Broken

She held the blade to her wrist, droplets of blood spilling from the other fresh cuts decorating her thin arm and splashing softly onto the floor. Trembling because of the silent tears racking her small frame, she pressed the blade into her skin once again, barely flinching when the cut started to sting. A few tears slipped down her already tear stained cheeks, a loud scream of horror escaping her hoarse throat when she caught sight of her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her normally bright, full auburn locks hung limply around her face, some of the stringy wet strands sticking to her face and neck. Her white blouse was nearly falling off her shoulders, her black skirt in tatters. Bruises and cuts covered her entire body, blood dripping down her legs and sticking to her inner thighs.

She looked like a complete mess on the outside and felt the same on the inside, though it felt even worse on the inside, no matter how much pain she was on the outside. Alice had never really felt happy. Growing up she had to deal with workaholic parents that often forgot they had a second child, an older sister who was a prodigy, and her grandmother who preferred to drink and sit in front of television all day and watch soaps, then rather watch her while her parents were at work. She mostly took care of herself, this continuing well into her teen years. She had lived this way for fifteen years and around the age of twelve, she started to harm herself. Having been severely depressed for over a year, she needed to find some kind of outlet for her pain. The thing she chose as an outlet was self harm. No one noticed a thing. Her parents thought Alice seemed depressed, but they both passed this off as a teenage angst thing. To them it really wasn't anything to worry about.

Days, months, even years passed and she didn't get better, but just a few days ago in school, things started to look up, at least to her. She had been walking down the hall, minding her own business, when she bumped into a boy about a year and a half older then her. His name was Nick something. She had seen him around school and he seemed like a nice guy. After stuttering out a sorry for bumping into him, she hurried away from him, rather surprised when he started to follow her. To make a long story short, he attempted to make conversation with her and after replying to his comments only halfheartedly, he asked her out. Alice didn't agree to a date right away, but after realizing that this was probably the only boy who would notice a plain Jane like her, she agreed to go out with him. Really, though the only reason she went out with him, was because she had never really received that kind of attention from a boy. It was rather pathetic of her to act so desperate after a boy had /finally/ noticed her, but she really wanted to experience the dating scene like all the other girls her age were. Besides, when would she get the chance to go out on another date? Knowing herself she wouldn't get asked out again until she was over twenty.

This was she thought anyway.

A big reason for her depression was because people always failed to notice her. She was very shy, so it was very, very hard for her to work up the nerve to introduce herself to people. When this Nick guy noticed her, she was thrilled that someone had actually started up a conversation with her and what was even more surprising was that this person was a guy. To put it simply, she had been very, very excited about the date. So after telling her half asleep/drunk grandmother she would be back by ten, she left the house and hopped into Nick's car. She had been expecting him to take her to a movie. She hadn't been expecting him to take her to someplace that was the equivalent of some kind of make-out point. He had probably expected the shy, quiet girl to be easy, but that was far from the truth. The moment she realized what was going on, she softly told him to take her home. He didn't listen and apparently took her quiet demand to go home as a twisted kind of yes. Ignoring her pleas to go home he grabbed her, forcing her to lay down in the front of his old, beat up green car as he started touching her in ways she didn't want anyone to touch her for quite a few more years.

She cried out. Struggled and begged him to stop. Alice tried her best to fight him off, but he was physically stronger then her and try as she might, she was unable to stop him from doing the unthinkable. After forcing himself on her three times, he brought her back home, giving her a slap on the rear when she moved to climb out of the car. Laughing, he told her she was a good lay and then drove off. So that was the reason why he had asked her out. He had thought she would be easy and when he found out otherwise, he decided to just go ahead with it since he had went through all the trouble of asking her out and picking her up. Stumbling into the house, she bit down on her arm in order to stile her sobs as she walked up the stairs and into the small bathroom she shared with her sister. Locking the door behind her, she stood in front of the mirror, razor in hand, her tortured mind drifting back to the events that had taken place that evening.

She felt herself starting to tremble violently as she thought back to everything that had brought her to standing in front of a mirror, razor in hand, and blood still spilling from all the fresh cuts she had made. Alice had thought that maybe the blood would feel her better but it didn't help at all. The only thing it had done was make her feel even worse. Digging the razor into her skin once again, she dropped the razor when she heard a loud banging at the door, her sister wanting to get into the bathroom. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she stumbled into her room and collapsed onto her bed, not caring about the blood that was staining her covers because at the moment that was the least of her worries.