Fragile | ✓

0.1 | The Broken Girl

 01 | The Broken Girl  

→ Everyone can get better, storms pass

→ I don't appreciate looks of pity

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"ROAD TRIP! ROAD TRIP!" My little high pitched voice sang in an octave that no opera singer could match.

A gust of wind flew past me as I stuck my head out the car window, enjoying the breeze that caused my dark brown hair to fly wild. The trees that lined the side of the roads, so tall they almost touched the sky, blurred together. I sang out for the world to hear with pure delight, excitement clouding my little head and joy visible by my deep sinking dimples. Even the frowning young man, clearly annoyed for no reason, sitting in the Mercedes behind us couldn't put a damper on my mood. 

For I was going on a road trip to Disney World. 

I could practically visualize my dad and me, holding onto the railings of the tea cup ride, leaning back against the seat and screaming for dear life and laughing a second later as the ride came to a stop. And I could go on a roller coaster ride, the ones daddy said only big girls could go on. And I can see Mickey and Minnie and Pluto and...

"Come on my little bumblebee, it's time to fly back inside. Wouldn't want your head to get stuck out there?" daddy chuckled from the driver's seat in response to my screaming.

"But I'm excited," I pouted, carefully bringing my head back in through the window.

"I bet I'm more excited bumblebee," daddy remarked with an evil grin, one that matched the scary queen in snowhite, on his face. He knew exactly what he was doing and exactly how to get me riled up. I narrowed my eyes at his seat, two could play that game. I was practically radiating in an unmatchable excitement, how could he be more excited?

"Thatws im-poss-i-ble!"

"But I am!" daddy whined, the teasing glint in his eye unmistakable.

"Are not!" I contradicted, my glare at the innocent seat unwavering. "Am too!"

"Are n-"

━━━

I knew I was a stubborn child and nothing was going to make me back down. But if I had known that it was the last thing I would ever be able to say to him, the last time I would ever see him, I would have told him something very different. I would have told him that I love him with all my heart and that I would be lost without him. Lost as something I am now.

━━━

"Jessica?" A formal clipped tone interrupted the childish voice in my head. Immediately, I shook myself awake, removing all the happy memories that filled my once innocent head away. I knew I couldn't remove any of my past demons, knew I couldn't change my haunted life, knew that no matter what I did, my daddy, my hero, wouldn't come back to life. The past was in the past and I had to accept that.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned my attention to face Grace, the police officer that had a front view seat of my ruined life.

When Grace had stood on our small front porch, near the dried, unmaintained grass, delivering the news that my mother had overdosed, I felt nothing. No stinging pain in my heart or prickling tears threatening to pour. Just plain and empty, reciprocating the feelings of a broken girl. Grace had stood there watching my every move, expecting some reaction but I stood as stiff as a stick, refusing to give out to my emotions. Oh so how badly I wanted to cry in someone's arms, have someone comfort me, have someone tell me that it was going to be okay. Not for the loss of my mother but for the loss of myself. The loss of my daddy. The loss of the only love I had ever had. The broken down house, stripped of electricity in my struggle to pay the month's bills due to my mother's unbother, only added to Grace's confirmation that I could no longer live there.