Anna Bella (Still being edited) She wasn't a dancer,and nor was she a singer. She was just a teenager with no apparent talent like the girls had had that surrounded her. In fact, she has never felt entirely happy. For all that she could remember she lived in sadness, and emptiness that plagued her heart as she watched #life happen outside of her. Unfortunately, it was something that she felt she was never really a part of. She was a lonely girl, and she lived outside a prestigious town in a large white bungalow that her parents had owned. Her mother was a house wife, and her father a successful business man. She had had everything in #life that most others dreamed of; private education, holidays abroad, a loving family and a cat that she loved dearly. But there was still that one thing that was missing, and it was something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Every day was emptiness, wherever she went it followed her like a disease. It was dangerous. It stopped her from doing all the things she'd ever dreamed of, because, well, most other people her age thought that writing was lame. Anna Bella always dreamed of being a writer. Her dream was to write a book, but she never thought she'd be able to achieve it. There was this girl at school, and her name was Carrie. She always got bullied because in her spare time, when all the others were having fun in the playground and flirting with the boys, she would sit inside and write her little sister stories. Annabella always used to watch the other girls bully her, and she made an oath to herself that she would never become Carrie. She wouldn't ever let anyone find out who she really was, and she would go along with all the pointless antics that the others did just so that she could fit in. So, Annabell was a boarder, she spent weekdays and weeknights at school. She didn't mind it so much, not when her sister bullied her though. Lara was in the year above her, and she was everything that Annabell wasn't. A singer, a dancer, an actress. Annabell hated to be in the limelight, it just wasn't her, but she craved it; just as everyone else did. She wanted to be just as normal as everyone else was, but there was something about her, something about her that even she didn't understand. Her feelings went way beyond than what anybody else could imagine. She soaked up emotions like a sponge and she couldn't understand why she had been cursed in such a way that nobody else of her age had to deal with. There was something about her, something about her that she hated. And she fought so hard just to get rid of it. Everyone else just thought she was over sensitive, but perhaps it was something far beyond anything that others could imagine. Sometimes she knew things, sometimes she knew things that she didn't want to know, and perhaps, dare I say, that she shouldn't have known. Annabella tried so hard to run away, but eventually the time came when she had to face up to what she feared most, and that was the truth. The truth that buried itself in her heart many many years ago, and now she thinks, and knows, that it is time to expose. It had all begun when she was thirteen, the number that most would associate with the devil, and I don't doubt that perhaps there was a reason for it. Because for her, that year was when everything went wrong. She had been attending the same school since the age of three, she had formed some strong friendships with those that had been attending for the same time that she had, and she had familiarised herself with the school and its staff over the years. She wasn't an underachiever, but more of an over ache over if anything, and she had a love for English literature. She was a quiet girl, and one most wouldn't notice if they walked into a room. There was nothing quite so dazzling about her, she was plane, and some would call her ordinary. Her mother and father were often on business trips and holidays to the south of France, so her and her sister spent a lot of time boarding at school as I had mentioned before. Annabella was nothing like her sister, and her sister treated her terribly, for what reason at this time she didn't understand. Her father had a drinking habit, and on some occasions that she can remember as far back as her childhood, ended violently and in No way that any child should witness. Her mother would always cry , and Anna Bella would be the one to comfort her and lay by her side until she would come around. Lara didn't do her mother much good either, she was an uncontrollable child that always wanted her way and no other. I wouldn't want a daughter like her. Her mother would cry and weep and Lara would push her buttons until she couldn't cope much more and act in ways that Anna Bella wasn't familiar with, now, when she looks back at it. She realises just how dysfunctional her family was, and how I much can be hidden behind closed doors. It's a saying that Anna Bella only knows too well. A lot can happen behind closed doors, a lot can happen that never gets exposed, and that's why the beauty of writing becomes so healing when one can express themselves in the form of black ink and blotches on paper that connects and bounds our hearts together. By the age of fourteen Anna Bella had taken two overdoses. She was so depressed she found no purpose in #life for her to be here, only to suffer and watch the #life shed envisioned crumble at her sleeve. She'd been to four different boarding schools and hadn't even achieved any GCSE's. All the people she thought were her friends has betrayed her, and the men she thought had loved her had thrown her away like dirty linen. Annabella couldn't find a way out of this #depression, it had taken over her mind and her #life it was like anywhere she went it would follow her. The rumours, the half truths. Nobody knew her side of the story, and how much she had been through. How much she had survived, and how much of a mask that for all these years she has been hiding behind. Her mother had reached wits end. This wasn't her daughter. She hadn't brought her up to end up the way that she had, and associate with people she didn't approve of. Anna Bella had reached a dead end. It was only a few days after shed been discharged from hospital that she cried for help, and she begged her mother. "I need help mum. I don't know what to do anymore," she sobbed, sitting on the sofa. Her mother had already tried shoving another school down Annabellas throat, but it wasn't like any other. It was a Therapeutic Boarding School in Upstate New York, that specialised in helping troubled teens that suffered from a range of mental health disorders; ranging from anxiety and #depression, to alcoholism and drug addiction. "I want to go to America Mum, there's nothing left for me here anymore." She said. "Ok" her mother responded, and within the next two days she has already arranged and booked a flight from Heathrow to Newark. Anna Bella had always dreamed of visiting America for as long as she could remember.