• Dark thoughts never go away. You know thinking about death, hurting people and hurting yourself? It stops being a constant thought but you still think about it again, and again, and again. Laurisa McGarval was sitting in the dimly lit kitchen, with a towel over her arm. “Sh-t, not again”, Matthew said as he sat down on a chair next to her.
    Laurisa and Matthew were twins and lived with their older sister in North West London. Matthew had shouted on Clara to help him. Matthew and Laurisa were sixteen and had been living with their nineteen year old sister Clara, since their parents had split up six years ago.
    Following another argument with Matthew, Laurisa stormed up to her room. Her room was on the top floor of the house and as she slammed the door shut and locked it, she could hear Matthew yelling at her.
    Laurisa’s eyes flew wildly around the cramped room. ‘where did I leave it?’, she thought, ignoring the racket her brother was making. Her breathing increased, her palms became sweaty and started to shake as she flung things around the room trying to find scissors, sharpners anything that would cut her skin. As she started to cut, Matthew was fiddling with a paper clip in the lock of his sisters room, trying to get to her. As Matthew opened Laurisa’s door, he saw her cry and grab a pink box that held all of her sharpners and scissors, he watched as his little sister grabbed the first blade she saw and dragged it along her arm, straight up from her wrist to her elbow.
    Matthew stood in the doorway swearing and yelling at her. She looked up at him, she was crying. Matthew walked into the room and dragged Laurisa through to the bathroom. He threw a towel at her, which Laurisa wrapped around her arm to stop it bleeding. Matthew sent her to her bed and locked her door.
    Laurisa curled up in her bed. She started crying. Why was her life like this? Why did no-one care about her? Her friends all had nice things and had a family to look after them, but she was living with her siblings with hardly any money. Enough’s enough, Laurisa thought and stood up to get dressed, she was changing this and it was starting tonight.
    After Laurisa was dressed she went to see her boyfriend who lived two streets away in the flats on the bad side of town.
    It was the middle of summer but it was freezing. Laurisa tucked her red hair into her hoody. She pushed her hands further into her pockets. She hated walking down to visit her boyfriend when it was dark. She wasn’t safe.
    As Laurisa walked past a gang of teenagers one of the gang shouted at her. “Yo! Lil Laura, where you off to?” Laurisa let her eyes drop to the pavement. She didn’t want to hear this tonight. A tall dark haired youth walked up to her, “Where you headed lil M?” He waited for a response. “Well?”, he asked grabbing Laurisa’s arm. “Get. Off. Jake.”, Laurisa said through gritted teeth. Jake smirked, “Answer the question you little rat!”. Laurisa pursed her lips. Her cousin Karl was walking past them and Laurisa whispered something in Italian to him. Karl then turned to Jake and told him to release Laurisa. Jake released Laurisa and Karl punched Jake and started kicking him in the stomach. “Are you mad? Get away!”, Karl yelled at Laurisa. In the distance police sirens were getting louder. Laurisa’s heart was in overdrive.
    Jake kicked Karl in the head and grabbed Laurisa’s hair. He took out a knife and held it to her throat, “listen when the feds ask what happened, you say, there was a fight. Karl cut my arm so I hit him back. You understand?” he asked, pushing the knife into Laurisa’s throat. She meekly nodded.
    Shakily she started to walk down the road with her cousin. He made her tell him why she had been stupid enough to walk about the streets late at night on her own.
    Karl walked Laurisa to her boyfriend, Cameron’s house. Cameron lived in the third block of flats and he was at Karl’s school. Laurisa raced up to Cameron as he climbed out of his dads rental car. Cameron and Laurisa kissed for a second then Cameron took Laurisa’s hand and led his two friends into the house.
    Laurisa loved being with Cameron. He made her feel safe and always protected her. Cameron knew about Laurisa’s self harming and of her home life. He pitied her, Laurisa wanted everything he had and he couldn’t wait to get rid of it.
    The three friends had only been hanging out together for two hours when Karl’s dad Michael walked into the room and placed a microphone infront of the three teenagers and walked back out of the room. Laurisa and Cameron both looked at Karl, who shrugged his shoulders.
    “Can I use it?”, Laurisa asked the boys. “Um, I don’t see why Michael would object Laurisa, sure.” Karl told his cousin. Laurisa walked across the laminated flooring and lifted one of the microphones. She sang a few notes and the boys applauded her when she’d finished her acapella performance. Karl suggested that they do the same song but all three of them sing together. Laurisa and Cameron agreed to his suggestion and the group started to sing and rap their own little song. Michael walked in three hours later and the kids were in the middle of an argument over what to call the song.
    Michael told them to be quiet and asked Laurisa to tell him what they had been arguing about. Laurisa explained to Michael that they’d sang a song but couldn’t agree on a name for it. Michael asked the kids to sing it again for him and said that he’d help them decide on a title for the track.
    The trio sang again infront of Michael. When they had finished singing, Michael was on his feet, with a grin that spread right to his cheeks. “Why don’t you call it ‘Are you ready for Y.C.’?” The group looked at eachother, with grins on their faces. Laurisa nodded enthusiastically at the name. Karl and Cameron were both smiling.
    Michael kept saying that they could be stars when he dropped Laurisa and Cameron back at their houses. Laurisa walk into yet another argument. She walked into the living room and kicked off her trainers. As she passed the kitchen she lifted a roll and walked up to her room.
    It was a quiet night except for the shouting going on downstairs and in the close next door. Laurisa started to search for her jewellry box. Where did I put it?, she thought impatiently. It was next to the window and it was open!!
    Laurisa flew downstairs and started shrieking at her older siblings. “Who took it?” she yelled, “The money, where is it?” She stared at her brother and sister. They both shrugged. Laurisa looked at the bags of shopping beside the fridge. “You took my money to buy that crap?” she shouted her voice going through two octaves. Matthew walked towards Laurisa but she backed into the cooker, screaming that they had no right to take her money from her. Laurisa shoved past Matthew and Clara, she ran straight to the studio.
    When Laurisa arrived at the studio Michael asked her what was wrong but she just shook her head and walked into the recording booth. Laurisa was in the booth for about three hours singing about missing her parents and feeling like the whole world was against her. When she came out she felt much better. On her way home she walked a different route to the one she had taken the other day.
    Laurisa walked into her house braced for another shouting match. She walk into the living room. The television was smashed, the couch was covered in oil and the window was shattered. Shaking her head Laurisa walked into the kitchen to find her sister crying by the sink. She cautiously walked over to Clara and placed her hand on Clara’s head. Clara glanced up apologetically. She explained to Laurisa that a group of youths had come looking for her and had smashed the house up when Clara had explained to them that Laurisa wasn’t home. Clara then asked Laurisa if she had known the group. Laurisa shook her head and walked up to her room.
    Laurisa looked at the tip her room had become. The radiator was hanging off the wall, her wallpaper had been ripped off the wall, all her clothes were strewn around the room. She kicked the clothes into a pile and sat at her desk writing lyrics. She fell asleep halfway through writing a song.
    The next day Laurisa was starting at a new high school. It was the same school as Karl and Cameron. Laurisa was put into the same form class as the two boys. The day started out fine because her cousin was the most popular boy at the school people treated her nicely. But it only lasted until lunch break. A sixth year pupil had decided to spread a roomer that Laurisa had battered a third year’s little sister. When the third year girl accused Laurisa of hitting the younger girl, Laurisa was totally taken aback, “I never touched her, I swear!”, Laurisa said to the angry girl. “Sure, so she got bruises on her faces for no reason? I don’t think so”, the girl screamed at Laurisa. The girl then started saying some really horrible things to Laurisa. Laurisa told the girl repeatedly that if the younger girl had been hit it had nothing to do with her. The girl wouldn’t listen to Laurisa’s reasons and punched Laurisa in the mouth.
    Later on in the nurse’s office Karl was really annoyed that the girl had gotten off with hitting his cousin. He was pacing in the office while the nurse explained what had happened to Laurisa’s sister. Laurisa was pleading with Karl to leave the other girl alone as she wasn’t worth it.
    After that incident Laurisa was out of school for six months. She spent all her time in the recording studio with the boys. They had written lots of really good songs and had been to twelve record labels who all said the band were too young or they didn’t understand what the band were singing about. The kids were really frustrated. Michael held a meeting in the studio and told the band that they were doing this their way.
    He bought top of the range microphones and recording equipment for the band and they started to make their own music and put it onto the internet for people to see. The kids loved it as people were listening to their music.
    Three months later the teenagers were performing infront of fifty people. They were really happy with their progress. After word got out about the band a record company approached the band and asked them to make a demo for the company. The kids made the recording and gave it to the company.
    They got word back about six months later and were signed to the record label within three hours of getting the news. Now life looks to have changed for the best for the band.