For as long as she remembers, Viktoriah's life wasn't as "picture perfect" as everyone portrayed it to be. Her mother came home drunk every night, occasionally bringing home a secret lover. Her father was much worse. Every chance he got, he made sure to hurt Viktoriah, physically and sexually. All of this abuse caused Viktoriah's life to be painful and not worthwhile. Sadly, the protection from her older brother, Christian, was gone since he left for college.

The life she was living was not healthy, not even close. She dreamt of traveling to faraway places, where things were much better and happier. So far, her safe haven hasn't come. She loses hope that it ever will. She felt alone, with no where to go, and with no one who cared. Everyday was a battle, and it doesn't help that she is bullied. But bullying isn't only committed by others, it can easily be yourself. She constantly brought herself down and shamed every part of her. She soon found more flaws on the tip of her finger than the perfections throughout her entire body. Her wrists weren't as clean as they used to be, and she easily became full from a single slice of bread. (Which then after she felt she was too fat, so down the toilet it went.) Viktoriah believed she would never be happy, not until every drop of blood in her body was drained and the scale reached zero.

Little did she know, she was noticed by someone. Charles noticed all the small things about Viktoriah. He saw that her once piercing gray- blue eyes were now dull and empty. Although he knew she felt broken, Charles found her breathtakingly beautiful. He was drawn to her, in more ways a string of words can imagine. He needed to be a part of her life. He wanted to be the cause of her happiness.

Charles began doing anything he could to see Viktoriah's intriguing smile. He sat with her at lunch, and made numerous jokes. Although he believed they were stupid, she chuckled at the end of every single one of them. In that moment, he realized her smile was the most beautiful thing in the world. He began to fall in love with her, and he was going to tell her exactly that.

On one Friday afternoon, Charles and Viktoriah sat in front of the school, talking. Before he realized what he was doing, Charles turns to Viktoriah and started to speak.

"I'm deeply in love with you." Viktoriah was shocked to say the least, and didn't know what to say. "I am, while I am very sure on how I feel, I really would like to know how you feel."

Viktoriah had infinite thoughts running through her mind. It was like that line in The Fault in our Stars, "I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend." She felt like she was on a roller coaster, too. Except her roller coaster never went up. It is constantly going down, there's swirls, and it's going upside down. She's the only passenger on the ride, and she sees everyone at the bottom laughing at her. She's stuck, but the roller coaster keeps going. She is stuck, but the roller coaster has no end. She is stuck, but no one seems to notice.

Her mind jumps back to reality, and processes in her mind what she is going to say to Charles. "No, I cannot love you. Maybe it is because of the way my father told me he loved me. With one hand resting on m thigh, and the other hand caressing my cheek, both made the events of that night miserable. No, I cannot love you. The last time my mother told me she loved me was years ago, when the alcohol wasn’t coursing through her veins. Now, with a slurred speech, she tells me how much she hates me and how much she wishes I was never born. To make matters worse, she is the one to hand me the razors to harm my doomed skin. She has the slightest decency to say she loves me when guests are at our "perfect" little home.

"And the last reason I cannot love you, is probably because of what my brother said to me when he told me the exact same thing. He said he loved me, and that he would always protect me. He then promised he would never leave me. When he left for college, it was the last time I saw him. That was seven years ago. I cannot love you for the way love has been defined in my life. It is a path I will not take. Being loved for me, mean sexual, physical, and verbal abuse, it means people leaving, it means broken promises, and it is a way of love that I would never want to love you, or anyone with."

By the end of Viktoriah's speech, both of them had tears running down their faces. They soon had to go their separate ways, and Charles went to give her a hug. Of course, Viktoriah was very hesitant, but went ahead and hugged him back. When Viktoriah arrived home, she saw her father was there already, along with a few of his friends. She immediately knew that tonight will be the longest night of her life.

"TEEN GIRL FOUND DEAD.
Local teen, Viktoriah Adams, was found dead, beaten to death, in her basement. She was found on August 17, 2015. Evidence shows that both parents were very abusive, they are now taken into custody as prime suspects of this murder."

Charles quickly turned the television off, he could not stand to see any more of what had happened. He soon felt so empty, so overwhelmed that the girl he loved most would never be seen by him again. He would no longer wait outside to talk to her, he would no longer pack her lunch, he would never get the chance to do anything with her again. Why? Why her, out of all the people in the world, must die now? He simply didn’t understand.

After many months of this inevitable grief, Charles looked at the knotted rope, and the bottles of pills before him, and whispered, "I will be with you soon my love, both of our lives simply did not turn out to be as 'picture perfect' as they seemed to be."