God Save Me

Chapter One

The face in the mirror is smiling, though it doesn't reach her eyes. Her gaze is penetrating, roaming over the scars and cuts on my body, and deeming them unacceptable.

My name is Grace. The irony is that I'm an atheist. My mother wanted me to join her in "The Faith", but after all the goth prayers, God hating poetry, and wearing all black to church, she gave in.

I ran away from home at age 17, knowing that I couldn't make it one more year until I was 18. I ran away knowing it would break her heart. Knowing, that it would drive her farther away from me.

I hadn't realized I was crying until the tears ran into the cuts on my face and neck. She laughs when I wince. I scream. Only, the scream never makes it out. In a way, I pity it. It's not the scream's fault that it can't escape the hellhole I have  become. I pound the mirror, trying to break the glass. She laughs even harder when I cannot. I hit the mirror even harder trying to get her to stop.

Suddenly the scream becomes sound. It hits the air and shatters in a way the mirror would not. It is fascinating, almost so much that I nearly forget the girl in the mirror. Until the shards fall and cut me as they fall. I wish there were more of them, so they could cut me to ribbons, so I could have freedom.

Almost as if at a distance, I hear the nurse enter my room. Her footsteps are hurried, almost a run. She bursts into the bathroom, as I fall to the floor, the pieces of scream digging into my back and legs. She picks me up carefully, as if I might break. What she doesn't realize is that I wish that were the case. She half-carries, half-drags me into my room. I hear her yell for backup as I slowly spiral into the blackness.