Felicia was your normal teenage girl. No, not the girl that you saw occasionally in the halls. No, Felicia was the girl that everyone wanted to be. She was the straight-A cheerleader who was dating the school's star quarterback. She was beautiful, and you could here what people said as she walked past.That girl there,she's going places.

Yet, Felicia wasn't what everyone thought she was. She had many layers, like an onion. There were the outside layers, the facade built to fool people. Then, there were the inside layers. On the inside,  Felicia was just normal. Not beautiful,not smart, and not popular.

Just Felicia.

But Felicia could never be just Felicia. Inside of her, Felicia had many dark secrets, and very deep scars. But people never remembered the most important thing in life-that everyone has their own scars.

So Felicia did what was expected of her. People expected her to be Miss Perfect. People needed her to be perfect.

However, you can never keep everything bottled inside. And as time passed, the memories that Felicia tried to forget resurfaced. Everywhere she looked, she was reminded of things from the past that had hurt her. And every night, she would have the nightmares. The nightmares that everyone thought were ridiculous.

 And it was then that Felicia finally cracked, on the night when she had the last nightmare.

She was at a club. Not a very popular one, but still a club. Even though she was only 16, and not allowed in, the club's owner let her and her best friend Marcie in. After all, she was Felicia, the town's Golden Girl.

She was having fun, dancing and meeting new people. Sure, she had a glass or two of alcohol, but not enough to make her incoherent. So when her boyfriend at the time, Rick the linebacker stumbled up to her, the stench of alcohol on his skin, her instinct to take care of him took over.

"Rick, baby, we need to get you home"

"...Yea babe,whatever you say."

So she took him home. Luckily, her parents were away for the weekend. If they knew that she was dating a drunk, they would kill her. She set him up on the couch, and went upstairs.

"Rick, I'll be upstairs if you need anything."

Felcia slept for maybe an hour or two before Rick woke her up, still drunk.

"Hey Rick, what's the matter?Do you want something?"

"Yea, you."

"...What?"

The struggle that followed wasn't much of a struggle. Even though Felicia was in good shape, she was no match for Rick.

"Rick, please don't do this."

"You know you want it babe."

"No,no please don't!"

Tears were streaming down her face as the guy she cared for the most violated her in the worst way possible.

Then she woke up. She remembered how much she was hurt by that. She visited the school therapist so many times, she couldn't count. She told no one of what happened, not even her parents. Only the therapist. When Rick broke up with her, saying she was a whore who probably had been with half the town, she began to cut.

Then she met Mark, the quarterback. He was sweet, and she fell in love with him. Knowing she could never be happy with Mark if she let Rick's treachery bother her, she went to rehab. She learned how to love again, and she stopped cutting. Yet, she re-built the walls she surrounded herself with, bigger, and harder to penetrate.

And for awhile, that had been enough. But now, the nightmares were back. Felicia deseparately wanted her life back. She wanted to be free to love Mark without the weight of Rick bogging her down.

So that day when she woke up, she got ready carefully. She chose her outfit wisely, and wore her hair up, to avoid getting it in her face. She was in the kitchen, when her mother called to her.

"Felicia,it's time to go!"

She tucked the butcher knife securely around her ankle. And then she smiled.