She was a straight a student, taking honors and AP classes. Never getting into trouble, always on time. Never missing a beat in her busy life. To everyone else, she was the happiest person. She had loving parents, caring friends, and everyone liked her. But everyone has their flaws. Whether its big or small. This perfect girl put up an almost unbreakable wall between herself and the rest of the world. She knew just how to hide her secrets away. No one even considered her to be depressed. No one could see through her wall, except for one boy. He might not have known this girl very well, but he could see through that wall just as if he was looking through glass. This boy saw the world for what it was. Unfair. Each time he passed her in the hallway, he could see cracks in her wall, her lies falling apart, being barely able to fix a mistake she made in her cover. But everyone was oblivious to her true feelings. Or were they? Maybe they just didn’t care, and as long as this girl pretended to be perfect then everything was fine. Surely someone else would have figured out the truth by now. Although he himself didn’t know for sure what was wrong with the girl. He noticed the thick bracelets she wore around her wrists everyday, and the long sleeved shirts she would wear on the hottest days. But every so often, he could see what she was trying to hide. Long red marks cutting across the underside of her wrist, and large purple and black spots marking her arms. She told people that the bruises were from falling up the stairs or playing sports when they asked. But you don’t get those kinds of bruises from sports or stairs. You can only get these from a hand, a human hand, using force against you, beating you. This boy noticed when she came to school with a black eye. She said it was from softball, but he could tell it wasn’t, just by the way she told people. And then there were the cuts. Deep and red, leaving scars on her perfect body. There was no mistaking what those were. They weren’t from a cat or dog scratch. They were self inflicted. This was when he truly saw her for who she was. She is no different than the rest of, she still hurts, she still cries, she isn’t perfect.
“If only everyone else could see what I see, then maybe they could help, I’m only one person, what can I do?” The boy would think every time he saw the girl. He wished that she would be ok, that everything was as is. But nothing is as it seems at first glance. She seemed perfect to everyone, very few people these days look beneath the surface though. Where is their motivation to do so when it is so much easier to just except what is already given to them. Why should they complicate their lives just to save another? Except for this one boy, he was willing to look past everything, he was willing to potentially mess up his own life just to make this one girls life better.
For this girl, her only escape from this unforgiving life is in a dream. Time is odd when you are dreaming. Sometimes the whole night goes in a flash. Others, it seems like hours, but on the clock only a few minutes have passed. This is why she finds peace here, time practically stands still, seeming to delay her life and make everything seem almost normal. Every morning though, she wakes up to the screaming and fists. Every morning she suffers through this and then puts on a pretty face for school. She goes to school, sometimes hoping that someone will finally see through that pretty face, that someone will see the hurt, scared teenage girl that she truly is. She somehow knew that no one would help her. She wished that she was brave enough to show someone the scars, or to tell the truth about why she had bruises speckling her body. No matter how much she wished or wanted, she was still that scared little girl. She was afraid of what her father would do if he found out that she told someone about the beatings. He always apologizes after hurting her, he always blamed it on the alcohol or he had a stressful day at work. He was her dad, she felt inclined to forgive him, she always said that everyone deserved a chance, even him. Even when he broke her arm, she forgave him, saying that it was an accident, that he wasn’t mentally stable. Deep down, she knew that he was stable, she knew that things were getting worse with him. Each and everyday, she would get more and more scared, each day the scars on her wrists would be added to. Inflicting more pain upon herself seemed to help. Not even this girl knew why she did it, it just seemed to help in some way.
Whenever the boy would pass by the girl, he would smile at her, but no more. He didn’t know what to do about this. He wanted to tell someone about what he saw, but everything he noticed was just assumptions. There was the chance that he could be wrong about everything and she was telling the truth. If this was true, then why did he still have the nagging feeling inside of him that something was defiantly wrong? For a while though, things seemed to be getting almost better. There started to be less bruises, and the scars were slowly fading. The boy felt relieved for what he saw. He believed that everything was going to be just as it should. That nagging sensations was still there though, seeing the girl happier than before made him ignore it until finally it went away for good. He didn’t need to worry about her anymore, wondering whether or not she was hurting.
Her dad promised to become sober for her, and that he would find help for his addiction. He said he was so sorry for everything that he had done, he promised he would never hurt her again. She woke up in the morning happy, she went to school happy, and came home happy. She didn’t have to lie to her friends anymore. All was as it should be. Her dad stuck with his promise and stopped drinking. He went to an alcoholic convention every week just as he said. She was glad that she gave him so many chances. Things did get better for her. She knew that this was going to be a struggle for him, but she thought he was strong enough to avoid temptations. He avoided the alcohol section whenever he went shopping, he threw out all of the bottle he had in the cabinets. He really did try hard. A few weeks had gone by without him even thinking about it. He told himself that his self control was good, maybe he could handle one beer. After a few sips, he knew for sure that this one bottle wouldn’t hurt. He hadn’t had any in so long that this one won’t make a difference. The taste was to strong, he quickly realized why he liked this stuff so much. It didn’t take long before he finished off the entire six pack, entering a drunken stage worse than before. The girl being unknowing of what her dad had done, walked home just as she did everyday, expecting to be welcomed home by her sober father. Instead she found the house a disaster, pictures were torn off the walls, glass was broken, the furniture had holes in it. It didn’t even cross her mind that her dad could be drunk, it looked like someone had broken in. A cold hand rested on her shoulder. “Why are so home so late?” The man angrily slurred out of his drunken lips. Even in the current state that he was in, she knew that this drunk man behind her was her father.
“Dad, did you drink? You promised you wouldn’t.” She never thought about what would happen if he gave into temptations. She never thought that things would get this bad either. “Calm down. Remember what they told you to do if this ever happened, just sit down, take a few breaths, drink some water, take a nap. Please dad don’t do this, you promised you wouldn’t.” The last part came out as a whisper, barley escaping the girls lips out a fear of what might happen next.
“Do you know how worried I was when you weren’t here on time?!” He bellowed out in his drunk voice. Slapping her hard across the face. She clutched her jaw, feeling the bruise already begin to form there. Tears threatened to spill over. This time wasn’t like all of the other times when he was drunk. Somehow it was different. It was scarier. He grabbed at her, pushing her around, slamming her against the walls. Her head hit the walls multiple times, and finally the floor as she slumped over, losing consciousness. Last thing she saw was her father walking out the front door, as she is losing all feeling in her body, head spinning, vision blurring and finally nothing. It was in this nothingness that she finally felt free. Nothing could ever hurt her again, she was ready to leave this place and find somewhere better, she didn’t know where but there was a place, she just knew it. Nothing was left of her when the ambulance arrived. It had been to late, she was already gone, she was dead.
Word of her death spread like wild fire though her school, no one wanted to believe that this girl could have possibly have died. No one did believe it at first, no one truly excepted this until her funeral. Tears filled the eyes of everyone who attended and even many who couldn’t make it. Her closest friends stood huddled together, weeping into each others shoulders, trying to find comfort from one another. No one even expected her to die so young, all except that one boy. He stood alone among the crowd, silently crying. Knowing that he could have saved this girls life, but that it is too late. Nothing he can ever do will change his guilt. He was the one who could have protected her. Unlike everyone else, no one was there to be a support. He faced this alone, feeling to guilty to even want to be comforted. What really stood out to this boy was the father. He kneeled on the ground in front of her grave, face buried into his hands, bawling his eyes out. Not a single person stepped towards him. By then every one knew what had happened, how this girl that seemed so perfect died. Everyone knew her secrets now. Some asked the questions, why didn’t I notice any of the signs? While others simply stated that there was nothing any of them could have done. Except for that one boy. He could have saved her.
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Chapter notes: this is just a story that I wrote for my honors world literature. Im soo sorry that i havent updated my other stories! i just got a job and i have band so i have pretty much no time! but i will try as hard as i can to work in them! i just wanted some opinions on this story, so please review! XD