Broken

She's never really fit in. The jocks? She's too much of a crybaby to fit in with those competitive airheads. The nerds? They're afraid of her, of what they know she's done and what they know she's capable of. The gangsters? She's too strange, smart, and has too much ambition to fit in with people that will probably die young and on the same street they've always been on.

That feeling of being all alone even among hundreds of people? She's always felt it, deep down inside. But somewhere along the road she'd learned to make her mask very convincing. Sometimes, even those few that she called friends wouldn't even know that her mind was troubled. There were many people that hated her or ridiculed her or pretended she didn't exist, but there was an almost equal number of people that seemed to occasionally appreciate her existence.

Then at some point, she became isolated.

She didn't want to. She resisted, tried to hold on to the select few that she still considered friends, but she wasn't allowed to. Part of her recognized all the red flags, but the part of her that won out was the part that could justify anything for the sake of what she thought was love.

That was the part of her that ended up as an engaged teenager. And she said yes even though she knew she was doomed. Because she convinced herself - no, she was forced to convince herself - that everything would be ok. It was for love. It was meant to be.

Except it wasn't. She spent three years being forcefully conditioned to believe that she wasn't worth it. She couldn't make it on her own. She was too skinny, then she was too fat. She was stupid, then suddenly too smart. She was a dog, trained to follow orders without resistance. She didn't deserve attention or love or anything, really. She was a waste of space. She was only good for sex, but that still wasn't enough to stop the various kinds of abuse. She had no purpose.

There were knives everywhere. Kitchen knives, box cutters, pocket knives. But as soon as the cold metal touched her skin, she couldn't do it. She couldn't even bring herself to draw blood.

And that made her even more pathetic.

She almost find her purpose when she discovered she'd be having a baby. Then she realized that this made her situation worse, not better. Sure, there'd be one person that would need her and always be around. One person she was allowed to care for. But she was regarded with suspicion. Her baby was denied by the one who helped create it. And every day, she went monotonously from school to work to home. Except that place wasn't her home. Sure, it was a house and she lived in it, but when she jumped out of the frying pan she unwittingly jumped directly into fire. It wasn't really home.

But nobody noticed. Sure, she had two of her friends back, but what could she tell them? What was there to do, when she was forced to present a happy face to the world, when all she wanted to do was cry? What could she do at all when any wrong action, word, or even thought would add another multicolored reminder that her purpose was only to follow?

She could wear long sleeves, long pants, make sure her body would never be visible. But she could not hide her face, and that gave it away. She'd go to school with her eyes looking not unlike a raccoon's at this point. She had red liquid at her lip for her to quench her thirst with during particularly uninteresting lectures so that she wouldn't have to force her legs to carry her to a water fountain. Oh, there were questions. Questions from people in power. But her only choice was to lie, and put on that smile she'd been trained to wear at all times. After all, she was only a worthless liar. Lying was what she did, right?

Meanwhile an underage girl was replacing her previous roles. An underage girl was naked in the same bed which her and even her baby would sometimes sleep. Not at the same time, of course. Only while she was busy attempting to hold on to her education, to her employment. This underage girl was showered with gifts and attention. This underage girl was given things she'd never known. And she was forced to comply, to be okay with it all. Because what else could she do? Here she was, being replaced by a younger, more athletic, more flexible female at half the age one would normally expect a situation like that to come about. And she could do nothing.

Help? People tried. Few people. But not hard enough. She never blamed them for it though - she wasn't worth saving in the first place. Calling for help? Now she'd been informed countless times afterward that she should have taken a different course of action. She was constantly told that she should have contacted authorities or filled some sort of report. But how? As soon as her phone was in sight, it was flung across the room. Nobody answered when she screamed, because nobody cared. When she stopped screaming, it wasn't only because she always got in trouble for doing so, but also because she realized that she'd rather not waste her breath if it had no purpose anyway.

She was also constantly told that she should have just left. But it wasn't that simple, it never is. Who were they to assume she could have done one thing rather than any other? She had a baby, but really she was just a baby herself. A baby that was forced to grow up. When she was asked what she was going to eat that time sandwiches were ordered to be delivered, she was genuinely shocked. These people could afford to have sandwiches delivered to their door? And she realized that they had power, because money always equals power, and that staying meant her baby was entitled to that power as well.

Oh, she'd grown up with food. A roof over her head. Clothes on her back. But vacations? She was lucky enough to have been on one or two. Entertainment? Basic television with none of the channels that her peers had access to. Food? If her mother cooked a meal, it was too last for a week. She would have to make her own flimsy sandwiches or dig up canned meats or find cereal to eat. But these people had it all. She couldn't subject her baby to what she was forced to deal with.

And then one day, she realized that what she dealt with growing up was much more preferable than what she'd been dealing with.

She saw her opportunity. She was left alone, but not before more insults were hurled her way. And she took the opportunity to come clean. She showed a horrified parent what had been happening. She escaped. Only her baby, herself, and a few essentials. Back to where she came from.

But three years of conditioning during one of the most impressionable times of one's life would never do any good.

The nightmare was over, wasn't it? So why was she still incapable of forming emotional ties with people? She'd been everywhere with everyone and done everything, but it was dull, dreary, lifeless. It all had no meaning. She was worthless, after all. Why treat her body with any respect?

Even after that all stopped, even after she became bored with what she'd become and tried to search for someone she could connect with, she still failed. Those that attempted to care for her only cared how vulnerable she became. Nobody actually cared. And she realized it, eventually. That nobody cares, and nobody ever did, and probably that nobody ever will.

But it felt oddly relieving once she accepted it. She no longer found the need to seek anyone's company. She'd always been different, but now even more so. At least before, she could pretend to be part of society. But after her experiences, she simply no longer knew how. She didn't even know how to pretend to care. Oh, sure, she could work. Pretend to care if she was paid for it, but that was because in the end, she directly benefited from it. Pretending to be nice to customers and coworkers resulted in her being given more hours, earning more trust, and essentially earning more money. Money makes the world go round, after all. And with money, she could escape. Because she didn't have the courage to escape permanently, all she could do afterward was to earn her own money, because of course nobody cares enough to support her or to even know her enough to know that she needed support.

She still couldn't stand it. Angry people. She'd freeze up and cry and not know what to do. And it pained her that this was her body's reaction to seeing anger. But she was a hypocrite. Every little thing angered her, too. From annoying habits of others on public transit, to a snack being out of stock, to struggling to pay her bills. But because of her reaction to seeing anger, she simply learned how to push her own further down. Because what else is there to do? Obviously violence solved nothing in the long run. She'd tried talking, but only an immediate issue at hand would be put to rest, while the root of each problem would remain and be allowed to grow in a different direction.

So she stopped talking. But the feelings don't go away, she just learns how to hide it all. Of course nobody notices that she's still afraid. Of her past, of herself, of who she'd become, but generally just afraid.

She'll never be good enough.