Her Saviour

What a year this has been. I kind of had a feeling that this year wasn't going to be the year for me but I never expected things to turn out like they have.

Where do I begin? Well, my name is Tara Flowers and my seventeenth birthday, which is the same day as New Year's Eve, was horrible. My grandpa turned up for brunch like he did every year but a delivery man arrived as I was letting Grandpa in the door. The guy handed me a bunch of flowers and a teddy bear. I initially thought it was from my friends so I just put the flowers in a vase and sat down to enjoy my birthday brunch with Mum and Grandpa. It wasn't until later that day when I received a text message, from an unknown number, asking if I liked the flowers and teddy, that my stomach dropped. A number of messages followed consisting of birthday wishes and apologies. My anxiety was peeking by the time my best friend Lucy turned up to get ready. I didn't say anything to anyone as I didn't want to cancel my plans for dinner with my friends. Lucy thought I was anxious about being among a big crowd, as our town holds a big festival at New Years on the beach front and that's where we were going. Any way, later that night my friends and I were grabbed by some creeps. I managed to get away but my friends weren't so lucky. The night replays on my mind constantly, especially after the court case when the girls revealed their ordeal and knowing that could have been me had I not managed to elbow the guy holding me in the right spot for him to loosen his grip enough for me to run away. I felt completely helpless waiting while my cousin and his mates went after the creeps to save the girls. I cried when I saw Millie being carried with blood on her face before she was taken away in an ambulance to hospital. I didn't even know what to say to my best friend when I saw her a while later. My Mum was out with her friends and co-workers and I didn't want to interrupt her night, she didn't go out much. I was glad when my Aunty Pam turned up and basically told us that we were all going back to her place. It was a good idea, I didn't want to be alone.

My sister Vanessa and I both received letters from our father at Easter time which made me want to vomit. He said that he was sorry for the way that things had turned out but hopes that we would visit him in jail. The thing is, I haven't seen my father since that horrifying day that I watched him beat my mother with a rake in our backyard. The incident plays over in my head like a movie. No child should ever have to witness anything like I did. And yet twelve years later it still haunts me. The look on his face was pure evil. I tried to help my Mum that day but I got a broken arm as a repercussion. We lived just outside a small town at the time which is twenty minutes from our current town. Mum told me that I didn't need to respond to or feel obligated to see him but I ended up writing a letter back explaining the nightmares he left me with. If he is seeing a therapist like he says he is, then there was some extra material. Grandpa took my letter and gave it to my father in person. I know it was hard for Grandpa, my father is his only son and he disowned him the second he received the call from the hospital to come collect me all those years ago.

Obviously these things have put my mental state in such a downer that my grades were affected. By the middle of the first semester I was failing two out of my five subjects and another two were teetering on the edge of failure. Of course my friends have no idea. I didn't want anyone to know, my friends have their own issues. Lucy only knew about my dismal effort in Biology because we sit together. I've gone from a straight A student a year ago to trying to claw my way back from failure and hopefully finish the year with B's. Something about crying in front of one of my teachers while I begged to be kicked out the class and his refusal to do so, made me think that he was either delusional or that he actually saw something in me that I'm not even aware of. Either way it was enough for me to realise that the only way up from the bottom of the trench I was in, was to climb up and out myself.

To top things off, my sister gave in to her boyfriend and moved in with him. She had been living by herself in a little unit just down the road from our Grandpa for the last three and a half years which meant I saw her all the time. She met the douche bag at uni. Yeah, I don't like him. He gets insanely jealous of anyone that Vanessa is close to and thinks the sun shines out of his ass. He's also as boring as bat shit, he doesn't like being outdoors much and is working as an insurance broker. On paper, nothing about their relationship makes sense. Mum was worried that he might be a bit controlling and could hurt Vanessa if he got angry and just wanted to take her away from us, but according to Vanessa he's not like that at all. Mum and I haven't been to their place since we helped Nessa move.

I was freaked out when Millie revealed that her old neighbour and friend was her boyfriend and then he proposed to her in front of everyone. She seems happy and she just told us that she's pregnant. I've tried to keep my opinions about her relationship to myself as I know it is merely my own insecurities. I could never be in a relationship with a guy three years older then me let alone seven. You'd think that by having positive male role models around me would mean that I didn't have any insecurities towards men, but alas I do. This of course has been exacerbated by my one and only ex-boyfriend.

"Can you believe that we only have a month left until we graduate?" Lucy says, snapping me out of my daze.

My friends all give a reply but I just silent.

"Are you okay, T?" Lucy asks me.

"Yeah, just tired," I reply. It's only half a lie, I am tired. Last night was a long-ass night. I received another bouquet of flowers when I got home from school yesterday. They, along with various little trinkets have been a monthly ordeal since New Years. This time it had a little note with it saying 'see you soon, my love'. I ripped up the note and took the flowers to my elderly neighbour. I didn't want to just throw them out, plus Mum would have seen them. Old Mrs Gills is ninety three. She lost her husband earlier in the year, and I liked to think that my monthly gift of flowers brought a little light to her day. Not that I would ever tell anyone where the flowers came from. I know I should at least tell my best friend that my ex is sending me flowers but I'm hoping he gets the picture and just moves on to someone new.

"Excuse me, girls. I'm not feeling so good," I say to Lucy, Millie and Matilda as I stand up.

I know my ex is getting out of jail just before Christmas and that thought alone has my stomach churning. I speed walk to the girls' toilets and throw up my lunch.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that on my first day of school this year, my ex-boyfriend Jason, hit me whilst I was here at school. Lucy stood up for me but ended up getting in a fight with his sister. Jason was charged with two counts of assault. He only got six months for that, he got four months for other stuff.

I'm sitting on the floor next to the toilet, trying to hide my crying when some girls walk in. I'm thankful that I locked the cubicle door so I can't be recognised.

"Are you okay?" a girl asks from the other side of the door.

I wipe my eyes and nose with some toilet paper. "Yeah, I will be," I reply.

"Tara?"

"Yeah?" crap.

"Do you need me to get someone?"

"No thanks, Claudia. I'll be fine," I reply.

"Are you sure? You don't sound fine."

I'm greeted with Claudia's kind smile as I exit the cubicle. "Rough day?" she asks me.

"You could say that," I reply, attempting to clean up my face.

Claudia offers me a mentos as we walk out. We have our next class together so she comes with me to collect my things from my locker, she had already collected hers.

Claudia is quiet, like me, except that she's a lot more artsy like Millie. We didn't really get to know each other until year eight when we both picked Music. She's also in my Maths class, along with Millie. Claudia has soft feminine qualities about her and is very pretty. Her long light brown hair is almost always pulled up into a bun and she's about the same height as me. She has been dating Ace Richards since June, a few weeks after Millie's birthday party. Ace is a typical nerd, he loves everything techy and is only doing Music as he didn't want to do cooking or chemistry. He's pretty good at playing the saxophone though. Claudia and I both play the flute and a little bit of piano. My sister has tried to teach me how to play the guitar so many times but I just can't get it.

We've pretty much finished all our Music assignments, our last one is a practical assessment this Friday, then it's just studying for our exam. Our Music teacher, Mrs Whitmore, has us practice for our assessment. We will be performing at the Spring Garden Festival in the centre of town at the botanical gardens. Mrs Whitmore has had her senior students perform at the garden festival for the last fifteen years for their final practical assessment. I'm kind of looking forward to it as we'll be outside. All of the other performances I've ever done for Music have only ever been here at school on the deck outside the music room or at the shopping mall playing Christmas songs as an end of year thing.

"Don't forget to invite your families. I know it's during the day so not many parents will be able to make it due to work commitments but you may have other family members to ask. A reminder that the bus is leaving at eleven thirty so please make sure you have eaten and gone to the toilet before we leave," Mrs Whitmore says. "We will return to school at two pm so no need to bring your lunch."

I enjoy the rest of my music class, music seems to calm me a little from the crazy thoughts going round and round in my head.