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     Before the door closes her mask is already starting to fade, every second seemingly melting away faster and faster threatening to leave her exposed to the world. They think she is doing so well, she has moved on from the damage he did to her months earlier, she is smiling, taking set backs in stride, she is no longer the broken child of the past. Yet they still don't see, even now the dark that flicks in her eyes, only for a moment you can see that she is still in pain, still more afraid than ever...the girl is not okay, maybe has never been okay.
     Now she finds herself trying to beat the night, to be stronger than that voice in her head that is telling her she is nothing, she deserves pain, more pain than anyone else. She avoids any surface that might show her reflection, the reflection of a weak girl, the girl that she hates more than anyone else, more than the man that destroyed her. No one knows how much she hates herself, how much she wants to punish herself for her so many weaknesses, for causing pain to everyone who makes the mistake of caring about her. For some reason she burns every bridge that has miraculously been left up for her, pushing her arms out as far as possible trying to keep everyone away for what she believes to be their own good. How did she get here again?
     Most days it is too much to face the world, she locks the door, keeps the blinds drawn hurting too much to even look at the sun. There are moments when her own breath hurts worse than the years of self abuse she use to pour out on herself. There is no quick fix, no pill that makes it all go away, all there is left is to feel it...feel every searing pain that she has to so she can take one step forward. Too much time pretending and shoving the pain down farther and father thinking it could be controlled. The only way to move on is to feel it, to let it bleed, let it hurt down to the core of your being, and realize that you can survive it. She is surviving, a moment at a time, some days even that can feel like an eternity. She has shutout the handful of people that truly long to stand beside her even when she is broken.
     The sad fact is that it is so easy to fall apart, so easy to let the dark overtake her. It takes all she has to fight, to keep those mended cracks barely together. Every second seems like too ?much, like it will all shatter to the floor once again, and the girl wants so badly to give up in some moments, to let the pain claim her, to give those precious few that care the permission to give up on her. But, there is something inside of her that wants nothing more than to keep going, prays with every fiber of her being that those precious few don't give up on her because they remind her that maybe there is more to think about herself than hate. Just maybe if they don't hate her she doesn't have to hate herself so much.
     She finds herself crying alone in the dark praying for one more chance to climb out of this, to not let everyone down. She prays for the courage to reach out instead of shatter, instead of implode. Has she destroyed everything, pushed them all too far? She isn't strong like she thought, she is terrified, and all there is left is the prayer that she hasn't destroyed it all.