“You stupid bitch!” A large man shouted. A tiny fragile girl cowered in the corner of her small bedroom. “I expect you home at a reasonable time, I expect dinner on the table when I get back from work and I expect you to have this place presentable.” He pointed out at the living room just beyond her bedroom door. “It’s a mess! Where were you? What had you so occupied that you couldn’t be here to do your job?” The man reached down and grabbed her arm.

The girls chestnut hair flew behind her shoulders as he lifted her with ease. She trembled as his rough hands gripped tighter and tighter. “I had to go to the store. It was packed. Daddy, please let me go.” She begged.

“It took you all day in the store?” She shook her head as tears streamed.

“No, I had work this morning, Daddy. I told you last night.”

He let go of the girl and tightened the muscles in his jaw “You didn’t tell me anything.” His glare softened as he turned to leave. “Get your useless ass up, Natalia, I want dinner.” Natalia nodded, standing as told and rushed out of the room to the kitchen. Her bare feet making a soft thud, thud, thud, sound on the hard wood floor as she walked toward the fridge.

As she looked around for something to make, her mistakes rushed through her head. ‘I shouldn’t have gotten so carried away online. I should have been doing what I was supposed to be doing.’ She eyed a package of chicken legs. She grabbed them and turned to the stove. She preheated the over and started seasoning the meat. When the oven beeped, she placed it in and started washing and peeling some potatoes.

She hummed quietly to herself as she worked. A large hand print shaped bruise started forming on her left arm. Talia had learned to block out the pain by now, so she hardly noticed the massive purple coloring skin.

When she finished with the potatoes, she cut them up and put them in a pot to boil on the stove. She headed straight for the living room, knowing that she needed to clean up before her father got even angrier with her. A small bruise was nothing compared to what he was capable of when he started drinking, and he always drank, from the moment he got home from work to the moment he passed out on the couch slobbering all over the floral upholstery. Drinking, it was his life. It was his secret life. The men at work didn’t know of his daughter, of his abusive nature or of his drinking problem. He was a clever man who could hide an elephant in an empty blue room if he had to.

Time passed quickly when Talia cleaned. She entered a world all her on, it was like when she read. She wasn’t home, blocking the punches and covering up the bruises. She was Cinderella before her Fairy Godmother rescued her. Before she was turned into a beautiful princess and escorted to the ball in her magical pumpkin. That was the world she was in. She just had to put up with it all a bit longer, the magic was soon to come, she just knew it. It had to happen. No one could go through this day in and day out without a complaint and not get something good.

The email was far from her mind at this point. Besides, she knew he wouldn’t read it. It was Liam or Niall that would have read it. She didn’t send it to them, she sent it to Zayn. The quiet one with a goofy side. The abuse he got when he came to America, the names, the threats, the accusations because of his religion and his nationality. She could relate, he was the most relatable to her. That was the other reason she sent it to him. She also fancied him the slightest bit. But she’d never thought about a relationship before. It wasn’t as if she could have one. What was the point in fantasizing about it? Who could love a girl who killed her mother, a girl who couldn’t do anything right? Who would ever love her? No one, that’s who.

When the potatoes were done, she cleaned up, mashed them and waited for the chicken to finish. As she waited, she threw a can of corn on the stove and heated it up.

Natalia quietly plated the food and brought it to her father; she pulled out the little foldable TV dinner table and placed it all in front of her father. He grunted and asked for a beer. Asked would be the wrong word, he demanded it. She did as instructed, like an obedient, trained dog.

As he ate, she went into her room and sat down on her bed to check her email. The slightest hope that he had replied. It would brighten her dull day. When there was nothing, she exited out of the page on her out dated desktop computer and shut it down. She went back to the kitchen and started cleaning up, eating her dinner as she did so.

The night went on as most do; her father drank, called her names and passed out. To her luck, she kept from angering him too much. She shut the TV off and cleaned up the mess he made before taking a quick shower and curling up in her computer chair.

She opened her email again. Her hazel eyes focused on the screen, she wondered if she should even email him again, if she would be annoying him. But the thoughts of him never even seeing the emails came back. She moved the mouse pointer toward the “Compose New” button and clicked it.

Her fingers slide over the smooth keys of the keyboard as she thought. What could she write him this time? Should she tell him more about herself? Fill him in on her day? “It doesn’t matter what I write. Here goes.” She pressed the first key and lost herself after that.