Chapter Text
“Go to your room!” he said, holding the belt, “I don’t want to hear a word from you for the rest of the night, bitch.”
Danielle knew not to mess with her father like this, her bruises and scars proved years of experience for this kind of thing, and she didn’t want to add a new batch of markings to her already beaten back. All she wanted to do was to go online and talk about it to the people she trusted… or at least she thought she could trust.
She spent a lot of time on these websites. 4chan, FaceBook, Snapchat, she met people who were outlets for her. Parental figures she never had. A notification popped onto her phone.
“Now show me your little dress, little one” the message said, coming from a man she knew online. He treated her nicely, unlike her mom or dad ever did. She knew he was trustworthy, so she pulled out her favorite red dress and leggings out of her dresser and put them on, happily taking selfies for him.
“What a pretty little girl you are… you really are special” He responded, making Dani smile at her laptop.
“Can you show me what's under the dress? I bet a sweet little girl like you has a cute little body to go with it” Her smile left as the response played out onto her laptop.
“Do I have to?” she typed in response, “I’m not sure if this is safe.”
“Just do it, honey. You can trust me” he typed back, sending his own selfie back, smiling at the camera with the face Dani recognized clearly from all the phone calls and messages they’ve had in the past.
“Okay, I’m taking the picture now” she quickly typed, lifting up her dress to take the picture, feeling sweat form on her neck as she took photo after photo. She needed the validation from him desperately, and was willing to do anything for it. It felt so wrong to take these pictures, she almost felt guilty about it, knowing that it was probably unsafe. She still wasn’t sure this was a good idea, but she was willing to risk it all for him.
The man wasn’t as trustworthy as she thought, and he had three daughters at home with him that he never mentioned, as well as a wife who had no idea this was happening. He had many girls of Dani's age on his phone, and nobody knew about it.
At the same time, another little girl, Eleanor, was out at the park with her father, swinging rapidly on the swings and showing off.
“Faster, faster!” she shouted, her father smiling as he pushed her higher each time, Ella giggling as she swung.
Her father pushed her higher on the swing, Ella’s feet barely grazing the sky. She could hear her father’s encouraging words echo in her mind, pushing her to go faster. "Faster, Ella, show me what you’ve got!" She grinned, determined to nail the jump she had been practicing by herself at the park for weeks. This time, it would be perfect.
As she jumped off, she fell over. She had done this fifty times before and just now she fell over, scraping her knee and beginning to cry. Her father dashed over to her to comfort her and clean up her knee. It may have been a small thing, one fall off the swing, but she was really hoping to do her cool jump… and she failed.
Ella had no mother, she never met her anyways. Her father was a nice guy and always tried to stay in her life and spend as much time with her as possible, but it just wasn’t the same. She never got talks about her period, makeup, boys, and all those things that most young girls got taught early on. She also didn’t have many friends, which wasn’t surprising considering how she never left her house and spent all her time with her dad reading books or playing by herself with her toys.
School life was different for both the young girls. Dani quickly made new friends due to her social personality and her mature attitude. She was almost always surrounded by friends at recess, talking and laughing on the swingsets and sitting on top of the monkey bars with her friends. Ella on the other hand, had nobody, besides the teachers that is. She would mostly stand next to her teachers or pluck grass out of the ground while talking to herself.
“I learned a new word from my daddy.. fuck” Dani spoke, giggling as her friends gasped in response, “I know, my dad told me not to tell anyone about it.”
“What does it mean?” one of the girls surrounding her asked, seeming amused by the words she was saying.
“I think it’s a mean word” she responded, “My dad was being mean when he used it.”
“Wow, do you know any other words like that?” another girl questioned, curious about all these bad words that she rarely gets to hear.
As Dani listed these words, she felt something, more mature maybe. She felt like an adult, or at least what she thought an adult was like. She felt cool, cooler than all her peers, cooler than all her friends online, cooler than the teenagers in her K-12 school, cooler than her mother and father. She felt proud.
She noticed a little girl sitting on the “Buddy Bench” as the teachers called it. The bench was painted yellow and decked out in little flower stickers and paintings. She felt a little bad, but more amused. It was just another girl she was so much cooler than.
As the bell for recess ended, she walked back to her teacher to line up and head back to class, saying bye to her friends that had a different teacher from her and laughing with her friends from the same class.
Ella was also rushing from recess to get back to her separate teacher, standing at the front of the line as she had nobody to walk with anyway. Besides, she had art next, and oh how she loved art.
It was the watercolor unit, her favorite. They were supposed to be painting gradient sunsets, and of course her painting wasn’t that good as she was only six, but she was proud. The people at her table were loud, talking with each other and laughing like the little kids they were.
“Oh, what are you guys talking about?” she asked towards the table, wanting to at least try to join into the conversation.
“We’re talking about how stupid this is, I hate watercolor!” the other girl said, moving her arms to showcase her messily done watercolor.
“Well, I like watercolor a lot!” Ella spoke, smiling as she shared her opinion on the project.
“Well, it sucks,” the girl said back, giggling.
Ella, being the sensitive six-year old she was, felt upset at this. Even though most would’ve taken it as a joke, she couldn’t. She found it hard to understand when people are joking, taking a lot of things literally. Many of her peers didn’t like being around her for these reasons, her sensitivity bothered many.
Dani, on the other hand, was spending time with her friends in her PE class, they were playing dodgeball, which she enjoyed. As she dodged the ball, she giggled with her friends before she fell. She got knocked down by one the balls and face planted directly into the floor. All her friends giggled while a couple of them surrounded her and tried to help her up. She was humiliated, tears welling up in her eyes despite how hard she tried to hold it in. Her father always told her crying did nothing but make it worse, she didn’t want people to think she was a weakling anyways. As her friends helped her to the nurse, she felt extremely embarrassed, her cool demeanor fell for a second, and she needed to make sure it never happened again.
She dwelled on it for the rest of the day, taking it out on her friends just like her father would take his anger out on her.
“Stop making fun of me!” she yelled at her friend as they were making jokes about it, “It’s not even that bad! All athletes have falls like that during games! I’m just that good!”
“You’re a bad athlete then!” her friend responded, the circle of people surrounding them giggling, Dani wasn’t used to being embarrassed like this. Honestly, she was used to embarrassing others more than being the one humiliated.
“Shut up,” she mumbled under her breath, “It’s not like you're any better.”
More giggles came from the kids, before they simply left her alone due to her attitude over the game. She sat at her classroom seat by herself, sulking as she fidgeted with her pencil. Sure, she felt a little bad for lashing out at her friends, but at least they weren’t able to continue joking about her like that.
By the time the bus ride started, Dani had moved on from the situation and went to sit over by her friends, they acted a little weird around her after what happened that day, but at least they agreed to sit with her, that’s all that mattered.
Across from them, there was the girl from the bench again, sitting alone and reading by herself, looking a little sad as well.
What a weird kid, Dani thought to herself, before feeling her first ounce of sympathy over her, I wonder if she also had a bad day at school.
Dani began sweating as she got off the bus, knowing that she would have to interact with her parents again. As she opened the old creaky door, her parents were both in the kitchen, fighting as usual. Dani tried to step through quietly but unfortunately, her mother noticed and pulled her into this.
“See what you’ve turned our daughter into?! She’s been so stupidly bratty and it’s all because of you!” her mother yelped.
“And that’s my fault? She takes after you, you’ve always been a snotty bitch” her father retorted. Dani desperately wanted to escape this situation, she didn’t want to continue being blamed for her parents fighting and arguments.
“I’m sorry,” she managed to mumble, hoping that it’ll make her parents let her go up to her room.
“No, you’re not sorry. If you we’re sorry, you wouldn’t of caused this to happen!”
Dani frowned, and slowly stepped away to head up to her room. She planned to go online to talk to her friend once again while her parents fought.
“Hey, my parents are fighting. Can we talk?” she messaged the man on her screen, it immediately being read. The man began to type.
“Of course, sweetie. Anything for you.” he messaged, “But I’m gonna need something in return. A cute picture of you braless maybe ;)”
“I just need some comfort, I don’t want to send you pictures today. Sorry.”
“Then I’m not gonna listen to you. Tell me when your willing to send the pictures. Then we can talk.”
“Please. I had a bad day, you’re the only person I can talk to. Please, I’ll owe you pictures tomorrow to make up for it.”
“Not good enough. I’m blocking you, asshole.”
Dani began to spam message him. Her legs beginning to shake as she typed message after message. No matter what she did, the same outcome came. Message unable to send. She fucked up.
Eleanor on the other hand, had also just gotten off the bus, running into her house to finally interact with someone, her dad. Though, when she got home, her father wasn’t there… again. She absolutely loved her father, but lately he’s been late at work daily. He’s supposed to get her off the bus, but he’s still working. She trudged to her pantry to grab herself a snack, usually her dad would make her a nice bowl of soup or another one of her favorite snacks, but today she has to do it herself.
Whenever she was alone like this, she would arrange her stuffed animals around her and talk to them. As much as she felt like an idiot for it, at least she was never completely alone. She conversed with her plush while she made herself a snack, laughing as she imagined them telling her jokes and answering everything she said. It was sad, really, but it was better than sitting by herself. Anything was better than sitting by herself.
And yet, that’s all she did.