As Simple as Untitled by Alyssa M.

She put her makeup on and looked at herself closer in the mirror.

Her face was still a little bruised, just on the cheekbones that stuck out in
her flesh. She smiled, and, with a slow graceful movement, pushed aside all
that was on her dresser, and sat on it.

Her frail figure didn't have any impact on the furniture, and sometimes she had wished it would. Regan counted the seconds until she would hear her father hustle up the stairs, and slam his fist into her door, demanding to be let in.

It happened every morning before she went to school. She could almost set a clock by it. The only time that she was left alone to prepare herself for high school, were the mornings where her father had blacked out from drinking. Some days he was sleeping until she got home from school. But that rarely ever happened, and it caused Regan great anxiety.

It was the middle of April, warm weather, but yet, it was so dark that
she needed the light of her room on, at 7:00 a.m. Her figure rested gently on the dresser, with her long legs hanging down almost on the floor. Regan closed her eyes.

'Thump thump thump.'

"Oh sh*t" Regan said to herself, as her father stormed in the room,
with boots on and a flannel tank top. He was no more than 5 feet and 9
inches, but he was all muscle. Even Regan, who stood 6 feet and 2 inches had no chance against him. Her bone structure was small, and she might have weighed 130 lbs.

Regan's father grabbed Regans short black hair, and pulled. She
spiraled to the floor, legs spread out under her, arms folded in close. It reminded her father of a broken baby deer. It hurt him to see her in pain and discomfort, but he brushed the sorrow away, and kept harassing his daughter.

He was mad that she never stuck up for herself. She had always just let him push her around. Ever since Regan's mother died, she just kept to herself, and never tried to help herself. Her father noticed the marks and scars on her rms and hips, but never said anything. He was just confused as to what was going on.

Regan didn't cry. She just stared back up at the man who had loved her
for all her life, but yet beat her and made her bleed. Her brown eyes
looked black against her white skin, and her lips took the shape of a heart,
small and pink and faded. The black hair that hung just above her shoulders looked frizzy and broken, although she had just straightened it. Her collar bones stuck out on her chest, and the small patter of her breathing seemed to get faster and deeper. The look in her fathers eyes was fierce, a strong passion of confusion and hatred and loss. Time seemed to get slower, and the lights still glowed a deep red like at an opera. It was Thursday, and Regan would be late for school if she didn't hurry.

'I love you' her father said.

He closed his eyes, and walked away. She just sat there. Not looking.
Not thinking. Not seeing. Not hearing. She couldn't taste any blood in her
mouth. Nor see any on her body, although she had felt like she had just
been stabbed. It felt scratchy in her throat, and she could feel every
movement that occurred between her ribs. She got up and got her car keys and put on her boots and walked out the door. She didn't say goodbye to her father. Just walked out and locked the door behind her.

She was a senior in high school. She had a job at the local restaurant,
a great group of friends, many scholarships, and she was someone that
people wanted to know. Regan put the key in the truck ignition and pressed the gas pedal. She sped off to school, arriving just in time for the second
bell. She went to the bathroom before first class to fix her makeup and make sure she had no apparent bruises at the moment.

She lifted up the corner of her shirt, making sure no one was around,
to look at the cuts on her hips that had been put there the the previous
night. In a second, a freshmen walked in. She noticed the marks on Regan's
body, snickered, and walked away. Regan felt herself turn red, and she walked into a stall and waited for the girl to leave. It took a while, but
eventually the girl left, and Regan walked out into the middle of the bathroom. By now, she was late for class and decided to just leave school. She could use a drive, and missing one day of school wouldn't hurt her record. She waited until the bell rang, and while everyone was in their routine, she walked out the door.

Feeling excited, she skipped to her car, smiling, laughing, breathing
heavily and nervous like she had just robbed a bank. She got in the
truck and put her seatbelt on. That was a first for her, since she always
hoped that she would get ejected through the windshield if she had gotten
into an accident. Not today. Her father couldn't could ruin any other day but today. She got onto the highway, as if to go to the ocean. She turned up the radio, and sung to her current favorite pop song.

She noticed a small blue car weaving on either side of the road. It was
quite a way ahead of her, so she payed no attention, and there were no
cars near it. She picked up her chapstick, and just as she applied it, she
noticed the blue car stop. And turn around. And head straight for her.
She was scared, but there was another lane, and she decided she would just
head into the other lane and get off at an exit.

The car got closer, it seemed to be picking up speed, and then, nothing
happened.Time stopped. The sky of 9 a.m. got dark. Wait, no, that wasn't the sky. That was just the fear of dying.

She looked at herself in the hospital. Old, worn, frail, slender. She
ate so much, why was her body so small? Her feet hung off the hospital bed.

Her friends were there. Looking at her. Holding her hands. Crying. They all
had balloons for her, tied around the bed rail. She knew she was dying. She
watched the doctors take her body into another room. She just walked
alongnext to her physical self. Her father was there, in the room. He was in
handcuffs. He held his head down and Regan thought she saw him crying.

No.

It couldn't be. Her father was crying over Regan.
Her fingers now had small clamps on them. They didn't look painful,
just annoying, and loose-fitting.

Her body felt uncomfortable. She felt like she was shrinking. She
climbed back in her body and folded her hands across her stomach. She didn't want to die this way. She didn't want to die at all.