My name is Diana.

I was never loved.

I tried to be loved by my family and peers. It was all met with transgression. No matter how much effort I put into making people smile, it ended with their disdain.

Ever since I was born, I was left in an orphanage. The director would yell at me more than the other kids. If I was hungry, I was told to wait until the others finished. A thin sheet of blanket was given to me while other kids had better ones. My bed was on the floor in an attic.

At first, I was resentful of the other kids getting better treatment compared to me. I even tore up the paintings on the bulletin board because the director forbade me to participate.

It didn’t help. It only got worse.

Due to my resentment, the kids began to pick on me, and the director did nothing to stop them. My punishment was to clean the orphanage from top to bottom, leaving no dust left unchecked. The kids would intentionally create a mess for me to clean up.

I couldn’t complain. If I did, the director would punish me. A switch to the back is all it took to get me to shut up. Sometimes, she would take it further and rough up my legs.

It was so bad that I had to wear long sleeves and pants to hide away the cuts and bruises.

It was like this for years until I turned 10—my very first adoption.

A middle-aged couple came to the orphanage in search of a little girl to adopt. They already had a daughter who went to college and had already begun missing her. They were hoping to adopt a girl that looked close enough like her, if not exactly.

The director lined up all the girls and kept me out of earshot. She told me multiple times how unsightly I looked and that it would take a long time for me to get adopted.

If I ever get adopted in the first place.

The couple decided against all the girls that were lined up and asked to see the rest of the orphans. The director was getting extremely nervous, as if she didn’t want the couple to see me, and locked me away in the attic for a couple of days.

The couple never adopted anyone and decided to leave. The director felt that it was safe for me to come out. As soon as my feet touched the grass in the playground, the middle-aged woman walked up to me and knelt at my level.

“Hi, what’s your name?” she asked me.

“Diana!” I told her.

“Diana? That’s a beautiful name. I have a daughter named Hillary, and she looked exactly like you when she was your age,” she said, patting my head.

The director found out that I was seen by the wife and that she wanted to go through the paperwork for adopting me right away. That diabolical woman told them that it would be hard for me to be adopted with my poor social skills and that I still needed some adjusting before I left the orphanage.

The wife didn’t care and proceeded with the paperwork. The husband followed suit. While they were home getting things ready, I was being worked to death by the director. Before I was to be sent away to the couple, I was to make the orphanage shine.

The bullying persisted, and the torture was ongoing until the couple came back with the finished papers three days later.

That day will forever be recorded as the worst day of my life.

That director, that diabolical woman, apologized to the couple, saying that I was already being adopted into another family. She plotted for her own sister to adopt me so that all the wounds received from her wouldn’t come to light.

The middle-aged couple didn’t like the fact that I was going to be adopted right under their nose, and I didn’t like the fact that I endured all that suffering just to suffer some more.

So, I threw another fit. I was enraged.

Boy, oh boy…

The director’s office was in shambles. Everything was torn up. Paperwork was destroyed. I flung that muddy water bucket all over the floor. I broke toys. I took a shovel and banged it against the walls. I even shoved a few kids out of my way when they would try to stop me from wreaking havoc.

Of course, this was all in front of the lovely couple. They were afraid of me after that. A child who seems to have a short fuse is unlikely to ever get adopted. They told the director that it was a relief that I was already adopted before they could get their hands on me.

That they dodged a bullet.

I…felt so ashamed for feeling my feelings. If I were just docile, maybe someone would find me lovable.

That woman made it clear to the other children that I was to be kept locked up in the attic with little food and water to drink. In their eyes, I was a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode on my next victim.

With that being said, I didn’t give them the satisfaction of taking me there themselves. Foot after foot, I made my way to the attic and locked myself in. This was also a good opportunity to no longer associate myself with any of them.

Even if I stepped out of the attic, no one would bother me. Everyone would run away. The director herself would leave me alone.

Apparently, it wasn’t a lie that her sister adopted me. After a month of contemplating the fiasco, the director was able to convince her sister to take me off her hands. Her sister wasn’t physical, at least. However, I didn’t like the way she would give me glares here and there.

After I was handed off, I basically became a maid for her, cooking and cleaning. Education was my only escape from her. When I finally turned 18, she was quick to throw me out of the house. She was afraid every night that I would go ballistic and probably wind up killing her out of spite for the director.

Then, I was homeless.

A random man saw that I was sleeping on the park bench with nothing but the clothes on my back and a backpack. He woke me up to tell me about his line of work and thought about hiring me based on my looks.

I didn’t have to do anything but please the customers who came through the door and show them a good time—a vague statement. However, I needed the money to get through college and to stifle the loans. He would even provide lodging.

In the first month, I was just a showgirl, showing off a lot of skin while catering to my customers. In the second month, I lost my virginity to one of them. Apparently, that’s the best way to make money. So, I gave my body up any chance I got to close the gap on my student loan debts.

Eventually, I began to keep money in my pocket. Without knowing what to truly do with it, I would take my boss, the man who saved me from homelessness, out to eat every now and then. He would even take me on vacations with him around the world at any and every opportunity. You could say that our relationship was a little more than just boss/employee.

I was also the main girl making the most money in his business, so it made sense in the end to treat me better than the others. Of course, we would sleep together as well.

It was the perfect life for me. Feeling loved and giving that same love back. Everything was going great.

That was until I learned that I was pregnant with his child.

He told me to get rid of it. I didn’t understand why. I would use protection with my customers for obvious reasons, but I never use protection with him. He didn’t want to be held down by a child. In that case, I obliged and got an abortion.

Just to learn that he already had a family. A wife and kid.

I didn’t even want to feel anymore. My savior, my lover, my only friend. He betrayed his family and, in turn, betrayed me as well.

I was so enraged. I just wanted to bash someone’s head against the wall. The child I had could’ve been the only one in this world deserving of love. Could’ve been the hope I was prying. Now that they’re gone, there was no more reason to continue.

Money? Attention? I’d give it all up just for some peace for once.

And so I climbed that bastard’s building all the way to the tippy top…

And, without hesitation, dove straight into the hard concrete.

My name was Diana. I was never loved.

But if there’s a God out there somewhere, please give me peace.