Frances had locked the door of her bedroom and was currently hiding in the closet. Why couldn't she have grown up with a normal, nice, happy family? You know, have a dad that didn't run away (or die, Frances had trouble believing he just left.), have a grandfather that cared about her well being, perhaps have a mother that wasn't an abusive, manipulative monster? She pulled the jacket she had wrapped around herself closer to her body, it wasn't even her jacket, nor was it tailored for someone her age, or even her sex. Instead, it was tailored for a grown man, and it helped provide a feeling that she wasn't alone in this, that someone had suffered this torture before her. For the jacket had belonged to her father, Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens. She had never met the man, and knew she never would, he had to have been dead. Yet, she always felt attachment to the father she never knew, which is why when her and her mother went to visit her Grandpa Henry last time, she had stolen one of her father's old jackets. It did its job, it provided comfort, but, the one down side was her mother knew she had it, and she didn't like it. Thus, why her mother was pounding on her door, demanding to be let in.

Frances just stayed curled up in the corner of her closet with the jacket, whimpering quietly with tears streaming down her face. She wouldn't willingly give up this jacket, not in a million years. It was the only thing she had of her father that she knew to be true, unlike the stories her mother told of the man. According to her mother, John Laurens was an abusive spouse, and forced her mother into intercourse and into having her, though, with the way her mother acted, she suspected it to be the other way around. She just wished to have one conversation with her father and hear his side of the story.

She felt her heart drop when she heard the lock on the door being picked. She knew she couldn't stay safe for long now.

"Dad," she whimpered, speaking to the jacket as if it was him. "I'm scared..."

Her knuckles turned white from her tight grip on the coat.

Click

The lock...

"No!" she gasped. "No, no, no!"

Well, if that didn't give away her location, she didn't know what would. Footsteps grew closer to her hiding spot, and the door slowly slid open. Her mother stood over her with an infuriated expression. "Hand it over."

"N-no." she mumbled, shaking her head. Though a slap across her face made her yelp and let go of the jacket long enough got her mother to snatch it away from her. Her mother stormed out of the room with the jacket. It took Frances a few minuets to process what happened before she quickly got up and followed after her, she caught up with her mother just in time to see the jacket getting tossed into the fireplace.

"No!" she shrieked, tears starting to scream down her face. "Daddy..." she whimpered like a small child, falling to her knees. "No..."

Though her mother wasn't done. She stomped over to her daughter and wrapped a hand tightly around her throat, causing Frances to gasp out for air.

"Now, listen closely sweetie," she hissed to her daughter. "You're going to stop obsessing over your father, and you're going to be a good girl and do exactly what mother wants, which marrying someone very rich, even if you don't want to, and make sure mommy can live comfortably. Okay?"

"Y-yes Mother." Frances wheezed out.