She reads. It's what she's always done. Her mother says she started reading young. Cereal boxes at the breakfast table, magazines at lunch. Always holed up in her room reading.
Fiction, non-fiction, it didn't matter to her. Anything to keep her mind occupied and off the horrors of growing up in her home. She'd always felt defective; there was something in her that was broken; as if there was a screw missing in the package. Her parents, when they noticed her, reinforced her sense of being deficient. She tried very hard to be invisible, to not be noticed.
From the time she could remember, Mom and Dad were fighting. Dad came home drunk, yelled and hit Mom. Mom cried and screamed. He accused her of having affairs; she denied it. She demanded a divorce. They argued about who was going to file it. Eventually, he passed out. She stayed in her room and read. Adventure stories, science fiction, travel stories, biographies. Biographies were one of her favorites. She could pretend she was someone else.
When she was eight, she discovered the library. She read all the books in the children's section. She got special permission to check out more than the other kids, because she devoured the books so quickly. By age ten, she was checking out books from the adult section.
When she was twelve, her mother got a job working the midnight shift. When she was thirteen, her dad started coming to her room at night. She lay there, paralyzed with fear and loathing, as he used her body to pleasure himself. He reeked of booze, cigarettes, and sweat. She visited imaginary worlds that she had read about, distant galaxies, and worlds full of elves, dwarves and beautiful princesses. When he left, she would cry from embarrassment and shame. He threatened to kill her if she ever told her mother. She kept quiet, and read.
She worked hard at being invisible. She didn't want anyone to notice her. She hid as much as she could. She stayed at school, involving herself in a variety of activities; anything to keep from going home. But night always came.
When she was sixteen, she got a car. She would drive to the city parks, lie on benches, and read. Feeling the sun on her skin, she would dream of turning eighteen, so that she could leave this nightmare, and start a life of her own.
When she was seventeen, she came home from school early, and caught him with her sister. She blamed herself. If she'd been home more, she could have protected her sister. So she read, and she waited.
The books told her what to do. She chloroformed him, tied him up and gagged him. When he woke up, his eyes were huge; full of fear. She wanted him awake for this. She was meticulous. She made him suffer. Those medical books came in handy. They showed her where to cut to cause maximum pain. It was a slow, tortuous death.
Her mother doesn't visit her. She likes her cell. She feels free there. No one bothers her. She reads.
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