1 Chapter One

The Life Behind Her Smile: Everything is Not As it Seems

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This book is a work of fiction and is not based on real life or people.

ISBN: 978-0-692-88795-0

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One morning in May, Melanie woke up to the beautiful sun shining in her fair-skinned face and she let out a big yawn from the much-needed sleep she had last night. Her mother once again had come home late, wild and drunk, then passed out. Melanie had to take care of her mother and drag her up to bed. As her mind went back to last night, a thought popped up in her head… she forgot about school! She looked at the clock and it read 9:50.

"Oh crap!" she squealed while running into the bathroom to shower.

After she showered and brushed her teeth, she dug through her closet for an outfit. Since it's starting to get warmer, she puts on a strapless white dress with a brown belt, a jean jacket with rolled up sleeves and brown flats. After that, she put her hair in a simple ponytail, grabbed her brown book bag, phone and zoomed out the door.

When she arrived at the school, there was no one to be seen in the halls. "I'm so dead." She mumbled to herself in worry. Her first class is math…and the math teacher hates her. Huffing, she opened the door to math and entered the room. Once she stepped in, the whole class went quiet. An awkward silence filled the room until the teacher spoke up, "Melanie, so glad you finally decided to grace us with your presence today…" The teacher said with sarcasm dripping from her voice and ending with a scoff.

"It's not my fault, I swear, my mother-" But before Melanie could finish, the teacher cut her off, "Shush! I'll hear none of it today Ms. Acuff! I've had enough of these excuses with your mother. Go straight to the principal's office!" yelled the teacher. Then some of the class made an 'oooh' sound as Melanie's hands clenched and her face flustered. One boy from the back spoke up and snickered, "Miss Sunshine isn't all smiles right now is she?" He laughed and the class laughed along with him, including the teacher. An angry tear ran down her face, but nevertheless she still did as told. She ran out the class, slammed the room door, and marched off to the principal's office. Luckily the principal likes her.

Soon as she stepped into the office, the principal saw her, shook her head and sighed, "Oh gosh, what happened this time?" She said in a sad tone of voice.

The young girl plopped down onto the chair as tears filled her eyes anew. "Mom. Oh, and the usual with my teacher." Melanie simply says knowing the principal will understand. Melanie has a history of coming into the office and has slightly informed Cindy of what goes on in the house. "I'll get on the teacher about that immediately, but if this keeps happening I'm going to have to call Child Protective Services soon." Cindy said sighing as her face falls in her deep brown hands.

Melanie's eyes grow wide and she shoots up from her seat, "No please! I can take care of her! I have been for 7 years! I can handle everything!" Melanie said quickly in a panic. Her mother gets on her last nerves, but they love each other.

Cindy slams her fist down on the desks and yells, "But you shouldn't have to!! You're only a child! You have problems of your own! I'm not going to watch you waste your life away caring for a woman who doesn't care about yours and won't take care of hers!" Cindy yelled in anger. She really cares about Melanie because of seeing what she goes through. She doesn't mean to come off rough, but she wants to help Melanie. It's hard for Cindy to watch what she is going through.

"I know…but…." Melanie falls back into the chair and cries. A sigh of regret comes from Cindy's mouth as she slowly walks over to the crying girl and rubs her back, "I'm sorry I yelled at you, honey. It's not your fault. J-Just forget everything and go home." Cindy said. Melanie wiped the tears off of her red cheeks before standing up. She walked to the door and turned around flashing a fake smile as usual before she left out the door. As she heads for the doors leading out of school, her phone beeps signaling she got a text. Pulling her pink phone out her pocket, she sees a text from Christina. She deleted the contact, but she recognizes the number. She hesitates, but she opens it anyway. When she opens the text, new tears ran down her face again. The text read:

"Hey, Mrs. Depression! ;) I see you are probably on your way home from school already. Ha, that's the usual with you isn't? I know the teacher hates you! Everyone hates you! So do everyone a favor and die. Hey, maybe you can finally do something right in your crummy life. LOL!"- Hate you, Christina.

Melanie instantly started looking around her. She was wondering how in the world did Christina know she was on her way home. She was looking for a minute until her eyes landed on Christina looking out the window of her science class smirking and doing a little finger wave.

She attempted to stop the unwanted salty water from further staining her cheeks, but it didn't work. Melanie shook her head as she looked at Christina with clenched fists. She has no idea why her ex-best friend hates her so much.

Melanie turned around, locked her phone, and started walking across the street into the park. As she was walking, her phone started ringing showing Robert's contact. Robert is Melanie's current rich, yet abusive, boyfriend. He's 6 years older than Melanie. You might be thinking, "Who let's their 17-year old daughter date a 23-year-old?" Well, Melanie's mother could care less what her daughter does at the moment. It's not on purpose; she just isn't paying attention to anything but the bottle right now. Anyway, Robert comes off as a caring and loving type guy when you first meet him. When Melanie first saw him, she fell in love with his baby blue eyes, flawless tan skin, perfect nose, plump pink lips, and short, silky, chestnut brown hair. Melanie thought everything was perfect, but she was ignoring the warning signs. After 3 months when he had her hooked, he started becoming extremely jealous. He started telling her what to do; he started constantly checking her phone and was always putting her down. They've been dating for a year and a half now. She'd be lying if she said she didn't notice what he was doing because she did, she just swept it under the carpet, like most victims do. As you can guess, in no time he started abusing her physically, but she still is crazy head over heels for him.

She instantly answers the phone not wanting to anger him, "Y-yes baby?" Melanie stutters, fear clearly in her voice.

"Where are you?" He asks emotionless.

"Um, walking to my next class so I should probably-"Before she could finish she was cut off by an extremely mad Robert, "I know you're lying to me!! I just asked you to hear your answer stupid." He seethed through his teeth.

Her eyes grew wide as golf balls, "How do you-" She was cut off again by her boyfriend, "Turn around Mel." He spat at her through the phone. Taking a deep breath, she slowly turns around to see her boyfriend's black car on the side of the street. She immediately started to wonder how he could possibly know she was here, Melanie's still supposed to be in school right now. When she sees him stomping near her she immediately runs as fast as she can.

It may seem a tad bit over the top, but one time he beat her so bad that he broke her right arm. She had to tell her mom she got into a bad fight with Christina.

She started running through the park, avoiding people's confused stares until she got into the woods, but she didn't get very far before being caught. Robert pulls her back by her hair and slaps her hard as he can. She falls to the ground, still being held by her hair, and starts thrashing around to get free when she scratches Robert's hand and he immediately pulls his hand away. She takes the opportunity to get up and run, but he got up and threw his pocket knife at her arm. He has an absolute perfect aim. His father used to take him hunting and knife training when he was younger. Melanie grabbed her arm in pain feeling the long cut and dripping blood on her left arm and yelled. Robert walks up to her and punches her in the head. Feeling a blow to the head, she falls to the ground on her stomach groaning in pain.

"I'm sorry…" She whispers trying to get sympathy out of him.

He turns the girl around and her scared eyes meet his fiery ones. His fists clench and he furiously says, "You will be."

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