Torn

Black wings through and through,
Falling angel’s cometh too.

It’s ironic isn’t it? One week after I wrote that, my own black angel came into my life. My name was Isobelle Becker and I’d just turned 18. I was different from other people. Or that’s what they thought. I dressed differently. I had a different attitude to life and that seemed to make me a bad person. I did no wrong.

My story begins in the year 2003. I’m at my mother’s side by a hospital bed. I’m dressed all in black and my older brother sits opposite me giving me piercing glances. I know what he thinks. He thinks I’m different too. He thinks that me wearing black clothes means I’m not paying respect to the dying woman in my arms. My mother was dying. Found in a pool of blood on the dark New York streets. She had been shot. Someone had tried to kill her. And they had nearly succeeded that night. I didn’t know yet who had done it but I was to find out soon. Thus my black angel. Daniella Lings. A fellow pupil from my school. She hated me. I suspect she still does. She didn’t agree with my attitude to life. She assumed I was about to kill myself every time I walked through the door. She always glanced down at my wrists checking for scars and cuts. She thought I was a self-harmer. I was never into that stuff. I only ever did it once when… well, you’ll find out about that later. Anyway, she always criticized the way I dressed and what kind of music I listened to. She couldn’t face the fact that someone was different from her. She pranced around in jeans and low cut tops. In my and a lot of other people’s opinions, she was a complete tart. No one thought she was capable of murder. From what she said in the trial, we had found out that she’d planned this from the start. But it went wrong. She was supposed to kill me. I was there when my mother was shot. I heard the noise of the gun setting off then my mother was on the floor, bleeding from the chest. I looked around to see who had done it and all I heard were quick footsteps running away from the area. I didn’t see the attacker. Instead of running after them I stayed with my mother. I thought she was dead. A week later and here I am. The doctors say there is nothing they can do. She will die soon. I don’t believe them. I’m sat in silence, holding her hand with tears down my face when I hear the nurse telling me she’s gone. ‘She’s gone.’ She’s gone…

I found out a week later that it had been Daniella. I was at the trial another week later, watching her being marched up to the stand in handcuffs. I gave a statement while my brother stared up at me with hatred in his eyes. My father sat next to him, tears staining his face. My mother was the only one that ever kept him going. He feels so helpless without her. He won’t be able to cope anymore. I tell the jury what happened on the night of the attack, my voice quivering. I scan the courtroom and see Daniella sat between two policemen in the front row. She looks sad. Very near tears. Maybe she regrets what she did. Or maybe she’s just afraid of paying the consequences. She won’t look me in the face. She’s scared of me… Daniella was scared of me. She saw me as a threat. So she tried to kill me. The jury found Daniella guilty and she is now going to spend 25 years in prison. She’s probably hating me while rotting away in her jail cell right now. About two months after my mothers death another tragedy struck my family. I came home one day to find all the curtains closed and the lights out. I went through to our living room and found my father slumped on the sofa next to an empty bottle of pills and an empty bottle of vodka. His suicide letter had slipped onto the floor. My father was dead. He couldn’t face life without my mother. I’d lost them both.

I had to live with my brother after that. It was difficult as he blamed me for my mother and father’s deaths. He said that if I hadn’t dressed different from everyone else, none of this would have ever happened. Daniella wouldn’t have shot my mother. My father wouldn’t have killed himself and my brother wouldn’t be stuck with me. I went back to school five weeks after my mother’s death and straight away came face to face with Daniella’s gang. They spat in my face and said that it was my fault Daniella was in prison. I spat back and said it was Daniella’s fault my life is hell. They attacked me. I tried to fight back but there was too many of them. I went home with a cut lip, black eye and a sprained wrist. My brother blamed me for getting my self into trouble, and that’s the first time he hit me. Every day if he was angry or stressed out then he would take it out on me. I stopped going to school. People would ask where I got my bruises and cuts from and I always lied. I gave up on school all together and went out looking for a job. I ended up working at a fast food restaurant. It didn’t pay well but at least I had some money. I needed it seen as my brother insisted I help pay rent on the flat. I was only 16 at the time. I earned 25 dollars a day and the job sucked. Everyone there was rude and ignorant. I wasn’t treated with any respect and I just got bossed around all the time. My boss wasn’t any better. He treated me like a little kid. Like I couldn’t do anything for myself. It was hell. I had to work until 10 at night and I had to walk six blocks back to the flat everyday on my own. One night I was walking home and a man tried to steal my bag. I managed to fight him off and get away. After that I always ran home.

Two months later my brother had had enough of me. He threw me out and shouted that I had to find somewhere else to live. I found a shop doorway. I spent two nights there and then I found my new home. A disused warehouse. It was dangerous but it was also empty. I jumped at the chance and moved in there. I continued working and spent all the money on food and toiletries. I only usually had 10 dollars left by the end of the week. I always saved it. I still don’t know why.

It’s now 2004 and I’m starting to get sick of living in the stupid warehouse! My life was going to get a lot worse soon. I was fired from my job. Apparently I was lacking in cooperation skills. So I’m now homeless and without a job. Great. That’s really all I need. I take my only chance and go back to my brother. I knock on his door and he opens it, sees me then slams it back in my face I don’t know what to do.

A week later I found myself pleading with passers by for money. I had started begging. I still had about 100 dollars left from my savings but it wasn’t enough to keep me going. I needed more. My begging wasn’t exactly successful. The most I got was $3.50 in a day. It just wasn’t fair! Did I really deserve this? How could life be so cruel? What can I do? I was going insane in my own thoughts. I lived in a small town and after a while people stopped giving me money. The 100 dollars was all spent in a month and I was running out of food. I was trying to spare it and just go without food for a while. I lost a lot of weight and even looked anorexic but I couldn’t help it. It was the only way I could survive. People stared at me on the streets and I got nasty comments. I’d never self-harmed before but I was ready to take my life! It just got worse every day. I scrounged for money everywhere. I begged, picked it up from the floor and one time in desperation I even stole a woman’s bag.

I saved up about 10 dollars and spent it all on aspirin and a bottle of vodka. One night I went back to the warehouse and started drinking and taking the pills. I laid back onto the floor and thought about where my life went wrong. My breathing started to slow and as I took my last dying breath, I thought back to who made my life hell. I thought of Daniella and her gang who killed my mother. I thought of my father killing himself, and I thought of my brother, hitting me whenever he felt like it. And then I think to myself… I forgive you all.

White wings light up the skies,
Angels smile as the darkness dies…