My Happy Ending
“My Happy Ending”. By Avril Lavigne

I woke up from, maybe, an hour’s worth of sleep. I laid splayed on a bed covered with what used to be my long hair. The thought of taping or gluing it to my scalp ran through my mind but there was nothing I could do. I wrapped the cuts on my arms, from trying to deflect my brother’s hands. I hadn’t left my room—because they had reversed the lock and nailed my window shut—so I couldn’t get out on my own.

The door lock clicked and the door barely opened.

“Get up!” My dad yelled and then closed the door again.

I went into the closet and pulled out the remaining clothes that I wanted to wear—I would douse and burn the clothes they crammed into my drawers before I EVER wore them again.

“What the Hell?” My brother asked as when he saw me in my remaining shirt and blouse.
“Deal with it,” I flatly replied as I a gesture that was a mix of “up yours” and “what cha gonna do about it?”
“Dad!”

I hoisted up my backpack and ran out of the house. My clothes revealed every cut and bruise to go along with the brutal chopping on my scalp. I would either be ignored by everyone or everyone would ask one lame question after another.

I arrived at school with a few looks from everyone and a lot of whispers. To be honest, I was kind of scared and I wanted to talk to April as soon as I could find her. I would most likely run up to her, crying my eyes out and hoped that she would either console me or tell me to “straighten the hell up and stand tall, girl”. April wasn’t near her locker, so I walked back to my own and opened it. A folded letter fell out and onto the floor.
I knew who it was from, April, so I opened the multi-folded note.

“Dear Taylor,
My parents are pullin’ me out of school; I don’t know what damn place they’re taking me to but it’s going to be shit without you. Let’s try to meet up this week. Can you meet me at the park on Wednesday to help me figure out what we can do. April.”

True to my word, I cried my eyes out, enough to get the attention of the principal and several other teachers. They took one look at my body and assumed I had gotten into a fight and wondered where I must have stuffed the corpse of the other combatant as one of them muttered that I look led like Hell.

Thirty minutes later, I sat inside a locked from the inside room: I had barricaded the door with a table because the school had called my parents and they, in turn, heads called the police.

My first day back, it was supposed to okay. I didn’t want sugar and rainbows; I just wanted my friend, my damn hair, a less-than-shitty family and no one getting in the fucking way of my life!

And I got none of that as a news video camera looked at me through the re-enforced glass in the door, four police officers walked into the office.
“Taylor?” One of them asked and I turned my back. “I need you to open this door for me, Okay, buddy?”
I was not going to be his “buddy” in any way, shape, or form. I knew how it was probably going to end: they would ask, coax, demand, order and then ram their way in without asking me anything. Everyone on the other side of the door would play the ignorance card so the police would drag me out of that school kicking and screaming.

A few hours passed, or maybe it was just a few minutes as I lost count after the repeated requests for me to open the door and hearing my dad yelling and arguing with the police.
“Tase him or something. I’ll do it if it will end all of this!”
“This is your last chance, Taylor. We’re coming in.”
At least they gave me a warning. I grabbed a chair from the blockade pile, walked to the back of the conference room, and sat down. There was not one calm nerve in my body; the last one had fled in hysterics. I sat against the wall as they slammed on the door and everything stacked on the other side slowly buckled and fell. The police were inside the office and walked into the conference room to see me sitting at the end of the table with my hands on the table.
“Did my family tell you how this morning went?” I asked the officer who had his gun drawn.