Clear and shiny they begin to fall gently sliding down her soft white skin. Faster they begin to fall, rolling down toward her chin. She stares into the mirror. Her reflection blurs into view and thoughts swirl into her mind.

“ What’s happened to me? How did I end up like this? I‘m stronger than this and I let someone do this to me. I let someone affect me like this.”

She stares again into her reflection and looked at her once alive, auburn hair hanging limply from her head. She stares into her gold-flecked green eyes filled to the brim with sadness and hurt, bloodshot from countless nights without sleep and quickly turns away.

“ I can’t even stand to look at myself now. I used to pride myself on thinking with my head not my heart. So why did I change something that had worked so well for me in the past?”

She rubs the bottom of her purple sleeve under her eyes and tries to brush her tears aside but they continue to fall silently down her cheeks. She bites her lip and looks down at the scattered red lined looking bright against her pale white skin. She tries not to think about the bruises forming a mess of blacks and blues all across her back, or the large fingerprints around her neck. She looks to her chest and imagines her small pink heart, the size of her fist collapsing from the weight of sorrow. She saw her emotions squirming out from the pile of debris, bursts of sadness, anger and confusion spreading throughout the air. She leans her head back against the cold, tiled wall; closes her eyes and tries hard to forget.

“ He didn’t. He wouldn‘t. And yet, he did. In the blink of an eye he unleashed his anger on me and showed me a side to him I never even thought could be there.”

She opens her eyes and stares into the mirror again. What she sees now are flashbacks of the past eight months and how happy he had made her, how much she sacrificed for their relationship. It had felt so perfect and now…

“ Now What?”

For hours she had sat there exploring options, options different from the one that kept surfacing to the top of the pile. She had to face that it was finally over. She had to gather up her strength and tell herself that someone who disrespects her like that is not someone she should want to be friends with.

“ You have to get over it. Humph. That’s what everyone says. But how do I get over him when he changes his personality constantly? How do you get over someone who keeps coming back? How do you get over someone who can treat you like you’re the most fragile of snowflakes or like you’re a worthless piece of trash that even a rat would turn your nose at? ”

She looks again to her reflection and makes a decision. She feels around next to her for her brown canvas bag and reaches inside. She pulls out a well-used spiral notebook covered with green gum wrappers and a pen and begins to write.

“ Here I sit, alone and hurt, surrounded by darkness, covered in bruises and cuts, but I can’t be the only one in a situation like this right? I know that I‘m stronger than this and I need to prove it for myself and for others that have been through things like this.”

She pauses her pen for a minute to stop and think.

“ Could this have been prevented? Can anyone do anything to keep violence like this from happening to other vulnerable girls like me, willing to wear their heart on their sleeve?”

She stops again to organize another idea her mind had brought forward.

“ How can we free the world from violence and try to bring about world peace at the same time?”

She begins to believe that maybe just maybe, she would be able to make it through her pain and misery, if she focuses on what she can do to help make the world more peaceful and less violent. She smiles for the first time in what seems like a light year and starts to write.

“ Baby steps. That’s what I need to start with. Baby steps. First I need to start with changing myself. By changing myself I can change others. I need to change my view of the people around me and place everyone on the same level of equality. I shouldn‘t treat certain people better than others because of trivial things like race or wealth. But instead I should treat everyone like I would want to be treated and I wouldn‘t want to be treated inferior to somebody just because of what I look like. Before I go and criticize someone for their opinions and ideas I need to take a second to have an open mind and consider things from their point of view before I write them off for no reason other than that the idea didn‘t come from me. I need to refrain from violence because violence does not solve problems it creates them and the effects of violence spread to people like a disease. I need to follow these principles and only then will I be helping make the world more peaceful and less violent.”

She stops writing and puts her pen and notebook back in her bag. Satisfied, she stands with a smile and opens the door. She lets the light flood in and walks out leaving her past behind her, her head held high, ready for the world to bring her the unexpected, ready to do her part in making the world a better place.