“Strength. What is strength?” Alex wondered as she held the black pen in her trembling hand, tears started to slowly roll down her face. She put the pen against the page and wanted to begin writing the letter but as soon as she wanted to write the words “Dear James” the pen just slipped out of her hand. Alex looked down at the page. The sheet was decorated with her tears. Alex just couldn’t do it, she tried to hold her tears back but it was just too hard. At a time like this it’s almost impossible to prevent your feelings from exploding. Sadness, frustration, agony, loneliness, anger. A cluster of emotions. You try your best, but no matter how much you want to fight it and how hard you try to stop the tears from flowing, somewhere deep inside, something is screaming at you, destroying your sanity.
The chair let out a creaking noise as Alex sat back in it trying to catch her breath. This usually happened at least once a day. Alex would just burst out into tears, letting all of her emotions out; it’s just something she had to do. She always tried her very best not to think about all the problems she was facing but sometimes, it just got too hard.
Alex believed that everyone was like a glass bottle. We all keep our emotions inside of it in the form of red wine. We pour more and more wine into it until at some stage, the bottle become full. At that point wine starts overflowing and we are forced to empty out the bottle. Then once the bottle is completely empty we can start pouring more wine into it - repeating the process.
The pen had rolled of the desk and the blue lined paper was now completely wet with Alex’s tears. Alex reached her weak hand towards the sheet and felt the corners of the page with her fingertips. The page felt really cold and bland in her hands. She brought it up to her chest and buried her head down in her own misery. Her eyes glanced towards the clock; it was about to turn nine p.m. which meant her father would be home any minute now.
The door made a loud bang as Alex’s father, Dmitry, closed it behind him. Alex was up in her room so she could barely make out what his words were, but she was quite able to hear him shouting at Sophia; Alex’s mom. Alex locked the door to her room, attempting to lock away all her problems. She also did it in fear, trying to protect herself from her father. Nobody could ever be certain what he was able to do while under the influence of alcohol. Alex backed away from the door and headed for one of her drawers. The key to her room made a silent "cling" as it hit the wooden floorboard. What was only a few steps seemed like miles. Alex dropped to her knees as she opened the drawer. Under a pile of books she took out a little metal blade. Tears fell to the ground as she pulled up her sleeve.
It was a foggy night, cold one too. The stars were shining and the moon whispered the name ‘Alex’ in a sweet, gentle tone. Everything went silent for a moment. The only thing that echoed through the house was Alex’s soft cry for help as she sat back watching red drops of blood fall to the ground.
