroom for "behavioral lessons". The first time I went I was 13.

I was 15 years old the first time I attempted suicide. I came home from school one day and after listening to my mother lecture me for the third time that day I snuck up to her bathroom and took all of the pills I could find in her medicine cabinet.

I must've done it wrong because when I opened my eyes, instead of seeing the gates of heaven, all I saw was the long-awaited legalization of same-sex marriage. That's when my mom decided that she wasn't being tough enough on me. She started reading all my journals, and going through all my text messages, photos, and emails.

"I'm doing this for your own good, Charlotte." She would say. Whenever she found something about her or the abuse, she'd freak out and we'd have a whole family meeting about it while she cried and called me names the whole time.

By the time I was seventeen, the only thing I was really looking for was trouble. Though looking back, at the time I probably thought love and trouble carried the same meaning. That's when Juliet and I started to sneak out of the house. We would go to raves, parties, and clubs that let us in without a fake ID.

"All you really have to do is be pretty," I remember Juliet saying. "They'll let you in."

Anyways, that's when I met Angel. I didn't know how old he was, I just remembered that I was tired of wondering what it felt like to not be alone. When he leaned in to kiss me I let him, I had messaged Juliet about it and when my mom read it, I couldn't go to school for a week because of how bad the bruises were.

After that, I had no choice but to fall in line, my mother made it clear that she wasn't playing around. She didn't stop putting her hands on me until I was 19. Maybe it was only because I stopped giving her reasons to.

I learned to do what I was told and follow the plan; I saved my shenanigans for once a year, and I was Charlotte Samantha Carlisle the other 364 days.

There were some moments when I felt okay, and then there were other moments when I realized I was completely, and utterly alone. Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. If it weren't for my imagination I don't know where I would be. Would I sleep my life away? How bad would it be? To sleep for years until it turns eternal.

Flashes of my Mother slapping me hard running through my mind. "Charlotte," her voice echoed in my head. I jolted awake, blinking rapidly. I began to remember that I wasn't fifteen anymore, and that time doesn't age backward.

Sitting up in my bed, I slowly gazed around the room; the plain white walls I'd grown tired of, and the white wooden floor that always made the room feel so cold. I pulled my pearly satin blanket back over my body and curled into the fetal position.

I heard a distant knock on my bedroom door, followed by the entrance of our maid. "Good morning Charlotte," Salem smiled, and I blinked in response. "Your mother is expecting down for breakfast in fifteen minutes," she said, opening up the drapes.

"Yay," I shouted sarcastically, getting out of bed.

She only laughed in response, her brown skin glowing in the sun. "I made your favorite, spinach omelets," She beamed.

"It's that bad?" I asked her, shaking my head. She knowingly sighed, starting to make my bed. We both knew breakfast with my Mother wasn't just "breakfast and that she only made my favorite meal to prepare me for what mood she was in.

I stared at my reflection in the golden Victorian mirror on my wall, giving my full lips a tug with my teeth. For as long as I can remember, I've been staring at this same girl, in this same mirror. Sad.

As Salem left my room, I brushed my wild, dark brown curls into a nice back bun like my Mother liked it. Smooth, and with no loose strands. I put on my best inside dress and headed downstairs to see my Mother.

"Charlotte, darling," she beamed once she saw me.

"Good morning, Mother," I forced a smile, sitting across from her.

"It's time to discuss you going back to Yale," she said with a stern but friendly tone.

"Mom," I whined. "I'm not ready to go back to school," I complained.

"Charlotte," she said sternly, no more friendly, and no more smile. It was the look that always made me feel small, so my eyes drifted down to my breakfast. "I let you take that gap year because you said that you were stressed. I understood you. I was more than reasonable to let you go to Paris for half that year, to partake in the arts, and enjoy the culture," she smiled once more. "Charlotte I am not your enemy. I want you to have a full life. However, you will not gap-year yourself into disgracing your father's legacy. You will graduate from Yale, and you will be going back this fall." 

Of course, this was the end of the conversation. I learned never to argue with my Mother, and I learned it the hard way. "Now," she beamed, standing to her feet. "We're meeting your Father, at twelve for lunch. Be down here and be ready."

~*~

"That school is soooo boring," I scoffed to my friend Juliet. "I can't believe she wants me to go there," I sighed.

"Why won't she let you pick your own school?" Juliet asked.

"Because she doesn't like my major choice," I squinted. Juliet and I were friends because we both understood what it was like to be rich and burdened with the crown of our families. She tossed her blonde locks to the back and shook her head.

"Your parents are really important people. What do you think would happen if you do something embarrassing? Your mom would never show her face at the country club again! Her whole life would be ruined." At that, we both laughed.

"Just think, all the crap going on in the world, and these are her problems," I scoffed.

"Anyways," she waved sipping her mimosa. "Do you want to go shopping? I need my fix," she cried.

Juliet and I have been friends since we were six. She's the only one who understands what it's like growing up in a psycho-rich family. Even though her parents aren't as controlling as mine, they're crazy is very equally matched.

"Sure," I smiled. "Right after lunch." That was pretty much the life of an heiress. Lunches, brunches, and shopping.

We didn't want - need anything. Except to appear perfect to everyone. That's why my Mom fights so hard to control me; she's concerned about appearances. She hates my conventional lifestyle and pushes wealth over every aspect. She allows me to do my art on the side, but not as a main subject. Not good enough to brag about at the country club.

So I shut my mouth, I do what I'm told. I enjoy the little privilege's that I have and I don't complain. All for the Almighty dollar. But who cares, right? As long as I keep getting to go to Paris on their dime.

I basically sold my life to my parents at birth, and in turn, they spoil me and give me everything I desire. Except the life, I want to live. I hate Yale, and I hate medicine. I hate Connecticut and all the classes she chose for me to study. But I suck it up, all for the Almighty dollar.