A young girl, about twelve years old sits up in bed; too cold to fall asleep. She hugs her knees to her chest and looks out the window; it’s snowing again. The snow was gently sparkling in the eerie light cast by the street lamps and the occasional passing car. Everything is covered in a thick coat of white, velvety in the soft, strange light.

She wishes she could be out there, out in the calm, instead of in this house. Beyond her closed door, she hears the sound of screaming and yelling. She’ used to the noise; her parents fight often, but it still bothers her. She hugs her legs closer to her body in an attempt to keep warm. Her old, thin sheets are pulled up and wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She tries to pull the legs of her too-small pajama pants down so that they cover most of her shin, but she tries in vain.

She leans her forehead against the small glass part of her window and watches the fog her breath makes on the window wax and wane. She shivers and pulls the blankets tighter around her. Beyond her closed door, she hears something smash; the young girl only sighs. It was probably the Christmas present that she had made for her parents; a painted plate. Not that her parents had know it was a Christmas present; her parents had been too hung over that morning to remember what day it was. Nevertheless; she had given the gift. She thought bout it; it had to be the plate, there was nothing else fragile left in the house, unless you counted the countless empty beer bottles that littered almost every surface. But it wasn’t a beer bottle, she knew the sound of a breaking beer bottle, she had heard it many a time. It was indeed the plate that had been smashed.

She thought of the broken gift and of how she had gotten no gifts in return. If her parents had remembered to get the gifts, they had certainly forgotten to give them. This didn’t bother the girl; the thought of no gifts had been anticipated, her parents had forgotten her birthday last month as well. No presents; she didn’t mind, no turkey dinner; she could stand, but the very idea of forgetting Christmas...

A car passed by her window, she could hear it and feel it through the makeshift plastic patch that covered the smashed hole in her window, the plastic vibrated violently. She pulled away from the plastic and tore her gaze away from the window to look about her room, but she quickly looked back outside.

Her tiny room was bare except for a bed, a chair and a closed closet in the corner. Still, the room as barely big enough to fit these few things. There was no paint on the walls except for what was left of the old white paint pealing from the walls, revealing the bad plaster job underneath. The room would be considered clean compared to the rest of the house, only because nothing was in it. The rest of the house was covered in grime, beer bottles everywhere, papers strewn about. Disorder reigned. There were no personal belongings or photographs in her room save one. This one picture was usually hidden, taped under the girl’s chair. Now the little girl held the picture in her hand as a source of comfort. The picture was one of two smiling parents, a grinning little girl and a beaming baby boy. The girl’s parents didn’t like this picture; she hid it from them so they wouldn’t tear it up. The picture reminded the girl’s parents of why their lives were such a mess, but it reminded the girl of what her life was like before her brother died. The picture was the only comfort she had left, no matter how small it was; she clung to it.

Ever since her brother died, her life hadn’t been the same. Her parents had spent all their money on his hospital care, but it hadn’t changed a thing; he had still died. Soon after, her father lost his job and they had to sell everything they could and move to a smaller house. Her parents started drinking to dull the pain, but it only made things worse. Drinking soon took over their lives and neither of them could get a job. They took out their anger and frustration the only way they could; on their little girl.

She could hear her parents still yelling, screaming, swearing, smashing things. She tried to block out the noise, she wanted to ignore it, pretend it wasn’t there, but she couldn’t do it. All she could do was concentrate on the cold and think of how her life used to be.

The girl rubbed her arms from the cold and winced at the pain; her arm still hurt from where her father had broken it. The cast had been removed two days ago, but it still hurt. Her parents had broken her arm and other bones in her body before, but that she could stand. They had broken her gift that she worked so hard on, but that didn’t matter. They had broken something no one could ever fix; they had broken her heart.