Her brother nodded to her with concerned eyes.  Slowly, the room started to come into view.  The lamp by her vanity, the desk in the corner, (Which had unfinished work everywhere) the carpeted floors, the wood panel walls and ceiling.   

 

“How you doing vee.”  His mouth was twisted into a thin frown, and judging by his blond hair, which was sticking up in every direction, he didn’t get much sleep either.  

 

“I’m fine Jake, please don’t bother worrying about me, worry about your job, the last thing we need is fishsticks for a fourth night in a row.”

 

Jake gave a small chuckle, shaking his head, as he walked out of the room. Once his footsteps faded, she got up and began to get dressed.  She hadn’t washed her hair in three days, and it sat on her shoulders in a tangled golden mop.  Sweat lined her brow from the intense heat, it didn’t matter how many times she showered, she would never stop feeling grimy.  She pulled on some jeans and a heavy green sweatshirt, and while she knew she would be late if she didn’t go now, she couldn’t help but stare at the girl in the mirror.  Pale, doll like skin, and flimsy blond hair, the same golden brown eyes as her brother.  In fact, they were almost identical before.  But now, she had a bruise along the side of her neck, and a gash down her back that she knew would scar.  And as she touched the tender skin on her back, and the dark mark on her neck she knew, that girl in the mirror, was a stranger.   

 

School was simple.  

 

Always sit alone, stay away from Dallas Smith and his friends, and sit in the back of the room in all her classes.  But it was the therapy that really bothered her.  He would always say that what happened wasn’t her fault, and she knew that.  He says that this might end up being a learning experience, but what is she learning?  That she’s never safe?  He says that the people who harass her at school will eventually end up on bottom while she’s on top.  

 

So untrue.  

 

She gets that they want to help, but they should try to understand that they are never helping.  They just make you feel like something's wrong with you.  

 

“Welcome Vanessa, please take a seat.  How are you doing today?”  

 

She sunk into her seat and didn’t say anything.  She looked around at the welcoming yet deceiving glow of the room, the bean bag chairs, and the chair in the corner pulled up to the neat desk.  Everything where it’s supposed to be, not a hair out of place.  The therapist looked at her with pity, which only made her more infuriated.  

 

“I get that it’s hard for you to open up after what you’ve been through," he said. "But you can’t keep this bottled up inside you forever.  Sometimes it’s good to let go of all your feelings.”  

​

She let out a small chuckle and looked him in the eye.  “Open up to you?  All you do is make me feel worse.”  

Before he could give her a lecture about trusting him, she stood up and stormed out of the room, almost unhinging the door in the process.   

​

****

 

She sat at the cafeteria table and stared at the food that she hadn’t touched.  She didn’t bother looking around, no one wanted to sit next to her.  Everyone had wanted to help before, but she had pushed all her friends away, even though she didn’t want to.  She was hiding behind that mask of anger to hide the sadness beneath, and none of her friends could see that.

 

Who would have patience to see through a double mask?  

 

So she grew even more distant and maybe that was for the best. For everyone. She knew that wasn’t true, she knew that sometimes it was dangerous to be alone.  But it was these types of lies that kept her from going insane.  The bell rang, and she slowly rose from her seat, moving as slowly as possible.  It was time to go home, and that meant endless questions from Jake about why she skipped therapy.

 

He was already waiting for her once she got in the house, but he wasn’t angry.  He looked like he had been crying.  “Vee, please,” he said.  

 

He wanted her to talk to him.  But she had never seen him in this much pain before, and it scared her.  “I told you not to worry about me," she said.   

 

“Vee, you can’t fool me, I know that you feel helpless, I know that you hold in all your tears because you think that it will go away on it’s own.  Well it’s not!”  he yelled. 

 

She stepped back, but he didnt' stop.  “I know you hide all of your pain behind that blank expression, and I know that you hold it in because you don’t want to put a burden on anyone else!  You can’t hide like this forever, it’s not just hurting you, it’s hurting me.”  

 

That felt like a blow to the head, and that word, that one word that she had promised herself she wouldn’t say came out of his mouth.  

 

“It’s like you’re broken.”  He took in a long breath and sat down on the couch, his head in his hands and all she could hear was the muffled sobs, it’s was all she could feel, it was all she could see.  

 

 “I’m sorry Jake.  I…”  That was all she could say before she noticed her voice was shaking.  She fell to her knees and all that she was holding in came out.  “I’m sorry that I can’t be fixed.”  She felt herself start to cry.  

“I tell myself it’s my fault, and I know that it’s not.”  Breath.  Breath.  “And the worst part is,  I can’t do anything about it.”  She touched her forehead to the wooden floor and cried, it was all that she could do. Something about that touch of wood called out to her. 

 

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and she leaned into her brother, as both of them drowned in their tears of sorrow, and their tears of anger.   

 

But most importantly, their tears of hope.  As she felt her brother's strong arms wrapped around her, and with the smell of pine flooring so near, that a memory came back so clear and so storng that she didn’t even know if it was real.

 

****

​

She was playing with her small stuffed bear on the floor of her father's workshop, as he was concentrating behind her.  She smelled the wood shavings strewn across the floor, of pine, and the sound of the loud saw was as clear as day. Everything was peaceful, but only for a second.  She heard the loud bang of the jewelry box hitting the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces.  She turned and saw something that she had never seen before, her father was on his knees, tears like raindrops slipping down his cheeks, becoming one with the shavings on the floor.   

 

“What happened dad?”  

 

“Oh, nothing sweetheart.” he said, but he was gulping down any sign that he was hurt.   “Mom’s present broke, that’s all.”  And in a whisper that she could barely hear, he said “It’s broken.”

 

“Well, can it be fixed?" she asked. "Maybe we could fix it together?”

 

He looked at her, holding her eyes. "Nothing can be fixed in one day," he said. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't start." 

 

​