a young girl falls in love with her best friend but is taken away from her abusive mother and moves overseas to live with her f

My name is Aroha I am a seventeen year old girl who comes from a small town in the south island of New Zealand i long to see the world to be anywhere but stuck here in this town as soon as I am able i plan to leave this town and find out where i truly belong i know its not here and i can't help but feel like im being called to something or is it someone or somewhere I'm not sure but I dream of finding out its going to be hard to leave my younger half brother niko and half sister courtney there is 18 months between me and my brother niko although we are close we fight alot i guess we take our frustration out on each other but i love him none the less i understand why he gets angry we have no control and that's his way of venting we are just so different we can't seem to agree on anything. There's 8 years between me and my sister Courtney and iv adored her from the moment she was born i had always wanted a sister and was so excited to finally be a big sister she's a typical girly girl who loves to dance and sing she will be the hardest to leave but i know that there is so much more waiting for me out there even if i don't know where or even what it is i want nothing more than to go find out . I don't know how much longer i can take my mums abuse and it keeps getting worse as her drinking gets worse but i don't know what to do to change anything my mum seems to resent me because my father left her and moved overseas when I was a month old she can be cold and cruel to me yet treats my brother and sister well I know its because of my dad from the things she says when she's drunk normally before or after she hits me it's always why did your dad leave me with you i just don't understand why no matter how hard I try to be a good daughter she doesn't love me I know she's capable of love she loves my little sister endlessly im told I look alot like my dad my mum is short about 5 ft 2 inches and pale with short black hair and brown eyes in the one photo I have of my dad he's tall my uncle told me about 6ft tanned skin , wavey black hair and hazel eyes I am 5 ft 5 inches I have long wavey black hair with streaks on blond in the bottom half tanned skin and hazel eyes Iv never met my father I don't think he even knows I excist and I don't know alot about him my uncle told me he was a gentle giant unless provoked and he had a good sense of humor I sometimes fantasize that he took me with him and that I grew up in a foreign land loved and happy far away from this town. At school I have been teased for being adopted because I'm brown and my mum brother and sister aren't but i just ignore it I have some good friends at school but my best friend is older so doesn't go to school anymore I hang around with my girls Ashley, shantelle, Elisha and Nina mostly at school Ashley is all about how she looks and wanting to be popular she has a great sense of fashion shantelle is quiet and caring she always has good advice Nina is fun and will do anything for a laugh she doesn't care what others think she's comfortable in her own skin and Elisha is my best girlfriend she is wise and thoughtful me and her seem to connect in a way I don't with other people we just get each other we both like nature and fitness she always has my back I can be myself around her she's trustworthy too you can tell her things in confidence the only person I feel more comfortable with is my best friend Jacob he's 18 and him and i have been best friends for the last four years although we aren't spending as much time together now as we don't see each other at school anymore and Jacob would often go to the pub with his other friends his age i understand but it sucks I'm not old enough to go with him jacob has a great sense of humor he's strong and stands up for what he believes in and he loves animals that's what first drew me to him I love animals and nature I hope Jacob and Elisha will come with me when I leave on an adventure to find out more about the world and myself I imagine us traveling doing odd jobs to get by learning new languages and cultures eating new foods seeing new animals meeting new people exploring new forests and seeing the most amazing views the world has to offer. Me and Elisha would often skip school and go on walks in the forest we even had set up a obstacle course in there to exercise on we would go for walks or runs I liked to find spots with nice views we both come from difficult house holds shantelle , nina and Ashley just didn't understand they had parents that loved them Elisha was adopted but as she got older her adoptive parents lost interest in her they weren't abusive like my mum more neglectful when she was home they insisted she stay in her room they never wanted her around and often didn't fulfill her basic needs like food New clothes ect so this is where we felt at home in the forest just us sometimes Jacob would join us if he didn't have work there was a river we would go to about an hours walk the others thought it was to far away but that's why we liked it I felt free and not judged out there and the exercise would help me regulate my anger at my situation with my mum and was something I was in control of how fast I could run how high I could jump I'm in control of that it makes me feel free when I'm at home I feel like a bird in a cage trapped at the will of someone else after one of my mums drunken beatings I messaged Elisha and Jacob asking if they wanted to go to the forest for the day tomorrow Elisha said she would meet me in the morning Jacob would come at lunch time as he had a job to do first I had so much pent up anger I never fought back when my mum would hit me it just didn't feel right to hit her back I'd just yell back at her but it was getting harder to control myself sometimes I felt like the anger was burning me inside like I could explode I needed to run and let off steam i don't like this feeling i feel like I could lose control any second like there's a monster inside me trying to break free but I can't let it I can't let my anger get the best of me I'm nothing like my mother I'll never hurt others to make myself feel better i can't wait for tomorrow I need to clear my head.