It hurt. Of course, it hurt when they hit her before, but this was different. It was like they were finally tired of her. As if they wanted to kill her this time. To finally be rid of the poor wretched blind daughter who couldn't do anything right. Who was always needy. She needed clothes, she needed food, she needed medicine, she needed to have parental guidance until she could finally afford a seeing dog. Not that she wanted one. Quite the opposite. Two things stood in her way in that department. One; She was allergic to dog fur. Two; Dogs terrified her.

Another slash in her arm brought her to her senses. The tears streamed down her face, slowly. One at a time they fell down her face onto her cuts that she couldn't nurse since they had tied her up. When did they do that? She couldn't remember, the pain was overbearing. A whip made contact with her already broken leg making her cry out in desperation. Desperation for it to stop. She didn't want to die. Not yet. She hadn't even felt what it was like to love someone yet. She hasn't felt what it was like to trust someone wholeheartedly. She couldn't even trust her best friend, Seth Grig, with her secrets. She lied about being blind, too. She was always wearing sunglasses, even indoors. That probably made him suspicious, but being the friend he was, he dropped the subject knowing it would make her uncomfortable. He never did anything to make her uncomfortable. He thought he understood. But he didn't. No one could.

She screamed again. This time from the way her father threw her on the floor. Of course, this was after her mother had untied her hands. Correction- Step-mother. Her real mother died because of a car crash. That was years ago.
The unwanted blind could still remember it clearly; like a movie. A kind looking father was driving down the road with his lovely wife in the passenger seat. Their four-year-old daughter was in the back seat playing with her Happy Meal toy. She was born blind, but she was smart, so they didn't worry about her too much. The little girl had forgotten to put on her seat belt. More like her father forgot. He was supposed to buckle her up since she couldn't see. However, because he forgot (He likes to think it was all his daughter's fault.) the smiling mother had to undo hers, while on the road, and reach back to buckle her daughters. She didn't blame the husband for forgetting. He was forgetting a lot of things all the time. The mother was just finishing fastening her beloved daughter to the seat. Then it happened. A car was speeding down the opposite lane. It was being chased by several cop cars. Most likely a chase. There were two men in ski masks. One was driving furiously and recklessly down the road. The other had a gun in his hand looking back at the cop cars telling the driver to go faster. The father had no idea if he should stop or not, so he slowed down. The guy with the gun turned around and saw the families cars. He smiled a wicked smile as a plan formed in his head. He leaned out the passenger window and pointed the gun at the man driving slowly down the other lane. All it took was one shot and he was off balance. The father was hit square in the shoulder, but no important muscle or anything was hit, thankfully. However, the shock sent him swerving all over the highway. He hit head on with three cop cars, flipping his own five times after he hit the third car. He was wearing his seatbelt, so he was safe. His daughter was bawling her eyes out, a piece of glass about an inch thick and four inches long was sticking out of her eye. She was in terrible pain. Nothing a four-year-old should experience. The father looked over expecting to see his wife with her own seatbelt on and safe, but she wasn't there. He looked around, shushing his daughter in a soothing voice as he did. His wife wasn't in the car. He undid his own seatbelt and eased himself from his upside down position. He crawled out of his car. A few feet away, there lay his wife. She was still breathing, but just barely. He smiled, a little relieved. He opened the backseat and got his baby girl out of the car without moving her head too much, as well as his own throbbing shoulder. He stood up and started to limp towards his wife. All of a sudden, a fire started. It was on the left of a cop car, the same one that his wife was laying on the right of. He knew the fire would spread quickly, so he limped a little faster towards his love. The wife had regained conciousness and was starting to stand. She looked terrible, like the living dead. She had cuts bleeding profusely and bruises to rival. She looked relieved to see her husband and daughter safe, more or less. The lovers tried to take a step to meet each other faster than the fire. Fate has a funny way of messing with people. The fire spread quickly. Too quickly and ungulfed the once beautiful lady in flames. She screamed out in anguish. She forgot stop, drop, and roll. Not that it would do her much good now. All the husband could do was clutch his little girl tightly as she tried to squirm free to safe her mommy, regardless of the pain in eye. The husband could barely see the ambulance lights in the distance. All he could see and hear were the cries of his wife dying down as she slowly turned to ash. It was still burning by the time his daughter and he were loaded into seperate ambulances. The small child lay still, facing her father as tears streamed down her face. The once loving father now looked at her with a face a hate. Slowly, trying the best as he could, he looked at his daughter and simply asked in a hateful and disapproving voice, "Are happy with what you did?". The words were low and unheard by the shouting emergency nurses, but the words rang loud and clear in her head.

Now, some years later, those same words leave her fathers lips in a similar way they had last time. Still hateful, but now sounding more like a mocking tone. The same four-year-old was now laying on the ground. A sickeningly large puddle of blood surrounding her and it only grew as she stayed there, completely still. She knew it was a rhetorical question, but she couldn't help herself as she replied softly, "As long as it makes you happy." She couphed. More blood. She sort of sounded like she did when she was with Seth. She remembered when she first met him.

It was a clear, sunny day. She was wondering around Central Park, New York as she was not permitted to actually attend class. This was her only escape. No one ever approached her, but she didn't mind. She didn't know why though. Perhaps it was the atmosphere that surrounded her. Or perhaps it was the various bruises that covered her face, arms, and legs. One person, she remembered, had asked and she had replied bitterly, "Tch! I just fell down some stairs! Next time, why don't you use your brain before asking, you dolt!" They had scurried so quickly, the blind one was unsure if they had even been there. Anyway, today, all the scars, cuts, and bruises were visible since she was wearing her favorite white sundress. She had on matching white rimmed sunglasses and a sun hat. Her pale red hair was down and naturally curly as it ended at her mid-back. She was sitting on a bench in the park when a she felt a presence sitting next to her. Then she heard a deep voice ask her politely in an out of breath way if he could sit there. She simply nodded. He tried several times to spark up a conversation with her, but she shot all of his tries down fast and swiftly. Finally, after what seemed like his fiftieth shot, she asked sharply, "Do you want something, or are you actually trying to be nice?" He sat quietly for a while, but the girl could sense a smile. "Maybe a bit of both," he replied with a light laugh. The blind girl couldn't keep herself from smiling. "How would you like to be my friend?" This time the girl had to laugh out loud at how straight-foward the boy had been. She replied with an exaggerated nod.

They met up frequently, starting at once a week, but as they grew closer, they started hanging out at least every other day. She loved Seth, but only as a friend. She could feel the mutuality from him, so they were pretty comftorable. A kick to her side brought her from her pleasant memory. She held her aching stomach crying softly, not wanting the older man to hear her.

She heard a whine from the other woman in the small dingy apartment. "Nick~ Come on~. Don't spend time with that filth, come with me to Vegas~!" She heard a hearty laugh from her father and a jubulant yes! The slamming of a door and then..........nothing.
Silence. It was unbearable.

Slowly and with a shaking hand, the blind girl took her cell phone and voice commanded a call to Seth. He answered as cheerfully as ever. Waiting for a snarky comment, Seth was surprised to hear a spluttering cough...then...in the weakest voice, one he had never imagined his friend with, he heard "Please.....P-Please come g-get m-m-meeeeeeeee......" was all he heard as her voice drifted off to nothing. Panicked he rushed to her apartment. It was on the other side of town, and trying to get there as quickly as possible, he took his private jet. The only reason he knew where she lived was because she had asked him to give a bakery her address. It was written sloppily on a piece of paper. He couldn't help himself, and commited the address to memory. Now, he was glad he did that.

He reached the dingy apartment building in a few minutes, calling and ambulance as he did. He broke down the right apartment door and started to search the rooms. There was blood everywhere. Some dried, some fresh. He reached the final room, the master bedroom, and saw an awful sight. There, lying in a giant pool of blood was his best friend. As hard as he tried not to, he threw up, mainly from the smell.

The ambulance arrived at once. They carried the fragile girl away on a gurney and Seth followed. He sat with her threw the ride and held her hand. Even if she was unconcious, he whispered words of comfort to his dear friend. He stayed in the hospital, got the statistics from the doctors, and he was the first thing she saw when she finally woke up after a month in the hospital. He was wide awake, of course, and tears of joy, ran down the both of their cheeks as they cried together. All the while, the girl wailed everything that had happened to her. All the unspeakable horrors she went through, and, for the first time, he told her about his one love that had ran away and was now missing.

Seth asked his friend a question he had wanted to ask when she woke up, and found now to be an appropriate time. He asked his friend to come and live with him. Without any other choice, the girl had no chance, but to say yes.