Short Stories

Short Story 1

A/N- Trigger Warning Now. Mentions of physical and emotional abuse.

She sat there in the exam room in the stupidly uncomfortable hospital gown and wondered to herself what happened to her. When she was little she was so happy. With glow stars on the ceiling she could count instead of sheep when she couldn't sleep. Racing her sister to the swings and back and whoever lost had to pay the winner a quarter. God a quarter was so much money when they were five. But she grew up, became a teenager. The first time she fell in love she was 14 but maybe it wasn't love. Maybe she tricked herself into thinking it was love because that boy beat her until she was bruised. Never anywhere that would show or wasn't easy to cover up. Call her a slut if she even talked to another boy but sometimes he was nice, not when he beat her or tore her away from her friends, but when he'd buy her chocolate and take her to a movie and let her get whatever she wanted, usually a soft pretzel. Maybe that was love. She suffered that for a year and that's when she went to her first party. 15 and alone, she discovered that she could drink her worries away. Come home at two in the morning. That's when she discovered that she didn't have any control. Maybe she was a slut, she slept with so many guys she doesn't remember half of them. Granted that could been the alcohol. She thought about her home life. God that was a mess. She always knew her parents favored Cici and Lexa over her but they didn't have to rub it in. Bria why can't you be like Cici. Bria, if Cici can do it why can't you? Maybe because that boy who beat her took so much from her. Maybe because she has so many anxiety attacks a month that she can't focus. The PTSD was enough to debilitate her. Not that her parents care, they want the perfect image. A perfect family with perfect daughters who never did anything wrong. How much she longed to give it all back, to start over and rewrite an ending or two. She wanted to be that five year old again, with blond pigtails and grass stained clothes. To have glow stars on her ceiling to count again. But maybe it will all be alright. Maybe it'll be negative. Maybe she'll still have a future.