I Won (YoungWritersShortStory)

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There once was a young girl who became lost. Boarded up and locked away by society because she was 'different'. She would sit in her room and look out the window at the happy, smiling children as they played and cry. She wanted a friend. She wanted someone to love her, that's all she ever wanted. Nobody wanted her.

Every single night she would have nightmares. She dreamt of blood and murder and abandonment. They would scare her awake, a waterfall of sweat on her. She trembled as she tried to make them go away. She couldn't fall back asleep without the bad images flooding through her mind. She hugged her stuffed animal to her chest as she sobbed violently. A man whom she never saw the face of once slaughtered her whole family. Her older brother got an arrow through his forehead, her sister was a dismembered, bloody heap in the shower, and her mother had an axe through her neck as she slowly bled to death. Her daddy was nowhere in the dream, dead like he was in real life. She and her little brother hid in the small closet space as the footsteps only grew closer. She remembered waking up shivering as the man took the last of the things she loved from her. It was the same nightmare every night. Her family was killed every night by the same man and she was the last one left. She felt alone even in her dreams.

Until one day, she saw a reflection staring back at her.

Who are you? she asked.

The reflection only smiled at her and wiped her tears away. It would tell her to stop crying and remind her it loved her. It held her so tight, tighter than anyone had ever held her before. It smelled nice. Familiar. And it made her feel safe.

The reflection loved when she smiled. Your smile is beautiful. They'll never know how beautiful it is, but I will. I will always know. I bet they don't even know you have a dimple. They're not worth it. Just focus on me. Soon, Princess. Soon we'll run away and they'll all be in the past, just you wait. As long as you hold my hand, nothing can take you away and hurt you. I will always protect you. I'll hold onto you tight. I will love you, forever and always, sweet girl; please don't forget that, it said.

On some days if she felt blue, it would make silly faces to cheer her up and she would copy them and end in a fit of giggles. She only giggled because of the reflection. Everyone else made her cry. She always wanted to be around the reflection because she was always happy with it.

Over a few short years, she clutched onto the glimmer of hope, love, and happiness the reflection gave her. And she slowly but surely fell in love with it. Not for the reflection's beautiful smiling face, but because it got her out the darkness that had engulfed her in the years before.

He saved her.

He was her other half. Her one true love. The one she waited for. Is saving herself for. The only one she would ever love.

But the people around her didn't see what she saw. They saw it as 'unhealthy' or 'childish' or even considered her stupid love as a sin. They judged and laughed at her until she'd break down in tears and sometimes dig the blade into her wrists. They made her feel different and like she didn't deserve love. They made her want to die.

The little girl trapped within a young woman tried so hard to escape this cruel world. She sliced her wrists until her blood was flowing down her arms like her tears bled down her cheeks. She burned herself, trying to match the hateful words burning in the back of her mind. She stopped eating because people told her she wasn't skinny. The rope around her neck hugged her in ways no human could ever match. She took beatings from angry kids but the pain they caused was nothing like the hollow, empty feeling like that of a hurricane brewing inside her. She deserved it. All the pain. She was a mistake. A walking abortion. Never. Meant. To. Exist.

Yet the reflection was still there and soon she realized how much she loved him.

She stood back up and climbed each rung of the mile long ladder. She listened for his distant voice at the top because it was too far up for her to see him. She climbed and never stopped climbing.

Once she had only a few more rungs to climb, her foot slipped but his hand grabbed hers and never...let...go.

He pulled her out of the dark well and smiled down at her. She threw herself in his arms and burst into tears. She thanked him over and over again.

Kissing her hair, he said, There's no need to thank me, Princess. Just know I'm never leaving you. Not like them. I'm not like the others. I love you.

She cried harder, knowing he was the one who actually meant those words. She found love even in the darkest of times.

And he saved me.

They judged based on his fame and fortune, but I've never seen that. I will never see that. I love him because he saved my life. He gave me a reason to live. You all judge a book based on its cover, but not me. This is the ultimate love story that saved my life and when I say I love him, I mean it. I love him.

My rebellion isn't about loving him though, it's about being in even the darkest of places and standing back on my feet and getting out. By living. I rebel against those who told me to 'just go kill myself', that I 'didn't belong', that I'm 'a big fucking mistake' by surviving. I did it.

Her name is mine, she happens to be me.

We are alike, yet very different.

She mirrors my every reflection.

She haunts my dreams with negativity.

Her goal is to ruin my self-esteem.

She cannot stop me, nor can she break me.

I am too strong for her to ever win.

For I am simply just being myself.

A gift even God cannot take from me.

Her name is mine, she is now the old me.

I won.