Being Broken

Chapter One

Being Broken Chapter One

•Brielle•

{The lights were dim on the night where my life changed for the worse. Only a few lights were turned on throughout the house, giving it a creepy, eerie feeling. Creaks echoed throughout the empty living areas, and I jumped every time occasional flashes of lightning illuminated and thunder cracked.

My seven year old body was moving slowly. My heart was pounding. I knew my eyes were wide, and I felt my breathing go ragged. He was here somewhere, and I could feel it.

Creeping down the stairs towards the front door, I made sure to avoid every step that squeaked. It was challenging because it was such an old house.

I actually reached the bottom floor without incident. It was about the only thing that went well that night. However, being twenty feet from the door, I became careless. As I stumbled towards the one thing that would give me freedom, I clumsily tripped over the rug that was laying on the floor, and I went down hard.

Footsteps pounded on the ground, and my heart went into overdrive. My poor little seven year old self scrambled and tried to run for the door as fast as I could, but only got a few feet further before he grabbed me by my hair.

I screamed as I tried to push him off of me. Kicking and screaming and trying to get away, I knew what was coming, yet I couldn't get away.

"Stop!" I pleaded.

My cry was met with a punch to my stomach. I gasped out as tears leaked out of one of my eyes.

"Stop fighting, you bitch," he snapped. Pulling his hand back, he then slapped me across the face. I sobbed, and was going to cover my face with my hands, but he pinned my wrists so they were above my head. Shoving me backwards, he finally released me for a second.

I cried out in pain once again as my head collided with the foyer wall. Tumbling to the ground, I only smacked it again on the wood floor, adding to the pain. It was only seconds then before he was kneeling over me with an evil smirk on his face.

Leaning down and ripping my shorts off, he said, "I'm going to enjoy this," right before he gripped my hips and thrust into me.}

I screamed as I shot up in my bed. Sweat coated every part of my body, and my heart sounded as if I had just run a marathon. My breathing was ragged, just as it had been in the dream, and I was shaking profusely. My vision was blurry due to sitting up too fast, and from stress. It didn't help that it was raining outside, and a crack of thunder hit, making me jump.

Looking around my bedroom to focus my eyes, I calmed down knowing that I was safe here, and it was only just a dream. The same dream I have had every night since I was seven years old.

Yes, that's right. Every night I am forced to watch and relive the same event that made me the shy, anthropophobic person I am today. Every night, I get to feel the same pain I felt that night when I was seven years old. Every night, I wake up screaming in a pool of sweat because it's all too much for me to handle. Every night, I don't realize I'm crying until I start gasping from lack of air.

It takes me about forty-five minutes to calm down enough for my body to function properly. Once I do this, I slowly get up from my bed and make the short walk from the mattress to the shower.

I flicked the light on in the bathroom and momentarily blinded myself. When my eyesight had returned back to normal, I stared at myself in the mirror. All I saw was a broken girl with puffy red eyes, cheeks that were streaked with dry tears, and a rats nest that most people would call hair.

I sighed, turning away from the mirror. Removing my clothes, I stepped into the shower to try to relax myself more.

The water always felt nice after all of this went down. There was just something about water that calmed me down more. I loved the way that it fell over you and surrounded you, almost like it was protecting you. It was like a shield. Calming, cool, and . . . wet.

After washing and conditioning my hair, I stepped out of the shower. I quickly dried myself off, found a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt, wrapped my wet hair in the towel, and went back into my room.

As I sat down in my desk chair, I noticed that it was only two-thirty in the morning. I sighed because I knew I wasn't going back to sleep. On a good day, the nightmares would wake me up around four or five in the morning. But tonight it didn't look that way.

I grabbed my sketchbook and a sharpened pencil and started to draw. That's something else that helps me calm my nerves. Drawing has always been something I did since I was little. Of course, then it was rough outlines of butterflies and unicorns. Now, I'd like to be able to call myself a half-decent artist. Well, maybe not artist. Artists show people their work, and that is something that I can say I've never done.

I never knew what I was sketching. I never did. My hand just sort of starts going, and I have to wait and see what the final result will be.

It was seven o'clock when I finished. I took my hand back, and looked at my work. I smiled small because it was a picture of my older sister and I. She meant everything to me. She took me in after the incident happened since my parents both passed when I was a baby. My sister cares for me, tries to help me as much as she can, and loves me for who I am. She means the world to me.

That's who I lived with now. Ever since I was seven- now thirteen years later- she's let me live with her. She helped me through high school, which I got through virtually unnoticed. She's let me live here with her and her husband, and they've been so great to me.

Her name is Aidy. She has short blonde hair and blue eyes. She is around five foot five with a tiny figure. She's six years older than I am, so she's twenty-six.

Aidy's husband Noah is twenty-eight. They got married when he was twenty-six and she was twenty-four. He has short brown hair and brown eyes. He's a lot taller than both Aidy and me, standing at six foot three. Noah is the only male that I trust. He's the only one I can talk to without freezing up and having a panic attack. It originally took me a long time to get used to him, but I've known him for five years now, and I trust him.

Because of the incident thirteen years ago, I was anthropophobic. Basically, that means I'm afraid of humans. In my case, I'm afraid of males. Women aren't as bad, but I prefer just not to talk to them at all. People in general aren't my forte. I really do freeze up and then I'll start to have a panic attack. I don't talk to people. I don't let anyone outside Noah and Aidy touch me. I don't interact with people.

It's a sad life for a twenty year old, but because of the infamous incident, it made me who I am today.

A soft knock brought me back to now, and my bedroom door opened a few seconds after.

"Brielle?" Aidy asked softly. When she saw me sitting at my desk, she said, "Oh good, you're awake."

I gave her a flat look. She knew I was going to be awake. She tried that every morning, but it never made me feel better.

"Breakfast is ready if you want some," she said.

"I'll be right down," I said quietly.

She nodded and closed my door again.

I sighed. Putting my sketch into a binder with page protectors where I had all my other rough sketches, I closed the book and started my way downstairs.