The Broken Angel

Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Who I Am

Angelica's POV

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Walter asked, looking at me through the mirror. I reached up and touched my recently dyed and cut hair. I had Walter cut my excessively long hair into a very short hair cut. He had shaved down the sides to a couple centimeters long and left the top about five inches long. Not only that, I also had him dye the top part pure white.

"Yeah, it's perfect." I said, smiling. I turned around and gripped his hand. "Thank you." Walter laughed.

"Don't thank me yet." he said. "Beck may kill us both when he finds out." I waved my hand away.

"Eh, it doesn't matter." I said, playing with my hair. "Beck is keeping me here for a reason, so I doubt he'll kill me over some hair. And, I don't have to tell him you helped me, just some random guy I saw." Walter laughed again.

"Are you going to be alright now?" he asked. I shrugged.

"I think so." I said, looking down at my legs. While waiting for the dye to finish, Walter helped me walk around and retrain my legs to work again, so I can walk, but I'm still unstable at it.

"Alright, but before I go, I have a question." he said. "Why did you choose white? I know you had it in your hair previously, but I wasn't sure why."

"Because my mom had white hair." I said and he looked confused. "She had really blonde hair as a teenager. When she got to her mid-twenties, it had completely faded into white."

"Your dad's hair is a light brown. Where did your black hair come from?" he asked.

"Well, I'm not really their kid." I said and Walter looked shocked. I laughed as I looked up at him. "If you want to be techinical, I am not related to Wesley by any means of blood."

"Wait, are you adopted?" Walter asked.

"Well, sort of." I said. "My birth parents died in a car accident when I was three and so I was taken in by the Lawson's. Jen Lawson always wanted a daughter and was told she couldn't get pregnant, so when her best friend died, she decided to take me in."

"Wow," Walter said. "You aren't even related, and you still took all that abuse?" I shrugged.

"Wes was stuck there, one way or another." I said. "You don't know how many times I had called CPS on Donald, but they didn't believe me. When he wanted to, he could put up the caring and loving father facade pretty well and act like I was seeking attention."

"You are a brave girl." he said and I shook my head.

"No, I'm not brave." I said. "Stupid, careless, protective, obsessive, crazy and needy are all the things I am, but I can't add brave to the list. Jen wanted me to take care of Wesley, so I made sure to raise him to the best of my abilities."

"Does he know any of this?" Walter asked and I nodded.

"Yeah, Donald used to always try and kick me out, yelling that I wasn't even his child anyways, but I would sneak back in to house." I said. "He was always drunk, so he never noticed me and forgot in the morning. Wes has seen a few of those times."

"I'm sorry." he said, sadly. I could see pain in his eyes and knew he was thinking back to his own past. I waved him off and smiled up at him.

"It's fine, it's not your fault or Wes' fault or anyone beside my own and my adoptive parents." I said. "Now, can you go so I can stop sitting here in a towel? I'm starting to get cold." Walter laughed and nodded.

"I'll be downstairs. Yell if you need anything." he said. And then, he left the bathroom. I looked back at the mirror and saw how gaunt I was. I rubbed my face. I hated seeing myself like this because it always made Wes worry more than he had too.

I rummaged through the drawers and found nothing but male products. I knew this wasn't my room because there would definitely be make-up products in these drawers if it was. I stood up, using everything I could find as an anchor, and made my way out of the bathroom.

I walked to the door and as I pulled it open, I saw a man standing on the other side with his hand raised like he was about to knock on the door.

"Hey," he said, quickly dropping his hand. "I was just about to check up on you." I studied his face and soon his name popped into my head.

"Patrick, yes, hi." I said, laughing. "Can you show me where my room is because I know it's not this one." He hesitated, but nodded his head. He wrapped an arm around my waist and helped me walk. I held my towel up with my left hand and gripped onto Patrick's back with my right.

I was sure Beck would be extremely hostile if he seen us right now, but I didn't care. None of my stuff was in that room, so I was going to get dressed.

Patrick brought me to another room and opened the door. I recognized this room now. It was the room Wes and I had shared before. The other room was probably the room Beck had tried to force onto me. "Is this okay?" he asked.

"Yes, perfect." I said. "Thank you." I stepped inside and leaned against the door. "Well, goodbye." I started to shut the door when Patrick put his hand on it, stopping me.

"Wait," he said. I looked up at him, confused. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry about what?" I asked. I don't think he did anything wrong to me. I mean, he helped me to my room and has done nothing but be nice to me from what I remember.

"Everything." he said, staring at the ground, angry and sad. They were probably the worse two emotions to have at one time. "I should have made more of an attempt at watching you. I should have been more careful and stopped you. I should have-" I raise a hand and covered his mouth. He looked up at me, shocked.

"You also could have chained me to a chair and left me, but you didn't." I started, smiling. "You could have beaten me into submission like all the other men in my life had, but you didn't. You could have just locked my brother and I in some room and left us there to rot, but you didn't.

"There is a lot of things you could have done differently, but there were also a lot of things I could have too. Like, I could have not gone down there in the first place. Or ran away before I had gotten far enough down. But, I didn't do either of those things, so I paid the consequences for it. It's not your fault. Even if you are part of this gang, or friends with Beck, you are still a good guy." I finished.

Patricked gripped my wrist and pulled it away from his mouth. He glared at a space behind my head and shook his own. "No, I am not a good guy." he said, darkly.

"You are." I said. "At least, to my brother and I, you are a nice guy and fun to be around and that's a lot more than I can ask from you." He smiled and looked at my hair like he had just noticed it.

"Thank you, Angelica." he said, smiling. "And, I love what you did to your hair. You look even more beautiful." He leaned down and gently kissed my cheek.

I blushed, embarrassed since I'm still standing here in a towel, shocked because this was the first time this has ever happened to me, and happy because I truly believed Patrick to be a good guy and I was okay with this.

Patrick left after that and I shut the door. I leaned against it as I tried to get my bearings, and then stumbled my way to the dressers. I grabbed an outfit and made my way to the bathroom. I opened the drawers and seen all my make-up products inside. I got to work, trying to hide the bruises and the anorexic look to my face.

After I was done and okay with the look, I decided to get dressed. I had dropped a couple sizes, so my black, ripped jeans needed to be worn with a belt. I pulled a tight black tank top over my body. It had a skull on it with blue and purple flowers on it. Luckily, this was one of my old tank tops, so it was able to fit my now thin body.

I pulled on my black, studded boots and a pair of long, black lace gloves. I replaced all my earrings I had, since it has been a long time since I changed all of them or even all seven earring in my right ear and all five in my left ear.

I sat back and looked in the mirror at myself. I didn't look half-dead like I had earlier, so that was a plus. I stared into my now faded blue eyes and forced a smile onto my face. Wes will be worried, so I need to make this feel as real as possible. I tried over and over and over again, but the smile on my face felt like fish hooks pulling at each end of my mouth and forcing my face to make an unnatural smile.

Anger gripped my heart as frustration came with each failed attempted. I stood up and punched the mirror as hard as I could, glass shattering under my knuckles and falling to the sink.

"Why is it so hard now?" I snapped, gripping the edge of the sink as I stared down at the glass shards reflecting up at me, my blood covering some of them. I gripped the sink so hard my knuckles of my left hand turned white and my right hand poured more blood out of it's glass embedded cuts, but I couldn't feel it.

Maybe, I didn't want to feel it.

I turned on the sink and pulled out the glass. I rinsed my hand off and cleaned up the wound, wrapping it in gauze wrap. I scooped all the glass out of the sink and threw it into the trash can next to the counter.

"It's time." I said to myself. I pushed myself away from the sink and took a deep breathe. I made my way to the door and pulled it open. I glanced back at the damage I had done and closed my eyes before shutting the door behind me. I made my way to the door and was ready to show everyone who I really was.