Introduction.

Roger grabbed the keys from his jean pocket and opened the door to apartment A149. He then pocketed the keys again, and with a grim expression, slowly walked towards his room. He stopped in the doorway, and looked in. Everything was exactly the way he had left it before he had found...
Roger gulped down a sad lump that had been forming in his throat since he saw the number on the apartment door. Taking small steps, he walked into the room and over to the nightstand by the bed. There, he saw a plain black notebook. Catching his breath, he reached his hand over and picked it up. He didn't open it yet; he just held it close to his heart. A few tears slid down his cheeks, but he quickly wiped them away. He didn't want to lose control.
Sighing, he walked slowly into the living room (if you could call it that) and sat down on one of the make-shift couches, made of a few chairs and some hardened cushions. His hands trembling, he opened the book to the first page. There, it read "March 23rd, 2002." He almost stopped reading there. It didn't feel right. In his mind, it felt like he was betraying her, or as if he was invading her privacy. He had to remind himself that she wasn't going to reprimand him for reading her diary now. She wasn't going to do anything at all. She wasn't even alive anymore. Roger sniffled, and read on.

Chapter one.

"I told you he was no good!" Jamie told me after I finished. I looked at her with a sarcastic look.
"You the one who told me to go out with him! You said he got money, and that that was reason enough! I'm the one who didn't wanna' go!" Jamie just rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth at me. I know by now that Jamie won't ever tell the truth. What she says later on, no matter how wrong it is, she swears by it. I just chuckled at her. My chuckling stopped quick because I saw the guy I was talking about walking the school hallway talking to a student. It was Mr. Werns, the History teacher. He was only twenty years old and he said he had a crush on me. Sometimes I think it's wrong but sometimes I see his cuteness and just melt and crush him back. I know my parents would get angry at me if they found out, but I don't care.
Well, anyway, Mr. Werns and me went out on a date yesterday after school at the movies. We were sitting there laughing the corny movie and eating popcorn when I feel a hand creep up my shirt. I look at the guy sitting opposite me with his girlfriend and I see that he is smiling at me. I slap his hand and he frowns and takes his girlfriend away. I turn back to watch the movie, and a few minutes later, I feel another hand creeping up my shirt. I look over to see if the guy has come back but he hasn't. Then I look over and see that it's Mr. Werns who's feeling me up and I get scared. I think to myself "Oh my God! He's a teacher! He's not supposed to do this to his students!" and then I remember that teachers aren't supposed to go out on dates with their students either.
So anyways, I just freeze up and I don't stop him. His hand goes further up my shirt and I can barely breathe. All of a sudden, I jump up out of my seat and run out of the theater. I keep running and running until I can't run no more. Then I look back to see if he's been following and I see that he hasn't and I sigh in relief. I turned around and started walking back to my house and when I get there my mom is sitting in the living room with her hands crossed over her. She looks at me with these accusing eyes and she asks me "Where have you been?" I tell her that I was out with a few friends of mine and she just rolls her eyes and tells me that that is bull. I ask her why she doesn’t believe me and she tells me it's because Jamie and Trish came over to see if I could play and she had to tell them that I wasn't in.
Then my mom started going off about how worried she was and that if I hadn't noticed, this wasn't the best of neighborhoods. Anything can happen around here, she says. I just look at her blankly and pretend that I'm listening but I'm not. When she's finished, she sends me to my room and I go stomping up the stairs and when I get to my room I just slam my door. I go over and jump onto my bed and I just lay there thinking about what Mr. Werns did. I’m only a little aware of the noises coming from outside, like the sirens and the shouting and the sounds of crying. I can barely even concentrate on my breathing.
Then all of a sudden there's a knock on my door and I say "Come in" without even realizing it and the door opens and it's my dad. He comes in and he sits on my bed next to me and he starts stroking my hair and asks me calmly where I've been. I tell him I was out with a friend and he said "That's not what your mom told me." He looks at me with stern eyes and keeps pressuring me to tell him where I've been. I just look back at him and don't say anything and he starts to get angry. I get scared because I know what comes next after the anger but I still can't say anything. I don't know why I can't open my mouth and speak so I just keep it shut.
Then dad starts to yell and scream at me, but I only sit up in my bed and start to cry but I still can't say anything about where I've been or anything else except for "I'm sorry". Dad doesn't seem to hear me and he just keeps yelling and he starts to get more violent. I brace myself because I knew he was going to start hitting me again like he did yesterday. I had to cover up all of my bruises with long sleeves and long jeans and even a turtle neck even though it was almost eighty-three degrees outside, and the school's air-conditioning system is busted.
Dad starts yelling even louder and I can smell the booze on his breath and know that he has been drinking all day and has skipped work like he sometimes does. That just makes the situation even worse for me and I just know that I am in for it now. I can't believe that I can still keep my mouth shut, even after this realization. I just rock back and forth on my bed and cry even harder. Dad starts throwing things off of my shelves and my desk and either pelts them at me or dumps them on the floor. I try to protect myself with a pillow, but that's a mistake because dad just snatches the pillow away and starts beating me with his own fists. Sometimes he hits plain skin and it's O.K., but others he hits the bruises from the previous day and I have to bite my lip real hard until it bleeds to prevent myself from letting out a yelp of pain. Dad hates it even worse when I cry out in pain.
Soon, he gets tired of beating me, and he leaves the room, slamming my door behind him. I know mom was outside of the door the whole time because now I hear dad shouting and beating her. I cry real softly and think about what mom and dad are gonna do next. I know mom's gonna break out a bottle of hard liquor and a pack of cigarettes, and dad's gonna leave the house to smoke some marijuana with his friends at the pool house. I'll be left to do my homework so that I can get good grades and get into college, and then I'll have to cook a T.V. dinner for myself and for mom but she'll probably be too drunk to sit up and eat.
Wiping my tears away, I get up from the bed and walk over to my mirror. I check myself to see if any of my wounds are bleeding but they're not so I just go over to my backpack and start on my homework. I am able to ignore the sounds of mom's crying and dad's yelling by now because I’ve had a lot of time to get used to it. After a few minutes, I realize that everything's quiet and I realized that dad has left and mom has started drinking. The phone rings, but I am too sore to get up and answer it. It keeps ringing, and I realize that mom has actually been drinking for quite a while now. I look over to my bedside clock and see that it's almost seven o' clock and that I need to get my dinner. I hurry and finish up my homework and stuff the books back into my backpack and then run downstairs into the kitchen. On the way into the kitchen I see mom passed out on the couch like she always is with the television blaring. I go over and turn it off because I know we can't afford an electricity bill higher than seventy dollars.
In the kitchen, I open our mini-freezer and grab a box of T.V. dinner macaroni and cheese and vegetables. I put it in the microwave oven and let it heat up.
After that, it's mostly just a blur because I fall asleep.
Mr. Werns and the student pass by and my heart starts beating normally and my palms stop sweating. I look over to Jamie and realize that she has been staring at me the entire time. I think she has it in her mind that I have feelings for him, and she may be partly right because I do. I feel that he is a perverted jerk who needs to be fired, but I don't know how to make that happen.
The bell rings, and me and Jamie depart from each other to our next classes. I have science class, which is probably my favorite subject next to English class.
I get to class on time and I take my seat next to my lab partner Shawn. He's quiet, as usual. Sometimes I think he's mute but then he raises his hand and answers the question Mrs. Sherry asks and the sound of his voice startles me. Today, though, he seemed to be extra quiet, almost as if he was even holding his breath in which was weird even for him. I didn't think too much of it because a lot of kids in this school had a lot of family problems at home and they had their own ways of dealing with them. I took my science books out of my backpack and laid them out onto the table and scooted in even closer towards the desk. I didn't want to risk anyone bumping into my chair and hurting my stiff and bruised back.
I looked up at the chalk board, and saw that we were going to learn about atoms today. I was especially happy about this because I had recently checked a book out of the school library about science and read all about the atoms and their neutrons, protons, electrons, etc. my goal for this class today was to try to raise my hand for almost every question. I knew that there was a good chance that I wouldn’t achieve this goal, because Shawn seemed to be the "teacher's pet". The teacher, as usual, wasn't here yet. She was always late to class for some reason. No one has yet to find out why, but we all do a loud countdown to 12:46 exactly, where she bursts through the door with her briefcase and her clothes and hair all perfectly arranged.
Today, she takes out a large glossy map of an atom and I know immediately that she had to have bought it with her own money because the school can't afford to buy things like that. Then she takes out her large ruler and points to the picture of a small green circle with a negative sign on it. She tells us that it is an electron. She then asks if anyone had done the homework. Only a few of us raise our hands, and that includes Shawn, me, and only three other kids. She rolls her eyes and clucks her tongue disappointedly and turns back to the board. She points the ruler to the outermost ring and asks us how many electrons are on it. I don't bother to raise my hand because I consider it to be too easy. From behind me, I hear someone answer that there is one electron on the ring and she smiles and nods. Then she asks what the electron is called and what its function is. I raise my hand up high. She picks on me for once and I tell her that that particular electron is called a valence electron and that its job is to bond together with the other atoms around it. She smiles at me and adds a point under my name on her list and then turns away. Shawn turns to me and gives me a snide look and passes me a note. I un-crumple the paper and read what it says. In a hand-writing that thankfully wasn't Shawn's, it read "Know-it-all slut". I wondered who would write such a mean and terrible thing, and then I remembered where I lived and who my classmates were and I pushed the note aside and didn’t think anything of it.