Hope

There were mornings when she would want nothing more than to roll back over and go to sleep. She had woken at 4:30 AM like every other day and had to get ready for school. She couldn't register much more than what she was dealing with right then: the fact that she was dressing, her toothbrush in her hand, and comb she raked through her hair. Her parents would be muttering in the backroom before finally emerging into the bleak morning. She would wonder why they stopped watching the news in the morning.

There were afternoons when she wanted nothing more than to go home and cry. The sky would be blocked off by dull gray clouds and her little sister would stink like she hadn't showered in three days…again. The sound of her father yelling at the dog would fill the saturated air and she would wonder how her family holds together.

There were evenings when she would could home and flop on the couch because she had no strength left to do much more than that. Her sister would reluctantly drag her bag up the stairs, and she would struggle to her feet to go feed the dogs and grab her homework, which would take her a minimum of four hours for one class, and she would wonder what happened to all that bullshit about, "Only twenty minutes of homework per class every night."

Most of all, she wondered how much of what she was seeing and hearing was in her head. She wondered if she had closed herself off to the world so much that a completely new-and strange-world had opened up, a fantasy world full of horrible happenings. After all, how could she feel so terrible when she was so privileged?

She doesn't know who to like and who to hate anymore. She just feels nothing for so many people. She doesn't care as much about the future. She couldn't care less if she died at any moment.

Love used to be something so precious and so desirable to her. Now she has forbidden herself from dating until she is twenty. She listens to her parents telling her they love her. Her mother makes it sound almost convincing sometimes…until she gets mad and the façade comes crumbling down. Her father never makes it sound real. His voice always sounds…automatic, as though "I love you" is nothing more than a synonym for goodbye. She starts to believe that love is only a fairy tale.

She still laughs sometimes. Most times, she's just covering up to ease the burden of damming up the tears that just wanted to burst through. She was rarely truly happy, and her anger was long ago replaced with apathy. Her suffering (if it wasn't all in her imagination) hasn't eased up even a bit, but she's gotten better about wearing her mask for long periods of time.

But the mask falls off sometimes. When no one is looking, liquid droplets roll from the corners of her eyes as she lies like a broken porcelain doll. She doesn't take any notice as she thinks about the wishes she will never reach, much like the beautiful blue sky she stares at above. It is only when she sits up and feels the cool wind gliding across her wet ears that she feels a thing.

But suddenly, there's a flicker of hope. Some people from school were able to strike though her thick wall of suspicion and distrust and pull out her more cheerful side. She's not fixed, but she now has hope of healing. Because here, now there are more than just two people trying to repair her shattered mind and emotions.

She may not be well for a while. She may not ever be totally well. But she has the tiniest inkling of hope now, and she is beginning to find her faith. Maybe one day she can find the freedom she so frequently wishes for.