Hello, writers. Here is an updated version, thanks to your suggestions. If you want to still give me tips and suggestions, feel free. I didn't feel like making another post for this, because I didn't want to spam this subreddit. Here goes.
"Fuck" was all Alex could think.
It was a sad day for everyone, but for Alexandra, it was a particularly sad day. She lost her father, after a long battle with cancer, and just had to watch him get buried.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" Alex wondered, while almost breaking down into tears. "What is going to happen to me?" She started reflecting on how her life went up to this point, analyzing what had happened, seeing if she could find a clue on how to deal with this. This was not her first time that she encountered death along her path: It all began seventeen years ago, on the day she was born.
"A healthy, beautiful baby," the doctors had declared. But soon fate struck, as her mother became feverish after Alex's birth. The doctors fought for her life, but it was all for nothing. Later, on that supposedly beautiful day, her mother died. "If only she was here to support me." Alex thought. Alex only got to know her mother, through the stories of her father. She was a great woman according to Alex's father, who was severely affected by her mother's death.
Every three to four months, her father started to have these days, where he became hyperactive, followed by days where he could barely get out of bed. He used to take medication for it, but he began forgetting that more and more, as Alex's mother couldn't remind him anymore. The down days were the worst - not just for Alex's father, but also for Alex herself - because those were the days that he got abusive towards her. The abuse wasn't restricted to just mental abuse, but also physical. Hidden under her black shirt there was a big scar. It remained on her left forearm, a remnant of the time when her father stabbed her with a pen and violently dragged it across her arm. This scar is the reason that she only wore shirts with long sleeves.
She touched the scar with her shaky hand. She could still feel him ripping the pen through her skin. The pain she felt then, she cried for hours, just like now. Her father after he realized what he had done, helped her bandage it, while repeatedly apologizing.
She also has another noticeable scar on her eyebrow, from when her father lashed out with a pair of scissors. She still feels slightly embarrassed about the scar. The abuse of her father had lasting effects on the rest of her life as well. Alex had difficulty socializing with others. Only from the nicer moments with her father did she learn how to connect with others. She would often get into fights, particularly with the boys.
"Those fucking boys" Alex thought. Alex was a good looking girl. Ginger hair, in a pony tail, resting low on the back of her head, deep green eyes, and facial features that would make even a runway model envious. Boys would often try to hook up with her, which annoyed her to no end. "I always friendly declined" Alex thought "But still they didn't stop." This would often lead to fights, sometimes initiated by her, sometimes by the boys.
As she got older, she started winning more and more of these fights, because she got her technique down. Until about the age of 13, she had difficulty at school, not just with the boys, but also with all the trouble she caused. She would often end up in fights, some of which ended up becoming violent. Because of her home situation, she did resort to violence quite quickly.
Then Nerissa happened.
"Ah, Nerissa." Alex thought "My angel." Nerissa was a cool, down-to-earth, girl, who also got into trouble a lot as well. She and Alex tended to have detention at the same time. They started to befriend each other. Nerissa taught Alex how to play guitar, using songs that she wrote herself. Nerissa was talented, she was kind, but still teased Alex a little. She struck just the right balance to keep the friendship with Alex going, and going it did: they really started to like each other.
One day, Nerissa and Alex were just hanging out at Alex's home. Alex's father was out and Nerissa put on a movie she liked to show Alex. Alex liked the movie, but she liked Nerissa even more. Fifteen minutes into the movie. Nerissa and Alex looked at each other at the same time, deep in each others eyes. The feeling of butterflies in their stomachs was mutual. They didn't think about it and before they knew, their faces approached each other's, their eyes closed.
They kissed.
Nerissa and Alex's relationship was probably best thing that happened to Alex since her mother died. She never fought with Nerissa, because they were angry at each other. With Nerissa, Alex could truly be herself. with Nerissa, Alex was happy, a different person. But then fate turned on Alex again. Nerissa got horribly ill. She got taken into hospital. The doctors couldn't quite tell what was going wrong with her. Alex often sat at her bedside. Nerissa slipping in and out of consciousness, as her disease progressed. Alex barely could look at her while this was happening. Shortly after, she died at the age of fourteen. Alex was so distraught that she cried for a week on end. "Why her? Why her?" was all she could think at the time.
Her father, who never approved of this relationship and always considered it a good friendship, hoped that she would now go for boys again. He couldn't accept that her daughter was gay. "Not my daughter," he thought to himself on a regular basis.
Alex went back to having a difficult time making friends at school. Alex had some friends, but now Nerissa was gone, Nerissa's friends didn't even look at her. "Fake friends. That is what they were. Fucking fake friends." Alex thought to herself
Then something that she considered a miracle at the time happened: two boys - brothers from Bulgaria - approached her. Nayden and Blagun were their names. They were new at her school. "Nayden and Blagun. They were so kind to me." Alex thought. She was skeptical at first, with her previous experience with boys, but these genuinely didn't seem to want anything from her, but friendship, so she started to take a liking to the Bulgarian brothers. Her father was hopeful that one of them would in the end go for her, but before that even could have happened, fate's cruel hammer struck again, when not even six months after the friendship started, the two brothers died during a car crash.
Alex cried again. She started to think that she was cursed at the time. This was a year ago now, and she is still not completely over it. There is still an open wound in her heart.
And now again someone who was close to her died. She would miss her father, not just because of the fact that he was a family member, but also because of the good times that they had: they went camping a lot. Her father would play on his beautiful six-string. Alex would sing along with her fantastic voice and they would have a whale of a time. Sometimes the roles reversed and Alex would play a song that Nerissa taught her. "All those campfires we tried to make, but failed at so badly." she thought "All those fishes we tried to catch. All those hikes we made. All his shitty dad jokes that were so terrible that they were funny again." They would play sports a lot, particularly running. Alex always loved to run. Alex also did Archery and Horse riding, both of which she excelled at. "Thanks to my dad I could go do all those sports. I could proof to myself that I was worth something." They would watch bad movies together and laugh at the poor quality of those movies, while eating pizza. They would play board games together, ranging from the simplest to the most complex. "But these times were over now." She thought to herself "These times have passed. It was now time to focus on the future."
"Who the fuck is going to look after me?" She wondered.