"I am sentencing you to one year of community service. You will be helping at the local crisis center taking phone calls and cleaning up the treatment center every Monday and Thursday." The judge leaned forward in his chair and stared down at the brown eyed boy intensely. "This is your chance for redemption, son. Don't screw it up." One loud slam of the gavel and the judge stood up from his chair. "Court is adjourned."
Jonathan shook his head and shrunk back in his seat as his lawyer pat his back. "It could have been a lot worse. In my opinion, you got off easy." He stood up and closed his briefcase, letting it hang loosely at his side while staring down at Jonathan. "Take it easy, kid."
He couldn't believe the mess all of this had turned into. He just wanted to find some relief and an escape from his life. He just wanted to find some peace. He had learned that relief came with a price, trying to find any kind of peace in this life came with a huge price. This time he had messed up, he had messed up big time and there was no rewind button.
~~~
"I hate you! You are a lousy drunk who uses her hands as a punishment for her disappointment of a daughter!" She knew it was coming. She could almost see her mother's hand rise and feel the impact across her cheek before it even happened. It was quick and painful but she was used to it and when something like that happens enough, you expect it and when it's the only attention you get from your mother you start to find it acceptable.
She was used to the pain on her cheek, the red spot that almost never seemed to fade, the pain on the top of her head from getting her hair pulled on a weekly basis, the bruises on her arm from getting yanked around like a dog on a leash. The abuse was never ending and she had come to accept it, she had learned to feel nothing and drown her pain with bottles upon bottles of alcohol. She had become numb to life and everyone around her. She hated school and everyone in it hated her. The friends she had known since grade school saw her change and became scared of her hopeless attitude. They found it disturbing and frightening when every other word out of her mouth was about death and leaving everything behind. She couldn't be normal; she couldn't feel joy like a normal high school girl when everything surrounding her was dark and painful.
Life was hopeless.
Loving someone was ultimately hopeless in the end.
Nothing mattered and soon her life would be over.