Imagine Me and You

The walls were covered in artwork, her iPod was blaring and Alex was trying hard to concentrate on something other than the screaming coming from down the hall, but nothing was working. Her parents were at it again-Alex’s report card had come in the mail and her father had found it before her mother had gotten the chance. Alex wasn’t what you would call ‘normal’ -she dressed in dark clothing, mostly blacks and grays, with spiked bracelets and boots. No one would have called her normal, even when she was a child.

Alex Reaper had been born with fire engine red hair and her eyes were always the focus of everyone’s attention. One crystal blue eye and one bright green one-forever marking her as different. Alex had always embraced her difference from other’s-listening to music that made her happy, even though to most it was just a bunch of screaming and heavy guitars.

But to her music was everything and Alex just wished people would leave her alone. Her big brother-someone who should protect her and love her no matter what-picked at her relentlessly and her father also liked to join in on the fun. Alex sighed and then gulped loudly as she heard someone clomping up the stairs and then her bedroom door flew open.


“Turn that shit off and listen to me young lady!” Her father, all six foot of him, was standing in her doorway and Alex stayed seated in her computer chair but she did as he asked. Her father was an intimidating man with his large red face and tall stature. He was also constantly angry, so people tended to avoid making him angry.

“Your report card came in the mail today.” He stated and Alex groaned. She had gotten good grades this semester-except in P.E and Health Class. She didn’t like being with other kids, running around the track or chasing after balls, so she rarely went and now it was showing.

“I’m sorry dad, but Coach Monroe always makes me run laps, no matter what I do!” She said, her voice going up an octave and Alex sighed as her father crumbled her report card and threw it at her. Alex noticed her older brother, Brent, standing in the doorway with a sick smirk on his face. He loved watching her get in to trouble.

“So you just stopped going?! I’ll tell you something young lady…this music that you’re listening to is proving to be a bad influence on you!” Alex rolled her eyes at this-big mistake. Before she knew it her father was coming at her, grabbing her by the collar of her Black Veil Brides shirt and slamming her up against her poster covered walls.

“George!” Her mother yelled and Alex looked to see her timid and scared mother standing beside her brother. Brent only waved, that smirk still on his face as he pulled the door closed and Alex could hear her mother screaming on the other side. Was this it? Was this how she was going to go?


Alex had always imagined her death as being self inflicted-being a cutter on tends to think of these things-but she had never thought her father would snap like this. They had been close when she was younger, but then her father got laid off from his job and was since having a hard time finding work. Alex knew it was causing her father to become angrier each day that he went without work, but his taking it out on her was doing little to make things better. Alex closed her eyes as she felt her father’s breath on her face and then suddenly he let her go. As Alex peeked an eye open, she felt the scream freeze in her throat as she watched her father move around the room.


“Enough of this Black Veiled whatever shit! No more of them! No more art either! It’s Satanic and it’s wrong!” Her father was shouting at her as he walked around her room, pulling posters and some of her own work off of the walls and crumbling it in his large hands.

“But dad-their music helps me…” She sounded so sad and Alex felt her heart stop as her father moved towards her iPod and pulled it out of the dock.

“No-it makes you worse. You used to be my little girl-all smiles and frills. Now you’re just some freak who eats my food and is a waste of space in this house!” Her father then did the unthinkable-he opened her window, the cool air filling the room and then her iPod went flying before the glass came crashing down and he locked it.

“Dad please! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” She shouted and then instantly regretted it. Her father walked over to her, looked in to her green and blue eyes and then his hand came crashing across her cheek. Alex said nothing as he hit her-it wasn’t the first time-and her father gave her a satisfied smirk as he moved away from her and walked from the room. He stopped at the door and looked back at her as Alex tried to make herself as small as possible.

“If I ever hear you mention this fucking band again I swear I will take away your ability to hear them all together…” Alex watched as her father walked away, slamming the door shut behind him and she then fell to the floor in a heap.


She had loved that iPod, but Alex loved Black Veil Brides even more. Living in Hollywood California, she had gotten to see them when they first started and she had always felt a strong connection with those five guys. They were always there for her with words of encouragement and love. Alex had even stopped cutting for a long time after hearing her favorite song for the first time: Carolyn. That song just gave her strength and it made her feel like she wasn’t such a failure. She wanted to listen to it now, but her only source of music was currently smashed on the street below.

As Alex sat there, the sun fading from the sky and her room growing dark, she knew in that moment that she needed to get away. She was eighteen so if she wanted to leave she could, but where would she go? Without even thinking it through, Alex was up off of the floor, her black pants covered in fuzzies from her carpet but it didn’t matter. She pressed an ear up to her door, hearing the television loudly playing downstairs and Alex knew that it was now or never. Quickly she moved around her room, packing what she could and what she needed.

Extra shirts, pants, underwear and a bra went in first, then her sketchbook and her pencil case followed. Looking around at her walls Alex smiled. She’d spent a lot of lonely nights in this room, listening to her music and working her art. Maybe that’s what she could do-get a job at a studio or gallery and then she would never have to come back to this terrible place every again.

As she opened her door and looked around, Alex was happy to hear the rap music blaring from behind Brent’s door. She knew she only had about ten minutes to get out the door and down the street before her parents noticed anything and so Alex practically skipped steps as she quietly went down the stairs.

Ten minutes of waiting around the corner of the stairs until finally Alex heard her father leave the room and she could walk across the small hall to the front door. Her hands were shaking as she pulled on the knob, but as soon as that sweet air hit her face she felt free. She nearly ran down the street, her red hair flying behind her like a curtain as she tried to get as far away from that house as possible. She thought of nothing in that moment-not about where she was going to go or what she was going to do. She just thought about the fact that she was free to be herself and that was more freeing than anything.

As she kept running, the people passing her by quickly, Alex didn’t even realize that she had left the suburbs and was now running on the sidewalks of West Hollywood. Running was getting tiring and as Alex slowed down and kept her eyes peeled for somewhere to stay, she didn’t even notice the person stepping out of a shop and right into her path.

They smacked in to one another and Alex gave out a loud grunt as she bounced off the person in front of her and fell to land on her ass on the ground. She looked down, her pants had ripped and she had scrapped an elbow, but everything else was fine. Before she even had the chance to apologize there was a tattooed hand in front of her face, offering to help her up.


“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?!” The guy she had knocked into was saying and Alex only laughed it off as she brushed her pants and then looked up. Her eyes grew wide as she took in the person standing before her-his cowboy hat, those sunglass covered eyes…that teased hair…she knew who this person was. God knows she had stared at him every night before going to sleep.

Alex Reaper had bumped into none other than Ashley Purdy-bassist for Black Veil Brides.
“Oh my God! I am so sorry! I-I should have been watching where I was going!” She gasped and Ashley only smiled at her as he bent down and picked up her duffle bag. He slung it over one shoulder and smiled at her, nodding his head down the sidewalk.

“It’s okay. You headed somewhere? I know a shelter if you need one…” He said, his voice kind and Alex only blushed as she nodded her head. She couldn’t believe that she was walking down the street beside the Ashley Purdy and he probably thought she was an idiot.

“You running away from something?” He asked as they finally came to a stop outside of a large building. It didn’t look inviting, but it was a place to stay and Alex knew it was better than her own home.

“More like someone. Thanks for everything.” She smiled at him as Alex reached out to take her bag from him. Just then a light popped on over the door and Ashley looked down, his eyes growing wide as he took in her scar riddled wrists.

“No problem. You know you’re too pretty to do that to yourself. Never give in…never back down…” He smiled at her, bringing the small girl in for a hug before letting her go and walking off down the sidewalk.


Alex sighed as she stood there, her duffle at her feet as she looked around and watched one of her heroes walking down the street. She knew that this was a new beginning for her and as Alex entered the shelter and spoke to the woman behind the desk…she took Ashley Purdy’s words to heart.

She would never give in and she was fucking finished with backing down.

Notes

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If anyone who has already had an Imagine done would like to submit another, feel free-there are no limits to submissions : )