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"Get the fuck out," he roared at the top of his voice, "When I come back I want you and all your stuff gone, even that fucking cat." With that, he slammed the door behind him and thudded away down the corridor.

As silence gradually pieced itself back together and descended down on the apartment, Dana realized that those were the last words she would ever hear him say. She shrank back against the wall and sank to the floor, shaking. The words still rang loudly in her ears. She couldn't tune his raging voice out of her head. She hugged her knees and rocked herself gently back and forth on the balls of her feet, as she continued to weep.

He had been her last resort. Her parents were divorced. Her father had moved in with another woman (the reason for their divorce) and her mother had developed a drug habit that left them destitute. She sold their house in a final desperate attempt to support her habit, and after she was packed and sent away to a rehabilitation centre, Dana was left helpless out on the streets. The only person she could turn to had been her boyfriend and she moved in with him despite the fact that he was abusive.

He lived in a dingy rundown one-bedroom apartment with a leaky roof. The paint was peeling off the walls and the only two windows in the apartment were boarded up with wooden planks. The traffic outside could be heard as clearly as the bedroom adventures of the next door neighbours. The entire place smelt musty mixed with the stench of used clothes that lay in a state of neglect on the floor.

Along with her few scanty belongings which all fit into a tiny duffel bag, Dana had brought her pet black cat along. Ariel sat and watched her now as she quietly sobbed. Where would she go now? Who could she turn to? How would she support herself? Her body grew stiff after a while and the sobbing slowly drowned itself in mute resolution. She lifted herself off the floor, using the wall for support.

She made her way to the bathroom, grabbing the knife that lay on the kitchen counter while she walked past it. Once inside, she latched the door and switched on the light. She could hear Ariel mewing. She could hear the traffic outside and see the reflections of headlights of cars dance on the ceiling as they drove past. The tiles felt cold under her bare feet. She placed the knife down on the basin and looked at herself in the mirror. A wreck, that's what she was. Her face was bruised from being repeatedly beaten by her boyfriend. Her dark hair was strewn all over her face and her lower lip was bleeding where it had been cut. Her eyes were red and black mascara had smudged and streamed down her cheeks.

She opened the tap, cupped the cold water that gushed out with both hands and splashed it on her face. She had decided to end her life. With trembling hands, she picked up the knife once more and placed it on her left wrist. The steel felt cold against her skin, colder than the bathroom tiles. But something stopped her before she could go ahead and slit it. It wasn't fear.

She spotted her red lipstick lying beneath the basin and picked it up. She paused to think before she lifted her hand up to the mirror and drew a line down the middle with the lipstick. On the left she wrote 'Reasons to die' and on the right, 'Reasons to live'. She was going to weigh her options. She began to scrawl down reasons on the left side. There were many – she was homeless, broke, with no job, no education, nobody to look after her, she was a victim of repeated physical and mental abuse, the list went on. When she finished writing down all the reasons she had to go through with committing suicide, she came to the right side. She tapped the mirror with the lipstick and she tried to think of at least ONE reason she had to live. One minute... two minutes... time kept ticking. Finally, she gripped the lipstick tighter and wrote – 'To change everything that I've written on the left side.'

She dropped the lipstick, left the knife where it was, and unlatched the bathroom door. Ariel looked up at her and purred. She picked her up, made her way to the door, walked out and never looked back.