Alcohol

Bottles strewn around the room, all of them empty, all of them are beer of some kind. There are a couple unopened ones sitting on the counter, but they won't last long.
For as long as Alyssa could remember, this was her life. Her father drank all night, and slept all day, leaving his daughter to clean up the mess. So Alyssa did, if only to avoid the bruises she knew her father was capable of making on her skin.
After her mother had died only six years ago, the fifteen year old saw a drastic change in her life. She started high school on a bad note, and found herself in the principal's office more often then she saw her classrooms. Her grades were horrible, and her classmates were even more horrible.
More than once, Alyssa wondered what would happen if she were gone. Dead, or just running away, it didn't matter. She just wanted away from this life.
As she walked home again, this time with a letter from her school board, announcing her suspension from school, she felt life had put a heavy burden on her shoulders, one she couldn't hold up for much longer.
A bridge separated her from the road she lived on, and as she stopped to lean over the side, looking at the shallow water, she heard a couple of kids laughing, and riding skateboards down the street.
What she didn't expect were the warm hands that pressed against her back, making her lose her fall over the railing, down toward the river. She caught a sight of one of the kid's faces. She didn't recognize it.
She felt the cool water over her skin before she felt her head and back smack the rocks. When she tried to move her body to get up, she couldn't. As she started freaking out, the water slowly rose up, across her face, cutting off her air supply.
Panic hit her harder, and she continued to struggled, until finally she was too tired. As her sight disappeared into darkness, she realized something that made it not as bad.
It was her way out.