Broken or Beautifully Scarred?

A candle in a hurricane

     As she sat in her room, tears streaming down her face, she again considered the pills in the cabinet. It would be so easy, her mind assured her, it would stop every hurtful event. She sighed and sniffled. She cringed as the door to her room crashed open and splintered a bit, sending little bits of wooden needles to coat her hardwood floor. She looked fearfully to her drunken mother, as she sputtered out an incoherent command. The girl meekly asked her mother to repeat herself and was awarded with a vodka bottle being thrown in her direction. She ducked and it shattered against the wall.

"I s-said I'll be back later. Stupid b-bitch." She muttered as she went back to the front room, to retrieve more alcohol no doubt.

"My name is Rosemary." The girl whispered after hearing the front door slam open and shut again, followed by her mother's shouts to her boozy friend to get her more vodka as she climbed in his car. Rose quickly cleaned the bottle and wood before running out of the house and fighting back tears.

"Hello Rose." A sweet voice said. Rose immediately froze and whirled to look to him. Her neighbor Alec waved to her. She forced a smile and waved back. Alec saw the blood drops on her hand from where she'd cut them on the broken glass.

"Rose you're hands are bleeding! Here let me help you." He told her as he approached her. Rose fought the urge to run and allowed herself to be taken into Alec's house. She breathed a small sigh of relief with her best friend- her only friend. He knew some of what the fifteen year old endured but not all of it.

"Rosie sweetie what happened?"

"Nothing, I was cleaning some glass." She mumbled quietly.

"Your hands reek of alcohol."

"It was a vodka bottle. It broke." Her cheeks flamed red as tears began to fall from her soft blue eyes.

"How did it break?" He asked her, taking her hands gently in his.

"Laura threw it at me."

"Damn it Rose! I keep telling you to stay here. Why won't you?" He raised his voice and she shrunk into herself.

"Rosie? Sweetie I'm sorry I didn't mean to yell. It just makes me mad that your parents treat you the way they do. It isn't fair; I mean you're so sweet, and kind, and you're like a genius. I just don't understand how anyone can be so terrible to their own flesh and blood. You know Cain would let you stay." He told her softly as he brushed her brown hair behind her ears.

"It's alright, besides they need me at home." No matter how much Alec asked Rose wouldn't tell him what that meant.

     As they sat in silence Alec's older brother Cain walked in the door, returning home from his job as a child social worker. He stopped when he saw Rose. It wasn't that he didn't like her around his brother but that he worried what her parents would do to him.

"Hi Rosemary. Are you alright?" He motioned to the bandages on her hands. She nodded and looked to the floor.

"Cain can I talk to you?" Alec asked him, he shrugged and led his brother to the kitchen.

"Cain her mom's gone too far this time."

"What did she do?"

"She threw a vodka bottle at her! Please Cain, you've got to report them!" Cain sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Alec we've been over this. I have reported them, but a drunken mother isn't high on the priority list; there's kids that are six years old being used as sex slaves, ten year old girls being married off and impregnated, some kids as young as eleven and twelve being pimped out on the streets! That's what's happening in this country so I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do now." Cain vainly tried to explain. Alec stepped back and looked at Cain with disgust.