All I Ever Needed
Prologue One
Luke
FLEETWOOD, TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO
Death would be easier, I know it.
No more pain.
No more aching.
No more doing this.
Just, no more.
Quiet. Black. Calm. I want to go there. I want to be wherever the dark is, in the places where no one can reach me.
My feet are hammering the ground, my arms are shaking, my head, sweating. I’m scared. Really scared.
“Just keep going. A little further then I’ve made it,” I tell myself, blowing out air.
My lungs ache where I’m not used to running so fast for so long. I want to scream, but I can’t. The pain is still there, still reminding me of what happened at the house. I choke on the sick that instantly reaches my mouth, stopping to spit it out before I start running again.
Why does this happen to me? Did I do something wrong?
I swipe harshly under my eye, keeping going, pushing my weak muscles until I reach the park where I know I’ll be safe.
Rounding the final corner, I freeze, my fingers curling on the iron gate. There’s a child sitting on the swing, their head down, the tips of his or her toes gently rocking them back and forth.
I push the gate open, and whoever it is looks up, startled when they see me. I’ve ran here three times since we moved and never seen anyone. It’s dingy, covered in graffiti and one of the swings is broken. But I feel safe here .
Slowly entering the park, my eyes fix on the kid’s. It’s only now I notice the coastal air is bitter, making my fingers numb. I rub my hands together before putting my hood up and tucking them in the front pocket of my hoodie.
I want to be mad that someone’s here, but when I step closer, I realise she’s just a little girl, and judging by her height, she’s a bit younger than me. I know why I’m out past midnight on a school night, but she suddenly reminds me of my six-year-old sister. My little sister who’ll be tucked in her bed alongside our brother, warm and safe, a million miles away from the world I now know.
No way this kid should be here alone. I don’t want to speak to anybody but it’s dark, late and fucking freezing. Home should be a safe place. Sometimes it’s not. Still, I ask her, “Don’t you have a family you should be getting to?”
At twelve-years-old, I’m pretty sure neither of us should be out here. It’s sad. If she’s got parents like my mother, I wouldn’t want her to go back to that. Maybe she’s running, like me? “Little girl?” I push her.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she sobs, her head dropping.
Oh crap. “Hey, I didn’t mean to—”
Before I get to say anymore, she lifts her foot, the light thud as she runs away vibrating under my stationary feet.
I watch her go, noticing she drops something when she opens the gate on the other side of the park. “Hey! Wait!” Taking fast steps to whatever it is, I dip and pick it up, looking down at an envelope. It’s opened, so I don’t commit a crime when I look inside, seeing a bracelet and a note. Slowly, I pull it out, my eyes reading the swirly handwriting. “To keep you safe in the storm,” I say out loud, looking up, wondering which direction she ran in.
The park isn’t lit up well. There’s only one light shining down on the deserted space. “Shit.” The bracelet drops to the floor, and I swipe it up, not thinking much of it. It’s simple. Light. Homemade. The beads are all black bar one smoky quartz. I can’t explain why that one catches my attention, but in this light, I momentarily feel different when I hold it.
I see my life when Dad lived at home before everything turned so evil.
My reflection hits the bead just right, and I’m certain I see a small smile at his memory. As soon as I see it, though, it’s gone, dropping like my hopes that one day Dad will come back for me .
He’s not coming back.
I wake with a start, my hands trembling. I push the covers off my face just an inch, dragging some cooler air into my depleted lungs.
It was selfish of me to keep what’s not mine, but I tried giving back the bracelet more than once, and more than once it remained in the park where I left it. So, one day, I stopped trying. I just decided to take what I could without feeling bad for it.
What’s the point?
Hearing a bang downstairs, I check the clock. Shit. It’s one in the morning on a Thursday. Her busiest night. I roll to my side, leaning over to quietly open my bedside drawer. Inside I find the sleeping pills one of the older boys at school managed to steal from his old man.
It cost me my CD player and lunch money, but these pills might help. I don’t want them, but I have to try something. Something has to change, because I’m not sure how much longer I can carry on for. Someone will eventually see through the false mask I wear.
My attempts to hide the part of me that craves a loving home, are fading. The lies are getting easier to tell, the truth, easier to disguise. I’m worried one day someone will see through it, and at the same time, inside I’m crying for that very thing to happen.
Leaving the pills on the side, I carefully swing my legs over the edge of the bed, wincing when my wrists press into the mattress. Giving them each a rub, I make my way to the laptop one of Mum’s clients bought me as a sweetener. The arsehole. I open up my email, sending a message to my dad.
Dad. Today was bad. When can you come and get me?
I immediately get the delivery failure notice.
Closing my eyes, I feel the heavy pang of misery I do whenever I try to reach out to him. I don’t have a phone, no other method of letting him know I can’t do this anymore. All I've found is some stupid email address that doesn’t even work. No home address. No phone number. Nothing.
My eyes mist but I’m not sure why. If he loved me, he would have taken me with him. He thought you were safe, the voice inside me says. But I’m not. I don’t know when or why I started believing that one day a miracle would happen and I’d be saved.
I worry when that last part of me dies, the lick of hope I have that one day my life will be different, will do, too. Then what will I do?
Hitting a few buttons, I manage to access the part of the internet the fucker who gave me this device never assumed a twelve-year-old would be able to get into. That’s his problem, not mine. I’ve searched, but I can’t find my dad for shit. But one day, I swear it, I’ll find the men who do what they do to me and I’ll make them pay. I don’t know how yet. But I will.
I tried reporting them after the first time someone came into my room uninvited. Police showed up and I thought I was free. Then again, the show my mum put on was nothing short of brilliant. She claimed I was suffering with mental health after my dad left, and they all put it down to attention seeking. It’s true, I was suffering. Still am. But the police left without talking to me, and I had to fend for myself. Mum and her cronies couldn’t prove how I did it, but the subsequent beating and rancid actions that followed that night, made me never risk it again.
I hope one day I’m brave enough to try again.
Hope.
Exiting the site and slamming the screen shut, I turn and walk to the window, looking out and seeing a car pull up down the street.
A tall guy steps out from the beaten-up Vauxhall, his hood firmly on top of his head. He turns towards our house, making my insides sink. Shit. Not him. I can’t see his face—never see his face.
But he’s the worst.
I grip the edge of the window wishing I was strong enough to jump. Run. Hide. Anything except stand frozen like I am now. But where would I go? I don’t know anyone except a few kids at school. I don’t have family here. No aunts or uncles who can take me in .
When the evil man starts making his way towards the end of our drive, I jolt, blinking away the terror trying to rattle me. I snatch my now most prized possession and put it over my wrist, working the beads between my fingers.
To keep me safe in the storm.
To keep me safe in the storm.
The past six months have been a constant storm. I knew back at the start that what takes place here isn’t normal, and I know in my heart none of this is my fault. But when I see other kids living happily, a coil of hatred tightens around my soul, making me wonder why they’re so lucky, and I’m forced to endure this?
I have to cope with it, manage it like I’ve learned to do over recent months.
The pills by my bed catch my attention, and I hate that I run to them, flipping off the lid and swallowing fuck knows how many in a panic before I climb back into my bed.
The front door opens. I hear my mum let him in.
I should have taken the pills sooner. He’s not interested in her tonight. His feet immediately pad up the stairs after I assume she’s taken his money. It’s only as I hear him stop outside my door, do I feel the heavy pull of sleep readying to drag me under. To the darkness.
I once feared sleep. Now I crave it. If I don’t know what happens, I don’t have to live with it.
Quickly hiding the pills, I lie back down, dragging the cover over my head. I don’t belong here . Come on darkness, take me. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
My door opens, and a weightlessness takes over, just as I feel him move to the side of my bed, hearing the sound of his heavy jewellery clunking as he comes to a stop.
Then it’s black, and I find my safety back in the park.