Dear Love,

I am very much sorry for writing to you again. Albeit not sad enough to not send this to you, though I regret being such a hassle to you. I just want to tell you about a couple of things and I will start with the elderly couple I saw this morning. I was taking a morning walk in the park just down the street when I saw a man and a woman in their early 80's walk past me. They walked with folded hands and smiles on their faces and you know what I saw in their eyes? I saw what could have been me and you. They symbolised my hope and dreams that I had subconsciously burried deep into your chest when you were asleep at night. They had the love and all the time in the world that we could have had. It could really had been us, you know? Nevertheless that is in the past now, you have left me and made it very clear that you have no interest in me. I must admit that it was a lowblow the day I found you in her bed. I had not expected it when I heard the moans and the creeking of a bed. Honestly I thought it was her new boyfriend and theoretically it was her new boyfriend. It was you. The door was slightly ajar and I quote the song I saw red with Warrant: ”I didn't need to see his face, I saw yours”. With my sister, really? I wanted to ask but all I could do was to stutter and shut the door running downstairs without even putting a jacket on I ran out into the night. Even now I cry just thinking about it. There is something I need to tell you though and I need to warn you that I do not tell you this out of jealousy (but I am very jealous). This has happened before. The scenario was all to alike.

It was when my sister and I were younger and you had yet to move into our neighborhood. I was head over heels in a boy called Peter and I believe he was in me, too, at one time. He had caught me hook, line and sinker just by saying hello to me one day. Naïve as I was I thought were weree meant to last forever but one day when he had slept at my house like many times before he became absent minded. He had a guiltwritten expression on him every time he looked into my eyes but when I asked what was wrong he just shrugged it off (exactly like you did, remember?) A couple of days later I received a message from him saying: ”Anne I am so sorry for what I am about to tell you. I must take this over the phone because of my cowardice (ok, you got me, he did not admit to being a coward) but I must sadly enough inform you that I have fallen in love with someone else. Anne, I am in love with your sister and now that I have learned that it is not an unrequited love I want to give this love a chance. I am truly sincerely sorry, Peter”. The message took the breath out of me, I caged myself in the room and would vomit anytime I heard the moans from my sisters room down the hall. I swore to myself that I would never be stupid enough to fall in love again. It when exactly like planned but then you came into the picture and the 11 months that we shared was great, wonderful even.

That is why I wish you would remember me with just as much kindness that I feel when I think about you. Therefore, please, do not interpret this as words written out of a bitter heart. My heart is bitter alright, but not evil. I only wish you the best and now that I have received a marriage invitation from you and my sister I congratulate you. Let me tell you some things about my sister though. She is easily bored and has never been tied down longer than two months. Peter was dumped a week after they got together and he is just one of the many boys that have had their heart broken by my lovely sister Sophie. You are not a ordinary case, my love, so do not worry. You have been together for a year and that must mean she loves you. Maybe even more than I love you. Just take into consideration that she is new when it comes to love so she is bound to be clumsy, do not be harsh on her and value her endless. Shower her with so much love that she can not bear it any longer! To summon this up (so you do not get to tired to read it):
I hold no grudge against neither one of you whatsoever. I wish you luck in both life and love but I must turn down the invitation. Please forgive me and try to see thing out of my perspective, it would hurt to much when you both now that my love for you has not withered. This will be the last of my letters and we will see each other again and things will be alright, they will just be different. I will still love you, I will always love you only next time I see you I will love you as a sister-in-law.

Please tell Sophie I said hello.

Love,

what could have been (is gone now)

P.S Sorry about the wrinkles, I could not help but to cry again as I wrote this.

P.P.S I did not write that to make you feel guilty.

P.P.P.S If you did feel guilty then that is alright too.

''I love you and don't you ever dare to forget that! Promise me, that you will never forget how much I love you,'' he desperately pleaded to me.

''I won't and even if I could I would not want to. I love you, our love is prohibited yet here I am; head over heels in love with you. I would brake any laws for you and I know very well since you have already proved it to me that you could care less about boundaries when it comes to me. Fate did not mess up when I got you as my mate, they messed up when they made you my brother. So my dear chestnut haired boy do you never forget that I love you, far more than any human mind would be able to understand.'' Saying that I swallowed my tears and placed my hand at my brothers chin.

My brother did not seem to take any notice of his tears seeing how he now cried silently and seeing his painful expression made my heart clutch. Knowing our parents would soon walk in through the door to take me somewhere far away from him I kissed him.

A bittersweet kiss with the flavor from my brothers tears.

This kiss was the reason why I could never see my brother again, his hand now on my breast was another reason. Fate made us mates and the Devil made us siblings.

''It was never supposed to end this way,'' I thought while lying my head face down on the pillow, wishing to be immune to dreams while knowing that would have been impossible. My breathing became regular but shortly after waking up from my dream I understood I would get no more sleep this night. I stood up on my floor undoing my braid to let my brown hair out, I undressed myself from my nightgown and walked down the stairs to go out for a night run.

I took a deep breath from the winter night air, a normal human would have been freezing right now but I thought it was a rather warm night. Grateful that I lived in a forest together with my mother I grinned at the thought of someone coming now. The faces of the visitors when seeing a complete nude girl outside the door would have been priceless.

When a chill went down my spine I shifted and took of to the woods suddenly very aware that I might not be alone as I had thought. Feeling slightly panicked I picked up my pace but for no good because soon I heard a wolf paws in the snow behind me and before I could dodge I felt myself being piled down to the snow. Letting a low growl out I looked the gray wolf in his beautiful blue eyes. Matter of a fact his eyes were mesmerizing and suddenly I no longer minded this wolf attacking me and scaring the living daylight out of me. I knew he was not an ordinary wolf and a male by his size and that he aroused my naughty side, I have always had a soft spot for dominant men may it be my mate or not. Believe me when I say that this werewolf is bound to be a very dominant, jealous and incredibly sexy man.

Enjoying the view beneath the werewolf I did not bother feeling scared of him, something with him made me feel oddly at ease which has been impossible since two years ago when I was fifteen. It wasn't until when the werewolf shifted back to human form leaving me with a naked human man on top of me that I decided it was enough of the softness on this douche bag. I growled loud though the boy made a motion supposedly to move his arms up in the air as to capitulate I decided I would teach him the lesson to never attack this she wolf and for the love of God never lay on top of her without permission. I held back at the strength since I did not wholeheartedly wish for the outrageous good looking man to be severely hurt but I bet his throat hard enough to make him shriek in pain, feeling the metal taste I let go and grinned when I victoriously and rather childishly switched between running and jumping home.

Shifting to human form when I got to the red house I laughed out loud knowing that I just marked a stranger with my love bite though I hope I get spared the angry mate coming after me thirsting for my blood.

I was wrong before;

it is possible to be spared the heart wrenching dreams if only one night, because the rest of that night I slept as a baby.

*

Titel dedicated to Amy Winehouse

Prologue

''Fate did not mess up when I got you as my mate, they messed up when they made you my brother.''

Werewolf's coexist with humans; though in secret.

The best thing that can happen to a werewolf is to find your mate and in most cases they will happily love each other but not everyone is as lucky. Sandra is a fifteen year old werewolf who found her mate unusually early in her life. Though she loved her mate very much she could never be together with him since her mother has taken her to move far away and has her mind set to never let Sandra return to her chestnut haired boy. Keeping someone away from their mate is a slow, silent and torturous death and Sandra has been condemned to death.

*

I'm a child filled with Hunger; a hunger to be loved.

I'm the remainings of a smile, the echo of a laughter.

Once in my childhood my second name was vitality,

fate has now doomed me to be a mistress to the misery.

I'm fifteen and I'm enslaved to self-destruction.

The razorblades are my only friends and

burning myself with cigarettes gives me a peace of mind nothing else ever will.

People say I'm broken and I can not be fixed, but they don't know me,

they don't know who I am.

I'm a survivor -

surely they did not know.

My name is Corinna and this is my story.

*

His hand hits me across my chin.

I feel the iron taste after blood in my mouth but I can not feel the pain I know is there. I put my focus on breathing deep and regular.

"He is not for real. You are a bird and it's only you and your white wings here", I repeat it to myself but it does not convince my head. He is frightening, his blue eyes stares back at me with nothing in them. He unbuckle his belt and I lay down at the torn mattress in the basement. I pull up my sweater and my shirt exposing my bruised skin. When the belt hits my back it stings enough to make my eyes tear up but the sound the belt makes when it collides with my skin is ever worse. I cover my ears with my hands trying to shut out the sound.

When did he begin? Why did he begin? Will it ever end?

All the questions ends up as a jumble like a storm in my head as I notice the salt taste of tears on my lips. I feel my lips twitch. I fooled myself for a second thinking I was numb to the pain. I'm so stupid thinking I had finally been spared the pain. I hear his footsteps on the stairs and I know he is finished for tonight. I can finally pull down my shirt and sweater to curl up in my mattress and rest my weary soul for a moment.

I don't pull down my clothes because if I move as much as an inch I groan with pain. I lay with my arms lifeless on my sides, my face gazing upon the wall. This grey old wall that I have stared at so much that I would not be surprised if my gaze would leave burn marks.

"How, Corinna, how did it end up like this? What did you do wrong, stupid girl?" I'm not completely sure if I ask the silence surrounding me or myself. I smiled when I remembered my grandmother. She was strict but I know she was the only one who ever loved me. As much as I feel like smiling when I hear her voice call me 'lass' again, just as much does it make me want to bawl my eyes out. I realise it must have been around the old woman's death that he hit me for the first time. Grandmother left an impressing amount of money in my name when she died, money supposed to secure my future in College. He though, had other plans, he somehow got hold on the money and bought pint after pint in the only bar there is in our neighbourhood. I was home alone and on that time I slept on the kitchen couch therefore I heard him when he got home. My mother, his wife, had died when I was born but he was not my father. I was just something he had to take care of whether he liked it or not.

It was in the middle of a sombre night when he shouted at me to get the hell up. He pulled my arm and I wanted to ask what I had done wrong but his moonstruck expression hindered me. He forced me down the basement for the first time ever, and I remember I was crying and begging since I was death scared of the dark basement. He screamed at me, telling me to shut up.

"I'm so tired of taking care of a child who is not even mine!", he roared.

I became temporally mute when his fist landed on my fragile five year old body. I was chocked; he had never hit me before.

I must have done something horrible wrong if he beats me, I resonated. I was telling myself how it was my fault; this is only using solid strict discipline. I always tried to do the right things after the incident, whenever he was in the same room it felt like I was walking on nails. I was so frightened to do wrong. It happened that he beat me only once in a while at first, but soon the monthly beatings became daily. He burned me with a frying pan on my back when I was seven, I had shouted so loudly that our neighbours called the police. He covered up all my bruises with accidents as he fed the officer a cock-and-bull story and I nodded silently but consent by his side. After the kind eyed officer left I was pushed down by the stairs of the basement and everything went dark.

People asks me why I retain everything if it hurts me, I want to give an explanation but I know they would not understand. People tell me it is over, he is locked away in jail somewhere far away and for God's sake I'm safe now.

No one but me knows that he is visiting me every time I close my eyes. He never left. I still hear my cries for help and sometimes I still cover my ears to shut out the sound of his belt whipping my skin red. I eat even when I'm full because I never know when the food will disappear. When my adoptive parents gives me money I worship it as a Goddess. I hurt myself physically when the hurt inside me threatens to swallow me whole. This is what they call safety; this they said was moving on.

In my heart I understand they are right, but the memories are proving me wrong.

The past is not yet my past; I still live in the basement. I'm still a victim of poverty and

I'm still hurt.

I wrote down this to leave the past where it belongs:

in my past.

*

I was a cry for help,

never leaving the throat.

I was barely alive when

I said I was fine.

I'm no longer the echo of a laughter,

I'm the delight in a smile.

Not edited (skriven av S. i årskurs 8)

"Alright kids settle down! Settle down!" Our homeroom teacher says and the children walk to their chairs sighing but is quiet. It's the english teacher and he looks awfully happy, and since I know our homeroom teacher is an romanticer, I knew right away where this was going.
"Today we're going to write about our first loves! Grab a paper, a pen and write, who was it, when was it, why did you fall in love etc etc." The teacher started telling about his first love when he was eight with someone named Alicia, after that I pressed the play button on my Mp3 and Nothing else matters by Metallica went on. My first love? I have never fallen in love with a boy before, even though I'm already sixteen and healthy. But, there is someone or something without a shape I fell in love with. I took the pen and started to write about my first and only true love.

I was five when I first fell in love. Or should I start with telling you about my dysfunctional family I was born into? Yes, I shall tell you a little about that first. Just to fill out the paper so I can get an A+ (haha). My father and mother was alcoholics who liked to amuse them self by tormenting me and my baby brother, we were very poor and me and my brother (he never got a name, so I named him Baby) owned no clothes but the torn we were forced to wear day out day in. By the years their drinking became worse, one hit became ten, ten became to many for a child who didn't go to school, to be able to count. Usually they would be careful with puncing the Baby he was to thin and his eyes were sunken, but when he became one they abused him as much as I was. At that time I was four, at least I believe I was, birthdays was something alien to me at that time. My mother would bathe us in icy cold water, maybe it was because we could afford no hot water. For a one year old, starvation, being punched and all the things they did to us were to much. Baby starved to death one year after that. So I had a break down, the Baby was gone, and so was my will to live. So I ran out of the rundown house we were living in, my parents were somewhere burying the Baby. I ran out on the streets, starving, frightened that my parents would find me. I was not allowed to go out, I ran to a dumpster looking after food. Though I did not want to live, dying was not an option either.
"Stupid brother! Stupid stupid Baby brother! I was gonna take care of us, you know! If you could just have waited until I had grown up." I screamed to no one, with silence as answer. And besides death waits for no one, he takes the one he feel like and thats the end of that story. So as I said I run to a dumpster searching food. And there it was. It was smelly, and ugly, yet the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was fully working, wich made me sure the angels sent it to me. A guitar. I fell in love for the first time that day, and I have been in love ever since.

But I still suffered even though I had found my one true love. I took it home, playing on it, learning myself. I usually sneaked out to the neighbourhood because on sundays it was a concert there. I learned to plays as the guitarist did. My parents noticed that I did not do as I were told and sneaked out. So the beatings increased, they burned me with cigarettes and a lot of other things. But I did not break! My parents went mad over me playing "that Goddamn guitar" as they said, so they tried to steel it when I fell asleep. But my small thin arms would clutch to it, defend in my sleep by kicking and biting and doing whatever I had to, they had taken one of my Babys from me. But they would never take my freedoom in shape of the guitar. One thay my father smashed my finger with a metal thing, my fingers hurted and felt a bit numb. But I continued to play on my guitar despite the pain, I guess I had come to realize that music is my only salvation.

I became better at playing, and fast! I started to play louder and more confident. I was told that the one who called the police had said: "I know there was two children there once, starving and abused. Now one of them is dead and the other has become someone who screams for help through her beautiful guitar playing."
So I was six when I was adopted to my family I live with today and they who killed Baby got prison. I still visit Baby's grave in the woods once a month. My first love taught me that love has no shape, no real name, no gender and it might smell like garbage and look ugly, but be the prettiest on the inside. Without music, I would not live today, I would not write this story while you, my homeroom teacher, talks about your Alicia. I know that the Baby and angel of music was the one who gave me the guitar that day, and I know I will be fine. For the music is my savor. The Messiah, music simply outshines every boy there is. Sometimes love has no shape, but it might have a sound.