Prologue

Natalie's POV

The very thing that's destroying me might just be the same thing that's keeping me alive. I hate life. I hate it, not because it's unfair, but because it makes me feel.

I woke up this morning the same way I wake up every other morning. But I woke up feeling different from every other morning - same routine, different feels. Today, I feel almost like I have a purpose.

But I hate that. I hate having hope when there's a monumental chance that it's utterly false. Hope is why people take leaps of forbidden faith. Hope is why people jump into waste waters. Hope is why people lose lives. Hope is a lie that everyone tells themselves to escape reality.

My reality is that I have a mother and father who work twenty four hours a day. Money is everything to my parents. I spent my entire childhood hoping to be my parents' everything. But the reality of the situation is: I'm everbody's nothing.

"So where are you from?" he asks me. I think he said his name is Corey or something along those lines. "Are you going to talk or are you going to fuck me?"

"Oh..." he says, his eyes shimmering with pure lust, just like all the other guys. He gets on top of me and pulls out his dick. I notice how relatively small it is when he puts a condom on so I have to pretend to have an orgasm while he fucks me. I don't know why I do these favours.

"So I was wondering if you'd go out with me next week...on a real date?" he asks from the ground outside where he landed after jumping out of my window. "I don't date. Sorry Boo." I say and close my window.

I don't understand what it is with guys. They're always up for dates after our one night stands. I mean - one night stand - the name says it all.

I get up out of my bedroom when my stomach grumbles. In this family, you eat only if you feed yourself. There's always plenty of food, because Camila, our maid, makes it. She's the only person who ever cared about me as a child, the way a mother or father should.

When I was old enough to realize that I should be getting love and affection from my parents instead of my maid, I distanced myself from her. It's not personal though, I distanced myself from everyone; and guess what - nobody cared.

I pass by the dining room where my mother is sitting with probably her clients or some shit. My father's probably in his study doing - none other than - work.

I dish up some lasagna for myself with a banana flavoured smoothie and head back to the stairs, "Oh, there she is. Natalie?" my mother calls me and I reverse back to where I'm able to see her and the man and woman sitting on opposite sides of her. "Yes, Mother?" I say with a fake smile, knowing exactly why she's summoning me.

"This is my daughter, Natalie." she introduces me to them. "Hi, Natalie, it's nice to meet you." the woman sitting next to the man says to me. "Mhm, the pleasure's all mine. And I know it's not Mothers Day or anything, but thank you, Mom, for being such an inspiration, being the most successful black businesswoman and the best mom a daughter could possibly ever ask for. I love you. Enjoy the rest of your evening." I say before walking off up to our home theatre, leaving my flattered mother with clients that are now extremely impressed based on a total lie. A good one at that.

My parents have clients home every week so I've had a lot of practice. I eat my dinner while watching The Call. The girl that gets abducted in the movie only survives after losing all hope for survival. I like this movie, because in a way, when thoroughly thought about, it justifies my philosophy.

It's Friday tomorrow. That means I get to get high. I know that Varsity's going to be shit in any case. Getting wasted is what I look forward to at the end of every school week.

Some might find it completely repulsive and reckless, but for me - it's my sense of hope. I know how ironic it is that I hate hope, yet I love using weed as an escape route from my own reality. It's basically hope, but in a very different sense.

I end up sleeping really late, because of The Call. When I go back to my bedroom, I'm not surprised when I hear my mother and father arranging which days each of them can bring clients to our home. Parts of our house are very echoey, so it's funny to me how I always hear my parents' conversations and they're always about work, never about their only daughter.

That used to upset me before. I even went through a depression phase because of it. But now, I laugh about it all. I might have a really dark sense of humour, but I'm way passed depression. The one thing I learnt about depression during my phase though, is that you have the power to dig yourself into it and the power to dig yourself out of it.

Some people look or expect for other people to save them when they have the unknown ability to save themselves. I didn't read any self-help books, I saved myself. Although, I was too lazy to rehabilitate myself afterwards. I took the elevator out of depression, but it got stuck on the floor between total recovery and depression itself. That place is where negativity plants itself in you if you're like me and you're too lazy to use the stairs up to full-time positivity. That's where I live.

It's a place where everything means nothing to me - not my religion; not my virginity; absolutely nothing. Trust me when I state that this is a place where no teenager should live or wish to live. Once you're in it, getting yourself out is like trying to pick up the Statue of Liberty with only your bare hands.

Practically impossible.