There Is Always Hope

There was a girl standing in front of me. Her face was dirty, with streaks of dried cleanliness going down her cheeks. I didn’t know her, but I knew how she was feeling—ignored, left behind, betrayed—because I had felt that way so many times before. Her sobs broke the silence between us every once in a while, and I could see her clench her jaw every time she blinked, as if she was resisting something; perhaps the need to cry.

I examined her face and I saw it is not unlike mine. It was tinted brown, with the yellow undertone of malnutrition present. Her lips were a pale pink, the kind you would usually associate with the beauty of roses, but there was nothing beautiful about them that day. They were chapped, with bits of skin clinging to them and blood staining the corners.

I wonder how she got this way; how the mess and grime ended up on her face. She looks confused, as I probably do in wondering the answer to my internal question, but we both continue to stand there. Her hair was neat and messy all at the same time, and I imagined that was how her soul would look if one could see a soul—a calm battle raging within.

I finally made contact with her eyes and I saw that she had been examining me as well. Our matching black eyes deadlocked with each other, and we both stared hard and angry, as if we were just caught rifling through each other’s private possessions…and we had been. After all, what was more private than the way we felt? And these feelings had been strewn across the faces we just finished exploring…

The anger in us was building up, but neither dared to look away or back down. We were not weak. We continued to glare, hard, and I could feel my teeth clench and my fists ball up and my eyes burn with hatred for this girl I had no knowledge of.

“Look Away!” I yelled, but the message was lost. She could not hear it through the stubbornness she held.

Tears started to come down my face, because I couldn’t stand this person who would not leave. Through my rage, I was blinded and I swore I saw her smirk. That broke all resistance in me and I raised my fist. I kept my eyes locked on the girl, begging without words that she move, because I knew I was too far gone to hold myself back.

I could no longer wait for her to leave, and so I lunge my fist at her with full force. Before I made contact, I heard a scream emanate from her throat, but it was not one of fright, as I would have imagined. It was full of the very same rage I felt as I hurled my fist at her.

As my fist made contact with her, I heard another roar; but this time it was coming from me. A shockwave of pain was sent throughout my body, and I was at a loss as to why. Surely her body could possibly hurt me this much? I looked up from my fist to the girl and she was gone, replaced with spikes of grays and blacks and reds. I felt my face scrunch up in confusion as I stared at the remains of what I had just done. The spikes weren’t mere color, I realized, but the shards of a mirror.

I had been angry with myself. I had wanted to hurt myself…I did hurt myself. I looked back down at my bloody hand with more rage than I had felt before. How could my reflection have made me so angry? In what state of mind was I in that I could not recognize that her pain was not similar to mine, but that it was mine? That she was me?

More cries crossed my lips and more pain filled my body as I bashed and bashed my hands repeatedly into what was left of the mirror.

Loser! Failure! Imbecile! Embarrassment!

All these words I spat at myself with every blow I landed. I drove glass and hatred deeper and deeper into me; the glass into my skin, the hate into my soul. I was nothing at that moment.

Through my episode I had blocked out the entire outside world. I focused on my selfishness in causing myself pain so much that I never heard the door to my bedroom open. I did not even feel the hands wrap around me or the tug they made in effort to pull me away from the remnants of the mirror. It was only when I was away from the mirror and no longer felt my precious pain that I snapped back into the world I so wanted to escape.

“…out of here! We need to get her to a hospital!”

“What did she do?!”

“Oh my God…”

So many voices flooded my mind at once that they all became too much to handle. I clasped my hands over my ears, and the pressure put on the glass embedded in them brought back the release I had lost. I pressed my hands harder down into my face and I could feel the warm blood seep out of my wounds and onto my cheeks.

Once again the sensation was lost as another pair of hands grabbed mine away from me. I screamed with all my might, begging and pleading and demanding that they be returned back to me; but all I heard was my name being cried, over and over and over.

“Emile. Emile. Emile!”

Such pain in their voices, such worry. But I didn’t care. They didn’t know pain, not like I did. I screamed and cried, flailing my limbs in an attempt to get myself released.

“Bring her over here to me, quick!” I heard. I looked over in the direction of the voice, but all I saw through blood, hair, and tears was a blurred vision that I could not make out. I flailed even more violently in protest of the creature I was being handed off to, but it made no difference. I felt my body being lowered onto something soft, and I cringed at its touch.

“This should subdue her…”

I felt one final, quick moment of pain as a needle was plunged into me, and then all went dark….