Broken - I

I - Tealeaves

They swirl in clear brown liquid. Green-feathered ballerinas waltzing around a ballroom of white china. As the water disappears, they plummet. Forgotten.

She puts a thin finger into the cup and twirls it amongst the withered corpses. Angry voices echo around her in the hollow darkness. She draws her bare legs up, folding them like paper beneath her on the mahogany chair. Sticks, that woman with the crisp uniform had said, inspecting her in the blank white room. Your legs are like sticks.

She winces at the memory, beginning to shake uncontrollably. She claps her hands over her throbbing ears, red from the slap. She tries to forget. The shouting behind her continues, louder and louder every second, shooting through the air like arrows.

“I can’t deal with this, Jade!”

She had almost forgotten it. Her name. Snapped out like a curse.

She hugs her quaking legs against her tiny chest. She can feel her heartbeat, jerky, fast, without a rhythm.

“Do you hear me, Jade? I can’t fucking deal with this!”

It's her mother.

She closes her eyes, squeezing them tight until crimson dots appear before her. Still gripping her calves against her, she rocks.

Backward, forwards. Backwards, forwards.

Strong, harsh hands grip her protruding shoulders. Shaking her like a rattle – an empty rattle.

Her lips quiver, but she will not cry. She - will - not - cry.

“Do you do this at school, Jade? Do you? Do the kids make fun of you? They do, don’t they? They’d have to!”

She keeps her eyes shut. Her pale lips attempt to move and she tries to control the panic surging up inside of her, a frantic tornado. Ready to blow her world away.

She can't. She can't keep it in.

She opens her mouth and screams. A scream that wracks her frame and every bone inside her body.

She almost collapses on the floor but is pinned against the wall instead. Forced to listen. Her thumping heart leaps up in her chest, startled. She can feel its beat residing as it flops down gasping like a dying fish.

“Can you see what your shit is doing to us? To you, to me, to Esther?"

She runs to her room. She stares into the long glass mirror, her eyes weaving around the shattered edges.

What is real?

She claws at the surface, wanting to discover what is beyond it. She sees nothing but a pale lie of a girl, putting on a facade each day, hiding behind a tarry smokescreen.

She rushes towards the bed, lying on pale rose sheets. The coolness feels good in contrast to the heat leaking out of her pores. She curls up into the foetal position. She rocks herself like a sad baby in a cold white crib.

Just when she thought she had normality wrapped round her fingers like a twisted ribbon.

Footsteps approach her. A gentle, plump hand touches her juddering shoulder. Sweet words are whispered into her ear.

It's Esther. Her little sister. Seven summers old, but with a wisdom beyond her years.

She lets Esther hold her, comfort her. Though she flinches with the humiliation of it. Her life is upside-down, warped, contorted. She is on the wrong side of the looking glass.

“Shhh. Jadey...it’s okay. It’s going to be alright,” her sister says, smoothing her rumpled dress and drying her tears.

“It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. She hates me. Everyone hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you, Jade. She loves you. I love you.”

If Jade’s eyes had not been swollen shut, she still would not have been able to look her in the face.

The only thing she can do is wail. Breathless, heartbroken, frightened sobs.