Disclaimer: Everything’s © me, so I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t steal. (And Crazy Stalker would really appreciate the meal if you actually did steal, just a warning to you.)

Chapter Two: Broken

Many days have passed by

unnoticed by me

They all seem the same

drab and same and routinal

Never changing

Always remaining the same

Day after day

Month after month

Year after year

until I finally choose

and strike the heart with the blade

"Something’s wrong with her," Kayla said, her nut-brown eyes worried. "I can feel it. It’s like an aura. A sharp, but powerful aura."

Albert didn’t say anything for a while. The minute after Rippy had left, he had immediately called Kayla’s house and told her to come over. "Mesmerized by me," he found himself saying.

Kayla cast a questioning look at him. "Are you sure that we don’t need to stop by an asylum, Albert?"

He shot her an annoyed look. "I’m fine, Kayla. Don’t worry. I was thinking about something." He smiled to himself. "Mesmerized by me" was a joke between Rippy and him that was meant to make them both of them feel better; it had stayed strong through five years. And we’re in 9th grade now, Albert realized. It wasn’t a question of making them feel better, he discovered, but how it made them feel.

- start flashback -

When Rippy and him had been in the fourth grade, they had been playing on the tire swing at the school playground one fine spring day (Kayla hadn’t moved to Rittleton yet), and when they were bored with playing on the swing for a while, they decided to walk around the playground. And there, among the mulch, instead of tar, Rippy found something surprising - and something that wasn’t rarely (probably never, so far) at the playground - a piece of polished jade. It was murky green, and the surface was so smooth, almost like marble or (after it’s been polished) quartz. So temptingly smooth and cool to the touch. Rippy reveled in the feel of it against her palm. There were some ridges in the jade piece, but they weren’t deep. Albert remembered what he had said that day as if he had said it a few minutes ago:

"Mesmerizes you, doesn’t it?" Ten-year-old Albert looked at the piece of jade, which shone brightly in the sun. "It captivates you, makes you want to see what the polished and smooth and shiny surface holds; what secrets it hides beneath the surface. What’s beautiful on the outside just might not be beautiful on the inside," he said, frowning.

Rippy laughed gaily. "It’s only jade, Albert. No need to analyze everything on the earth, you know," she chided him gently. "Just let go, forget your thoughts, and concentrate on nothing but what you’re feeling right at that moment."

Albert looked at her in amazement. "Y’know, Rippy . . ." he trailed off, looking at the gemstone in Rippy’s hand, "what it looks like really enchants us. It fascinates us, you could say. The color, the surface, the texture . . . everything. Everything enchants you. Mesmerizes you so much."

"That all you want to do is look and gaze at it forever," Rippy finished for him. "But you don’t become obsessed with it. It just makes you in believe in all that’s magical, since the mere sight of it is so amazing to see and to look at."

Albert smiled at her. "My sentiments exactly," he said.

They looked at each other, and silently agreed to keep the jade as to keep the enchantment forever. Little did they know that it would also bring them relief, at the same time.

- end flashback -

And, Albert reflected later, the "mesmerized by me" was on account of their reflections on the jade’s surface. It was a sight to see.

"Kayla," he said, frowning a little in thought, "have you ever cared about something or someone so much, and obsessed with them so much, that that was all you cared about, that you realized that there was no point in being anymore?" He glanced at her. "Have you ever done that?"

The girl’s eyes narrowed in thought. A few milliseconds passed. There was a sudden breeze that ruffled Albert’s hair, and a few leaves fell off of trees and scuttled along the road. "Yes, I have," she said at last.

Albert turned to look at her. Kayla stood there on the road, a few tendrils of her hair fluttering in the wind and a passive look in her eyes. "Rippy feels that way, too? Right now?"

"Yes," Albert said quietly. "So desperate that she feels that there’s no point in being anymore, even for the enchantment and a fantasy or make-believe world. Or a world of her own, come to think of it."

"I had no idea," Kayla said in a raspy voice.

Albert only nodded in silent agreement. "Now, come on, let’s - " he stopped. For there was Rippy, right there, on her knees, crying her whole being out while rain fell on them.

Kayla signaled to Albert silently to help her take Rippy out of the storm and into her home, and he obliged. Taking Rippy carefully by both arms, the two of them hurried to Kayla’s house and just as the door slammed shut behind them, thunder struck, and an electrifying shock - from the sound of loud thunder - coursed through their very being.

"Rippy . . ." Albert said in breathless shock as he took a look at her knee, which was badly cut from the little pieces of shattered glass. Kayla had gone to get the first-aid kit and some bandages, along with a few packets of alcohol. Where the glass had come from, she had no idea, Rippy realized numbly. She looked up at Albert apprehensively. "Ally?" she uttered his nickname, which was usually in fondness for him, nervously. She wondered what he would do. Albert for sure wasn’t the violent type (unless it was absolutely necessary), but then again, Rippy had been very foolish to even be out there in the storm in the first place, and on her knees when there was sharp glass pieces on the ground. So he had a reason to be mad. Rippy bowed her head in shame. What a complete fool I am. Trust me to not think rationally and get hurt in the process.

"What happened, Rippy?" Albert finally asked.

The girl in question lifted her head up. "Mom lost it," she said quietly. So quietly that even if Albert strained his ears hard to listen, he still wouldn’t be able to hear her. But he understood her. He always did, Rippy thought. No wonder he’s my best friend in the whole entire world. "When Dad left, she couldn’t stand it and took it out on the house."

"Her temper," Albert whispered. "Nothing happened to you, did it?" he asked frantically.

"No," Rippy answered, smiling secretly to herself and marveling at how Albert worried so much about her. "I didn’t. By the time I came inside . . . she was lost. Totally and completely lost. While I was talking to you, she destroyed the house. And when I got back, there was no more energy and anger left in her at all. It was all spent. Pretty much like money."

"Your dad leaving affected her that much," Albert mused.

Rippy nodded. "Sí. Yep."

Albert only gave her a small smile and began to attend to her wounds when Kayla came back with the first-aid supplies. Rippy just took it easy and didn’t even wince or flinch once when there was a sensitive spot. She leant against the sofa chair, tired but at peace. When both Albert and Kayla were done, Rippy filled Kayla in on what had happened so far that day. Kayla only gave her a look of understanding but didn’t say anything. Rippy suddenly realized, just then, that she was crying.

She wiped away the tears furiously, but that didn’t help - it only made the tears flow and come a lot faster. Kayla and Albert just looked at her. Not with pity, scorn, or concern - just neutral. Only they truly understood how Rippy felt - especially Albert. Of course we would understand each other, she thought. We’re outcasts of society, after all. We’re misfits. So it would make sense that we know each other’s pain and suffering, inside and out.

When Rippy recalled her family’s situation, that only made her cry harder. It was just too painful for her to bear - even more harder to bear with than the pain that she’d had earlier. And both Albert and Kayla cried along with her, knowing that words wouldn’t bring comfort this time. Words never did. They only made Rippy’s pain and anguish worse. And they never would, either.

Memories wash over me

making my hesitate only once

making me doubt

and prolonging the plunging

of the blade on the heart

even further

I only stare at the pieces of shattered glass

that completely surround me

Those same pieces of glass

that made the small, painful cuts on my skin

They’re my mediation, my only hope

before I delve into this dark world

that I’ve created on my own

even further

As I look all around me before committing the act

the only thing that I recollect before I die

is the glass being broken into more tiny little

sharp pieces

prickling me, piercing me deep

bruising, puncturing, cutting

into the skin

and the whole world turning dark

and everything being shattered

and broken

and battered

just like I am

Being scattered into the wind

as if I were nothing

And then the final thread snaps within me

the glass remains broken

and everything else remains smashed

and broken

and battered

And quiet darkness sweeps over me

while I’m laying still

a broken soul