MidReal Story
Torn Hearts: A Teen's Struggle to Heal
Scenario: Tori a 16 year old British school girl in year 11. Who is depressed story of her life. Also has parent problems.
Create my version of this story
I was called to the headteacher’s office today.
It’s not the first time, and I doubt it’ll be the last.
I’m not a bad kid, but I don’t really see the point in school.
I don’t see the point in much these days.
I’m sixteen years old, and I’m depressed.
I have been for a while now, but my parents don’t know that.
They think I’m just being a moody teenager, and they’re right to some extent.
But it’s more than that.
It’s so much more than that.
My mum is a nurse at the local hospital, and she works long hours on different shifts, so I hardly ever see her during the week.
My dad works in London and commutes every day, so he’s out of the house by six in the morning and doesn’t get home until late at night.
I wake up to his loud snoring, and I lie in bed for a while, listening to the sound of his breathing.
The walls in our house are thin, and it’s a small house.
It’s easy to hear everything that goes on, and he’s a heavy sleeper, so I’m not surprised I woke up.
But I am surprised that he’s still out there.
He must have come home late last night after Mum went to bed and passed out on the sofa like he usually does on Friday nights.
I don’t know why he doesn’t just go to bed.
I imagine it would be more comfortable than sleeping on the sofa with a crick in his neck in the morning, but maybe he likes it or something?
He’s been doing it for years now, and so I have gotten used to waking up to his loud snoring every weekend morning.
I get out of bed and leave my room, shutting the door behind me so that my cat, Bella, can’t get in.
I walk down the hallway and into the living room, where my dad is sleeping on the sofa with one hand hanging off the side and his mouth wide open.
His feet are up on the cushions, and the TV is still on, playing some sort of music channel.
It’s usually stuck on there for most of the weekend, unless my dad is watching one of the football matches he recorded during the week.
He watches them early in the morning when they’re still dark outside so that Mum doesn’t get mad at him for sitting around all day watching them, but he must have forgotten to turn them off this morning.
My dad loves football.
He used to play when he was younger, but now he just sits around watching it with a beer.
He watches all the games, all of them, from every league and division he can find online, and he records them when they’re on during the week so that he can watch them later.
He likes to watch games from different countries and divisions too, like Scotland and Ireland.
He tells us that you never know where the next star player will come from, so you have to watch as many games as you can to find him before he’s famous.
I don’t understand it at all, but then again, I can’t say much because I don’t really like sports at all anyway.
I don’t see the point in running around after a ball for ninety minutes or more when you could be doing something better instead, like reading a book or painting a picture or something (though I haven’t done either of those things in years).
My dad is obsessed with football, and sometimes I think he loves it more than me or my mum.
He always takes me to the pub when he wants to watch a game, no matter how old I am, even if it’s against the rules.
And today, we’re going to do that, so I should probably get up soon and get dressed.
My dad told me that he was going to take me to the pub later today so that we could watch some of the football matches together.
The Premier League is back on after a break for international fixtures, so there are a lot of games being played today.
There’s even a couple of teams playing twice today, so my dad is really excited about it.
I don’t know who he wants to watch, but I’m sure he’ll tell me later.
I walk into the kitchen and see that he’s left his empty beer can on the counter, next to the sink.
He’s already had one this morning, only half an hour after he woke up.
That’s not long even for him, though he must have been thirsty after last night.
As I open up the fridge, I wonder if he’ll have another one before we go to the pub.
He usually has at least three before we go anywhere, and then one more while we’re there.
Sometimes he’ll even buy a can of beer from the bar and drink it on his way home in the car (though he thinks I don’t know about it), so I’m sure he’ll have another one before we go.
“Do you want some cereal?”
I call out, grabbing the milk from inside and getting a bowl from one of the cupboards.
“Yeah, sure,” comes his muffled reply as he shifts around on the sofa.
“Are you coming up soon?”
“I don’t know yet,” I say, getting a spoon from inside one of the drawers before sitting down at the table with my breakfast.
“Why do you ask?”
“I just thought we could go to the pub early if you wanted to,” I say with a shrug, taking a bite of my cereal before washing it down with some orange juice from a glass in front of me.
My dad grumbles something under his breath that I can’t hear.
“Are you still drunk from last night?”
I ask him with a giggle.
“You had a lot of beer, and you went to bed pretty late.
I can’t believe you fell asleep on the sofa before you even had time to drink half your first can.”
“I didn’t sleep very well,” he says in a gruff voice.
“I had a headache when I came home, and I couldn’t find the aspirin in the bathroom.
I had to take it with me to bed or something.”
“Oh,” I say with a shrug before taking another bite of my cereal.
“Let me know what time you want to go,” he says after a moment.
“I’ll need some time to wake up first, but I should be fine by the time we leave.”
“I thought you were going to take it easy on the beer this morning,” I say with a frown, glancing at the new can of lager in his hand.
“You already had one, and you’re not going to eat anything before you go.”
He always says he’ll only have a few cans before we go out and then a few more while we’re at the pub, but he usually waits until the very last second before we leave and then does everything as fast as he possibly can.
I don’t think we’ll go early since he already had a beer so quickly after he woke up, which is a shame because I wanted to get there early and watch the first football match of the day.
If we leave too late then I might miss the game entirely, or at least the starting lineup and the pre-match nonsense I like watching.
I’ll also struggle to find a seat in front of the TV because it gets so busy on weekends.
He’s done this loads of times before, so I don’t know why he said that he wanted to go early if he won’t be ready until the last second anyway.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to watch the first match if we leave too late,” I say instead of arguing with him about the beer.
He probably won’t even listen anyway since he never does before we go out.
“I wanted to watch it too,” he says after a moment.
“It’s a big game for Newcastle United today; they need a win if they’re going to avoid relegation this year.”
“Then shouldn’t we leave now?”
He grumbles something under his breath again and starts eating his cornflakes as quickly as he can while I finish my Frosties.
I get up from the table as soon as I’m done and put my empty bowl and spoon in the sink before making my way out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
I glance at myself in the bathroom mirror once I’ve brushed my teeth and washed my face and notice that my hair looks a mess from sleeping on it wet last night, but there’s not much I can do about it now.
It’s not like anyone will care what I look like anyway since all my friends hate me and everyone else already has their own friends they like spending time with more than me.
I glance at my bed as I walk by and consider lying down on it for a little longer since I didn’t sleep well last night either (it sometimes takes me hours to fall asleep because of how much my thoughts race), but then I remember that I had something else I wanted to do first.
I didn’t take my medication yesterday because I was too upset and I wanted to hurt myself more than I wanted it to help me.
I thought about doing it while I was in bed last night, but then I realized that I might be able to get out of going to the pub with my dad if he thinks I’m too ill (even though we both know that he wouldn’t care if I was).
I go into my bedroom and lock the door behind me before going over to my desk and opening one of the drawers.
I take out my special box and place it on top of the desk next to my laptop before taking a seat in front of it.
I open up the box and take out a razor blade and a packet of tissues before getting up and heading back out of my bedroom and downstairs.
I hear my mum moving around in the kitchen and realize that she’s getting ready for work.
Her shift at the hospital starts at eight o’clock on weekends and holidays instead of half past eight on weekdays.
I don’t like it when she works weekends anymore than my dad does for some reason, so I’ve gotten into a really bad habit of not being very nice to her when she does.
It’s not like she has any choice in the matter since she has to work some weekends anyway.
