Before My Eyes

She couldnt remember if she had ever held a gun before in her young life. She just looked at it, at first she wondered why in the world she was holding it, but that curiosity was quickly quenched with the answer to why. Anger, hatred, and intense grief plagued the sixteen year old girls soul. She gently caressed the gun, looking at ever so closely. She had acquired it from a friend of hers, who told her that he didnt care what she did with it, as long as she didnt tell anyone that it was his gun.
She opened the barrel and looked at the brand new bullets tucked inside. Growing up, she had been terrified of her fathers guns, afraid that if she even touched them they would go off and something terrible would happen. Somehow, that fear had diminished and no fear of the dangerous weapon remained. The gun seemed as a friend that would help her destroy the pain she felt inside. It would help her achieve some feeling of well-being before it was too late.
She was sixteen, a kid in many of her acquaintances eyes, but she was alone, she had finished high school and was residing in an apartment she had acquired under a friends name. Though her life consisted mainly of work and sleep, she pretended like everything was okay.
Hardly anyone she was acquainted with knew anything about her or her hidden past. She was adept at lying, and could pull it off without batting an eye, and most thought she was a normal teenager. No one seemed to know the real her, or at least want to try to get to know her. She held all her emotions inside, and just allowed them to come out when she was positive she was alone with her conscience.
These emotions that poured from her, came out in the form of tears, screaming and blood. She was always prepared to put on a smile when someone would come around, hiding behind the falsehood became her trade. Although the pain had been present since she was twelve, it began to take an outward form as she had gotten older. She withdrew from the world internally, and began to draw deeper within herself.
To hide, became her greatest talent. She could easily conceal the pain she felt inside, but those who tried to touch her noticed something was wrong. Though she didnt allow them to get to know her, they still pursued and she viewed them as a threat to her existence, and began pulling away from them.
She stared at the gun, and then placed it down on the counter, and walked off to the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She smiled then hit the mirror as hard as she possibly could, shattering it, and making her hand start bleeding profusely. She stared at the blood that was dripping down in the sink. She sighed and took a towel off the rack and wrapped it around her hand to stop the bleeding.
As a little girl, she was squeamish, would pass out at the sight of blood, now she had changed and could tolerate basically anything. She looked at her reflection in a broken piece of mirror, and took the piece and delicately cut her wrist, all the while staring at the multiple scars that were already present on her wrist. They had no particular direction, just whatever angle she had desperately cut herself in. She stopped the bleeding before it made her pass out. She sat down on the bathtubs edge and sighed, her whole arm was coated in blood, a sight she was used to, a sight that morbidly comforted her.
Slowly she stood up and walked to her bedroom and collapsed on the couch, her eyes closed, dreading a new day, yet, somehow, she didnt dread it nearly as much as she usually did.

***

She opened her eyes, it was late afternoon the following day, her entire hand throbbed. It was heavily bruised, and numb. She pulled herself out of bed, and slipped into a cold shower, and dressed completely in black.
She looked around her apartment, hardly aware of what was happening around her, she felt completely empty of all feelings for anything. She sat down on a chair and looked at the coffee table, surrounded by pictures of her parents. Her parents were a lovely couple, full of love for one another and lived for their only child, making her pain and regret double with just the thought that they were actually gone.
Five years before, when she was only eleven, she had witnessed the death of her parents. She closed her eyes, she could smell the scent of apple pie that filled the house, she could hear the low, soothing voices of her parents talking about their future, as she fell asleep on the couch, after watching a movie with them.
Suddenly, the door was kicked open, and a man entered the house, holding a pistol. The little girl ran to her parents, and the man swore loudly, before taking everyone into the basement. He demanded money, and after he had fulfilled his need for it, he shot her parents execution style, and then for a long moment stared at the sobbing little girl. Maybe the look in her eyes of grief and overwhelming hatred touched him somehow, and thats why he left her alone, she never knew. He turned away and left the house, leaving her unhurt physically, but destroyed emotionally.
She had wished he had killed her for so long, till her grief at the loss of her parents turned into more hatred, where she made up her mind to kill the man who stole the lives of the two people who mattered most in the world to her. Thats what her plan was that day. She picked up the newspaper, dated the day before. There on the front page, was a picture of the man who destroyed her world and filled her soul with violent hatred.
She wondered how someone like her, so young and potentially had a future ahead of her, could even begin to think about committing a crime. She sighed and justified the entire idea in her mind as committing an act of justice, even though it was really an act of revenge. Though she didnt want to admit it, it would make her feel better, help her deal with the pain she felt so deeply inside. She refused to think ahead, what would happen after she had done the act?
She stood up quickly and went to the kitchen and grabbed the revolver and stuffed it in her backpack, and walked out of the apartment. She had three hours to make it to the courthouse, where the trial of her parents killer was about to begin. She slowly walked down stairs of her apartment building and opened the door.
The weather fit her mood perfectly, pouring rain, lightening bolts flashing in the distance, echoed hauntingly by thunder. She started walking towards the bus stop, just as the bus pulled up, she boarded it, paid her fare and avoided the drivers eyes. She sat down in the very back, and pulled her knees up to her chest as she stared out the window, questioning her decision.
She closed her eyes, the bus ride was an hour long, not including the stops it had to make. She remembered the day of the double funeral held for her parents. She could taste the tears that rolled down her cheeks, and mixed in with the rain, as she stood holding two red roses in her hands. She remembered looking at her aunt as the minister read from the Bible, the Lords Prayer.
She opened her eyes, suddenly she was full of intense hatred again, and any doubt that lingered in her mind that her decision was wrong, vanished. She reached in her bag, and touched her gun, she knew it was an insane thing to do, to kill a person. She wanted to take his life, as he had ruined hers.
Flashbacks raced through her mind, faster than she could comprehend. She pressed on the cut that was imprinted in her wrist. She felt the tears again, only to realize she was already crying. The other passengers on the bus looked at her curiously, and she felt herself once again alone in a world where no one had given a damn in the first place.
She tried to make herself disappear, she buried her face in her knees and cried softly, wishing her parents were there to comfort her. Hoping that what she was about to do, would somehow ease the pain that crippled her. She kept her eyes closed and bit her lower lip, hoping that somehow, the pain would just slip away and she wouldnt have to deal with it anymore.
She wondered why everything that happened that was good in someway, always turned out to be a dream. That made that everything that happened that was horrible a part of reality. She couldnt will it away, she had to either deal with it for the rest of her life, watching herself waste away in the world she helped create, or take matters in her own hands, and end it.
The bus stopped to pick up more passengers, a young mother and her child, the little girl was bundled up in a raincoat, and the mother was fussing with the little girls unruly hair. She then picked up the little girl and held her to her, as the bus once again jerked forward.
Her wrists started throbbing once again, and reality set in. Tears were once again in her eyes as she watched the young mother and her daughter. Why isnt it possible to go back in time and undo everything that happened?
She saw the police car lights, and another flashback hit her, when the police had walked into the house, picked her up and carried her out to begin their investigation. They had plagued her with questions about that night, and she remembered only crying.
She had been shipped off to live with her grandparents shortly after the funeral, she had spent times with social services as they made their decision on what to do with her. If they should leave her in a foster home or send her to the grandparents who could barely take care of themselves, much less a growing young girl.
Soon as she had turned thirteen, she quickly escaped from the sort of life she had lived with her grandparents, running away to live with a friend, where she fell into abusing drugs as well as her body. Cutting became her sole companion, comforting her when she was alone, calming her down when she was stressed and helping her make it through the nights that continued to seem to be endless.
She had managed to acquire a fake ID, and landed a job as a waitress, and worked herself as hard as she could, slipping closer and closer to losing the rest of her soul to her worst enemy, herself. She did what she could to get by. She went days without eating, she cut herself to help her keep her sanity and yet, was slowly losing it.
Only sixteen, she passed off to be at least eighteen, or at least that was what her fake ID said. Lie upon lie began to push harder and harder upon her conscious, she knew it was only a matter of time when she would finally buckle underneath the pressure of the gathering lies. A lie to cover up another lie which in turn was covering up another. Layer upon layer, she had to learn to walk on eggshells or she would betray herself and be caught in a lie, not as if it mattered to anyone. Her so-called friends were also liars, and drug addicts, people who had thrown their lives away for nothing, but their own self-afflicted pain. In a seconds notice, they betrayed her, and she had to run once more.
She had managed to go to school for a while, but soon dropped out and achieved in getting her GED. She had gone through a faze in her life that she was confident in herself, that she could achieve something and be someone. That dream quickly faded as all of her other dreams had and she once again slipped into the unbearable monotony that was her life.
Now all that pain she had stored up inside after the years and years of allowing it to control her, was to be at last released. The bus had to stop because of a road block that was a few blocks away, trying to keep the average civilian away from the court house where the trial was starting for the killer of her parents.
She stepped off the bus, and stood in the rain, she reached in her bag and grabbed her gun, carefully, she slipped by the police, by mixing in with members of the press. She stood in the crowd, trying to figure out a way to get into the courthouse. She knew the security was top notch, the case had greatly affected the little town. She sighed, she had lost her chance.
Yet, suddenly, the police made a movement, and surprisingly they escorted the man onward to the courthouse. Her eyes widened and she broke into a sprint, pulling the pistol out of her bag. You took my life from me, now I take yours! she screamed at the top of her lungs, aiming the pistol at him and pulling the trigger several times, five rounds were shot, the police rushed to her, as the murderer sunk to the ground.
Quickly, she turned the gun on herself and used the last bullet. At last, she had gotten her revenge, for the deaths of her parents, as well as the pain she had caused herself. She destroyed the two things she hated the most in her life. Her parents killer and herself.