***All sexually active characters are of age, 18 years old at least, and some scenes may cause distress. Be safe and vigilant.***
Morning breaks brightly, but not so much for Mia Milosevic, 18, as she gets herself ready to go out in the bathroom at the flat, with her friend, Daisy May, 24, badgering her, "Still not talking to me? Come on, please? I said I was sorry."
Mia sighs heavily, tiredly saying, "I'm not, 'not talking,' to you. I've just got to go out to college today, and I didn't sleep well."
Daisy wittily teases, "I heard... A few times!"
Mia scoffs, shooting a scorned look at her friend's lewdness, forcing a, "Ha, ha... I've got a day of coursework and review ahead of me. We go in and go over what we've done at home, and we get given new assignments... I'm so fucked..."
Daisy concernedly asks, "Want me to take you in? It's no hassle. We can stop for coffee and breakfast on the..."
Mia cuts her friend off with a harsh, "No," not meaning to sound so angry with her voice raised, feeling bad as she breathes deeply with her eyes shut, adding, "Please, just give me time to process things... I just... need to figure things out for myself."
The young teen goes to leave the bathroom, stopped when she hears Daisy call after her, "I wish it never happened."
Mia opens her mouth to speak, not finding anything to say, deciding instead to leave her friend's flat as her need to get the bus into town is more pressing. She makes her way, sort of hurriedly, to the bus stop, collapsing on the bench in the shelter, eyes closed as the fresh air cools her face and hair. It's not long before her ears are met with the sound of a bus pulling up next to her, opening it's doors to let her on-board.
The bus is busy, and quiet, with commuters not awake enough for chit-chat, and too tired to care. Mia stews in her thoughts, clutching at her belly with pangs of hunger, thinking she could stop on the way to the college campus to get a breakfast muffin, with her mouth salivating, almost tasting the greasy sausage that would be on it. A thought creeps in to ask herself if she is pregnant, afraid of her dad, and what he did, but repeated tests have come up negative, and she isn't showing signs. Probably fine, right?
The heart of town beats with the footsteps of pedestrians, and the chugging from the exhausts of road-going vehicles, loud, and obnoxiously packed, with people brushing by the young teen from all directions. Mia is buffeted around in the storm of shoulders, barely able to discern where she is going, but getting by through tracing her route by the familiar paving stones of the paths she walks.
Arriving on campus, Mia is met by a much sparser scene, with hardly anyone out in the nearly empty, expansive car park, and a few people in the distance by the entrance to the main college building. A short way along the path into the car park, the young teen hears an indistinct voice calling her name off to the side where there's a small utility building cordoned off by a brick wall, warily looking around to see the source. Pulse quickening, she walks faster for the main building, stopped by a more distinct shout of her name. She shudders as the shout crashes through her entire being, turning to see her father standing behind her, making her blood run cold.
Mia's father crushes his daughter's wrist in his grip, pulling her by force around the corner of the utility building where his work van is parked. Mia tries to find her voice to protest, even scream, but she only gasps, like her voice has been stolen, distressing the teen more as she is thrust by a hand to the throat up against the side of the van, eyes scanning all they can see; nothing but bare, brick walls and metal doors. She clutches at her dad's forearm, trying to get him to let her go, but he's too strong for her. He pulls his daughter to his chest, with her back to him, and his hand around her throat is replaced by the crook of his arm, clasping tightly, feeling the blood thump thick through the chunky neck as the girl becomes limp.
Mia stirs to the stiffness of plywood beneath her, shifting her weight to hear and feel the crinkling of plastic, opening her eyes to the gloomy horror of the back of her dad's work van furnished all around with sheets of clear plastic covering every surface, and lit by the daylight funnelling through from the cockpit. The van is in motion, throwing Mia with uneasy pressure, heavy in her belly as it goes around corners and accelerates along fast roads, restricting her movement with the inertia pulling and pushing down on her.
After a torturous drive, the van comes to a stop, and the teen hears the heavy crunch of the handbrake being applied, feeling the van shift as the driver's side door opens, and closes. Footsteps can be heard, soft, tracing them around to the rear of the van. One of the back doors opens, almost blinding Mia with a burst of light, obscured by her father's shadow as he climbs in, and pulls the door to, shutting it with a slam to return the rear to gloom.
Mia sits herself up as her father approaches, asking him, "Dad, what is this?" No answer as he stands over her, nostrils flaring with weighted breaths, as the teen asks, "What are you doing? Dad, please?" Her dad strikes her with his huge, heavy fist, crashing into her cheek like a sledgehammer, knocking her over as she swings her arms in front of her to brace her fall. Her face swells, pumping with blood just beneath the surface, with a hot sear turning up hotter and hotter, agonising the young teen until she bursts into tears.
Mia's father growls as he shouts, "You ungrateful little bitch! After everything I have done for you, you embarrass me by dirtying me with your sick all over me, and running away from home. I've been waiting for this, knowing you would have to go into college at some point. I've been waiting to make you pay."
Mia sits back up, looking up at her dad's rageful face, telling him as tears roll down her face, falling from her chin, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry."
The words bounce off Mia's father, as he seethes, "Not good enough," reaching down to his daughter to scrunch her t-shirt up in bunches in his fists, tearing it up as he pulls with all of his strength. The t-shirt, one of Mia's favourite and treasured rock band tour shirts, becomes tatters in her father's fists.
Mia cries loudly, "No! No! No-o-o-o-o-o," feeling herself becoming weaker all over, unable to move as she is paralysed with each tear from her eyes sapping her energy.
Mia's father pulls the rags off his daughter, pushing her onto her back as he rips at the button of her jeans, pulling it off, and tearing down the zipper as he yanks the denim down her legs. The teen attempts to wriggle to make it more difficult for her father, but her struggling amounts to laboured rolls, barely an obstacle for her assured father.