Nine is too young for a girl to grow up.
Too young for the monsters to creep in to your bed and smile while they do the unspeakable. While a whiskey soaked voice whispers the obscene into your golden curls and it crawls into your brain.
The first thing to escape was a scream. Shrill. Small. Stifled.
The second, blood. Warm. Thick. Dirtying your sheets and skin. They'll never be clean again.
The last, tears. Blurring. Slipping. Spilling. Never to be seen again.
Tears change nothing, you decided.
My body houses nothing but rage now.
Ten is too young for a girl to grow up.
Too young for the new nightmares, new monsters. There's new strength in your veins, but it amounts to nothing. It's not power. It's not special.
It's killing.
They say you're not alone, which only amounts to one thing – you're not special. You've never been special. Now's no different.
There's a small, dark-haired girl with tears in her black eyes and fury overtakes your baby blue irises. You can't stop yourself and you don't care. No one there is special. They're only weapons and you are a loaded gun.
Your foot connects again and again. All you see is a cracked reflection. No one has a home. They'll never have a home.
Tears change nothing, she repeated.
I will become something lethal.
Twelve is too young for a girl to grow up.
Too young to trade friendship for fear. You feel your peers tremble when you approach and part of you likes it. Another part, a fragile part, wants more. You hear them awe at your prowess. So lithe and agile.
You discover you enjoy making them think you're softer and warmer. They still fear you but follow all the same. They admire the way you speak and walk and fight. They ease into your trap when you smile. They believe your skin isn't steeled and your heart is anything but a black pit.
All but one. One girl with dark hair and black eyes. A girl with words she wears like armor and memories like open wounds. She is the embodiment of your karmic debt, rough and honest and beaten down. Even as you smile at her, she knows the truth. To you, she's a reflection, but to her, you are a broken window – and she sees right through, into your dead heart.
"I kind of hate you."
You smiled and, just this once, it was something real. There was someone worth saving.
Tears change nothing, you knew.
Perhaps saving her will save me.
Fifteen is too young for a girl to grow up.
Too young to think a smile could be anything more than that. You don't mean to follow her. You don't mean to grab her hand. You don't plan to stay up late almost every night talking to her.
So quiet, always quiet. Ask anyone.
But you're you, and she has so much to say. Weird things. Crazy thoughts. A life story and only you get glimpses of the text.
And when did she start laughing at your jokes? She laughs so hard, she snorts and you want to stay here forever.
When did she begin seeking you out and standing by your side? You watch the sunrise together on a cemetery you're sure you'll both be buried in one day, but the days ahead don't matter. She tries her best to tell a joke and you laugh because you're happy. If nothing else, there is happiness.
When did you begin seeing the world through her eyes? She sees you as something light and warm, as a hand she reaches for – and, suddenly, that's what you want to be. It's all you want to be. It's everything. She sees you as an equal – and, just as suddenly, you see her as something better than you could ever be.
Together, you think you have a future.
Finally.
Tears change nothing, you repeated.
With her, I can be something better.
Sixteen is too young for a girl to grow up.
Too young for love to twist into something with teeth and rage. Too young to fear betrayal. Too young for a heart to shatter to nothing.
She doesn't mean it. Or she always did. You don't know.
She looked at him in a way she would never look at you. She didn't see through the eyes of admiration, but of freedom. He made her feel free as you smothered her.
She kissed him, she kissed him, and her blade cut you open, taking everything. Is it envy or jealousy? Do you want to free her or know the freedom she experiences? Did she ever see through you or simply see what she wants you to be?
She kissed him and you can't stop seeing it.
She snipes at you, accusing you of recklessness. She worries you're hurting yourself. She's the one hurting you, not the other way around.
"You don't know hurt!" you spit. "Stop trying to make me feel bad for you!"
The words tumble out as naturally as they did nearly seven years before.
Tears change nothing, and you sink.
I'd sooner go mad.
Seventeen is far, far too young for a little girl to grow up.
Too young to feel someone else's blood on your hands. Innocent blood. To see a girl you'd die for crumble, at the sight of the corpses at her feet, at the sight of the open wound in her stomach.
The blood on your hands is hers. You lured him, the one who ruined everything, there after what he did to her. You made it all stop and she saw you clearly for the first time in so long.
He hurt her, but you broke her. You knew the outcome, no matter how much you deny it.
"This is not what we do!" she screams. "This is murder!"
Those dark irises hold little more than hate and you are worthless to her. Your mother was right. You really are nothing. A bag of skin and broken pieces. A lifetime of toxic, disgusting choices. Her blood is still on your hands as thunder cracks and lightning reveals you. A monster unmasked. A demon.
Her blood will always be there as long as you are here. Your hands, covered in red forever.
Perhaps that makes it easier.
The rain never felt so good on your skin as when you spin in it, still lithe and agile.
Fight them.
Fight off every dead, unclean thing – it doesn't matter how many there are. Fight them until your bones break and you taste nothing but blood, both theirs and your own. Twin daggers slash and spin through the darkness, tearing through pale, lifeless flesh.
Let go of the rage, the bitterness, the wasted hope. Let go of your madness. Let go of her, because she is gone. Be free. For once in your wasted existence, be free.
Let go of the last of yourself as two hands latch on to your head.
You never meant for this, but you want it. You want it more than you ever wanted almost anything.
I want to see her again.
And you do, but not how you expect.
You want to see her, but not like this. You don't think.
You don't consider if she survived, but of course she did. She's not you.
And this is her last image of you. The one you never wanted. The one one you don't think of until it's too late.
You see her sobbing, hear her screaming and it's like a gunshot in the dead silence. You imagine her at your funeral, an angry, torn down wisp of a girl. Another broken window, violently exposed.
You know better though. You repeat to yourself how she isn't you. You believe she's better than that. Maybe even repairable. And it comes as both a relief and curse. Losing you won't destroy her, not completely, but she would remember you.
And it's good enough. For a second, you're worth something.
Worth saving? No – but worth being remembered.
Really, it's the only happy end there was. All roads lead here.
For the only time in seventeen years, there's peace.
You see those black eyes and hear her scream again.
Fifteen is too young for a girl to grow up.
But she's strong. She'll smile again. She'll learn. Her life is an open road and you are the wind propelling her forward. This girl, the best of either of you, would live for both of you.
As the hands tighten and jerk your head, you allow a tear to slide down your cheek.