EMPORTANT Notes from Emmy:

CW!
First off, very, very dark chapter.
 Those dark things that happen at home for Maerel? Yes, you see them in this chapter. CONTENT WARNINGS FOR PARENTAL PHYSICAL ABUSE OF A MINOR, VERBAL ABUSE, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS...

Just expect this to be dark. It was a very difficult one for me to write. Remember, I'm a fan of happy endings, so don't expect the entire story to be brutal like this all the way through.
Aside from that, I'm sorry for the lack of Cyberplex postings. I just haven't been able to get my head above water lately, and all that time I usually have for writing projects has been zapped by other commitments I haven't been able to shake. I promise you, swear to you on my fur, I'm not abandoning Elody.
As always, thanks to Lunawolf for taking something I wrote years ago and making it presentable.
Until Next chapter, and hopefully that will be the awaited chapter for Cyberplex. Much love and thank you for reading.
Emmy

When Maerel finally made it home, her legs were on fire and she could barely breathe. She still made good time, but as she rounded the last corner and saw her mother's car sitting in the driveway, her throat went even drier.

 

Slowing her pace to a walk, she focused on her breathing. This was the worst part of her day. Not the beatings, not the screaming and yelling and the abuse at home that she had to keep hidden from the world. Not the kids at school who went out of their way to make her feel as miserable as possible, not even close. No, it was the unknown before she walked in the door of her run-down old house with the unkempt yard with its overgrown weeds and bushes. What kind of mood would her mother be in? Would her father be home? Was the alcohol already flowing? Would she get beaten for nothing again tonight?

 

As she made it to the porch of her house, Maerel stopped and leaned her head on the wall by the doorbell and breathed in and out, her heart still pounding even though the exertion of her run bled away only to be replaced by anxiety and fear. "God, I hate it here," She muttered under her breath as she reached for the door handle and found it unlocked. Taking one final breath, she let it out as she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

 

The living room was a wreck, as always. The smell of stale cigarettes hung in the air like a toxic miasma, burning the eyes and throat, empty bottles of cheap whisky lay scattered around the couch and chairs, crushed beer cans a testament to the alcoholics that dwelled within. As Maerel crept through the living room, her ears twitched at every sound her paws made as she pushed unmentionables out of the way. She knew someone was home, the door was unlocked, but that didn't mean much. If she was lucky, her mother would be asleep somewhere in the house, either drunk as drunk could be, or just sleeping off the day’s work before the drinking occurred.

 

Maerel's mother wasn't the worst thing in this place though. She could take the yelling, the screaming, but it was the violence and unpredictable nature of her father that she worried about. One moment he could be slobbering drunk but tolerable, if one could ignore the profanities that escaped his mouth, the next, he could be throwing things at her, beating her with his bare paws, or grabbing her and throwing her around the house. The thing was though, he never went after her mother, always her, and so long as it was only her, her mother allowed it. After all, better that only one occupant of this hell should suffer his rath, rather than both of them.

 

"So you ditched school today?"

 

Maerel nearly jumped out of her skin as the sudden voice came at her from behind. Fur standing on end, she whirled around and found her mother standing just inside her parent's bedroom, an unreadable expression on her face. "Well?"

 

Maerel tried to think of something to say, but the words didn't come.

 

"I asked you a question you little shit!"

 

"I... I..." Her paws shaking, stomach suddenly filling with ice, she stammered and still couldn't think through the fear and panic.

 

"Before you lie to me, think very carefully, very, very  carefully about what you say, because the school already called me. Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you think you could hide it from me? What's wrong with you? Answer me!"

 

"I met a new friend, she took me out to lunch... We, we went to Corky's. That's all it was," the fox blurted out. She hated herself for not standing up to this woman, for just taking it like she always did, but, what could she do?

 

"So what, the lunches your father and I pay for you to eat aren't good enough, is that it? You don't like the food they make you, food we have to pay for?" The taller, much larger fox bellowed as she stomped out of her room, her chubby paw jabbing an accusing claw into her daughter's face.

 

"N-no, that's not it, I..."

 

"Shut up! Shut, up! You ungrateful little bitch!"

 

Maerel started backing up without realizing it, her eyes wide with fear, her heart pounding so hard she thought the neighbors would hear it over the screaming. Not that the screaming ever bothered them. Of course they couldn't ever be bothered to be concerned, not like anyone ever cared about her, save for maybe Pearla.

 

Pearla's face suddenly popped into her mind’s eye, her shockingly purple eyes showing concern and compassion in their warm depts.

 

"We feed you, shelter you, make sure you go to school fed and that your lunches are paid for, but that's not good enough for you, is it? Well you just wait until your father hears that his daughter doesn't care about the money he pays for her ungrateful ass. You just wait, now get the fuck out of my sight, and don't let me hear a single noise from you for the rest of the night. Move!" The last was said as she pushed passed Maerel so hard that she tripped and landed on her tail, aggravating the bruise from her fall in the locker room earlier. "And don't expect anything to eat tonight! You had Corky's, remember?"

 

Maerel clambered to her feet, her stomach threatening to spew up her burger from her second lunch all over the already ruined carpet, her limbs trembling so hard she thought the bones would shatter under the strain. Without a backward glance, she raced down the hall and into her room, the cleanest part of the house, and slammed her door. The verbal threat of more punishment from her mother in the other room quelled her urge to scream at the top of her lungs at her own weak stupid self for allowing this abuse to happen. Stupid, she was so stupid. She should have known better than to skip class. Taking chances? Really? Is that how she had justified it? She should have known the school would call her mother, should have known that she couldn't have gotten away with it, but she was stupid and ditched anyways, consequences be damned.

 

Maerel threw herself on her bed, buried her face in her pillow and let out a long mournful sob, a sob that held all the anger, all the grief and longing for a better life. Sometimes, she thought about ending it. Sometimes, like today, she wondered what it would be like to slice her arms open, to lock herself in the bathroom with the bath water as hot as it would go and paint the liquid red with her life. But she wouldn't ever actually go through with it. She was too weak, too afraid. It didn't matter if no one cared about her, she didn't deserve compassion or love or any of the things she read about in her books. No, she deserved this hell, because she was too weak to stand up for herself.

 

Turning onto one side, the fox looked at the books lined on the old torn up bookshelf in the corner of the room, looked at the spines of each one of those stories where the characters were stronger than her, better than her in every way. Then she thought about Pearla. Beautiful, strong, courageous Pearla, who had smiled at her, who had taken the time to try to get to know her, who had apologized for how their peers had treated her. Wiping at the tears that still spilled from her eyes, she sat up and reached into her nightstand, the same pink and white nightstand she had had for as long as she could remember and pulled out a tattered old diary.

 

This was her book, a book of her failures and weaknesses written in ink and lead and speckled with her tears in places, a book that she was the star in, though her limelight was of shortcomings and pity. Opening it and flipping through the pages, she noted all the entries going back for  five years. Finding a blank page towards the end of the diary, she snatched a pen from the nightstand and with a shaking paw, she began to right.

 

I finally met you today. It was amazing. You were kind to me, not at all like the rumors I've heard about you.

 

You took me to Corky's, bought me the best burger I've ever eaten in my life. I know you'll never read this, never know how much this means to me, but I'm grateful, even if ditching the last half of school gets me beat so bad I finally die from the pain. I wish I was like you. You're so amazing, so strong and beautiful. You didn't have to go out of your way to be nice to me, but you did. You were the first person in a very long time to do so. I just hope someday someone does for you what you tried to do for me today.

 

I've watched you for the past few years. I watched as you moved around school like nothing in the world bothered you, but I didn't know that you and me were so much alike. I had no idea that you felt as alone as I always have been, that you liked girls too. Part of me wishes that maybe one day we could be more than friends, but I know that's just stupid wishful thinking. Look, here I go again, thinking about things I'll never be able to have.

 

I'm probably going to get beat again. That's what those marks were that you saw earlier. Last night, he strangled me until I almost blacked out, then he threw me at the wall just as I thought I was finally going to die. You don't know any of this, and I'm glad for that. You shouldn't have to know. If you did know, you'd realize that I'm just a stupid weak kid who never stands up for herself.

 

Maerel paused as she heard a car pulling into the driveway. Gulping and trying to push the fear aside long enough to write, she quickly scribbled the rest.

 

I have to go now. He's home. I don't know if I'll write in this thing again after tonight, I've never done something as stupid as this before. Thank you Pearla for being the first and probably the last person to make me feel like someone cared. At least I got that much in life...

 

Dating the entry and closing the diary, Maerel quickly stowed it in her nightstand and rolled over onto her side, facing away from the door. It was always better if she didn't see the beatings coming. If she saw him coming towards her, she always tensed her muscles and the bruises were always worse, although just knowing he was home was bad enough. As her parents’ voices came to her ears from the other room, she knew from his tone that he was already drunk. This was going to be a bad one.

 

And as the footsteps got closer to her room, the trembling fox thought about her new and only friend, even as the door opened and his drunken voice broke through her thoughts. Even as the yelling happened, followed by his boney closed pawed fist impacting her side, even as she curled up into the fetal position against the onslaught of blows that took her from her bed, onto the floor and later up against the wall, her eyes closed all the while, she couldn't get Pearla's compassionet purple eyes out of her mind. No, she probably could have if she tried; she just didn't want to. Those eyes? They were her lifeline during this hell, a lifeline she clung to feverishly for her pathetic life.