Story.

Scarlett is running late to school, star bucks in hand she parks her 2009 Lexus in the last space in the back of the school parking lot. She walks hands by her side phone in hand into school then forces a smile tucks her hair behind her ear and sits down prime and properly in her chair. Her friends would describe her as flawless, outgoing, a stranger she never met. Scarlett hid her life, no one really knew her. She hid behind her high dollar clothes, her nice car, and smile. Behind all of that she was dying inside. She was crying out, but no one could hear her. To her classmates, her friends, her teachers she had it all. She had the boyfriend, she was captain of the cheering team, she had the looks, the personality, and she had THE LIFE. She walked the halls with confidence and demeanor that no one could match. Her presence and beauty were like no other. Her laugh was contagious, and her personality made others come out of their shell. She was nothing short of perfect… so one would think.

Ring… Ring… Ring… a muffled voice then answer, heeelllooooo. “Dad is that you?” Scarlett whispered into the phone, “Dad where are you?” His slurred words then answered, “I’m at the barrrrr, I’m fineeee, be home soon.” (CLICK, and the phone call was over) The phone dropped and tears fell down her cheek. Scarlett’s mom looked at her for an answer. “He’s still at the bar mom,” Scarlett said through her tears and sniffles. Scarlett’s mom was married to an alcoholic. She had been married to him for twenty years and had been through it all. A man that recovered from being a crack, coke, and drug user to a man that was drinking himself to death. Scarlett hugged her mom because that is all she knew to do. She held her mother as they both cried. This is the life Scarlett knew. This is the only life she ever knew. Go to school, go to cheering, come home and spend time with her mom and brother. Then came the worst, the return of her father to come prancing in only to start argument after argument. It was the only thing she knew. To Scarlett her life was normal. From an outsider looking in that would not be the case. Scarlett’s father finally returned home, and here it was the ritual fight between her parents. Scarlett with her angry aggression grabbed her father’s arm with her tiny arms and pulled him away from her mother. With her blue eyes tearing up, she begged and pleaded with her dad to leave her alone, to not hurt her, at least not this night. The 100-pound girl jumped in the middle of her parents getting torn every which way and falling to the floor screaming. “STOP STOP,” she yelled. Scarlett had broken her perfectly manicured nails and scrapped her knee on the floor. Her mother dropped to the floor and held Scarlett as she shook and rocked back and forth screaming a prayer out. Scarlett looked up at her father, tears in her baby blue eyes, makeup smeared all over her face and screamed, “I HATE YOU!” Her father stumbled drunken out of the house and to his car; to not only jeopardize his life but others. Scarlett lay on the floor rubbing her leg and shaking in her mother’s arms. “Mom I can’t live this life anymore, I can’t.” Scarlett’s soft voice cracked and shook and she was covered in sweat and her knee still bleeding. She was mentally and physically exhausted along with her mother. After containing herself she went to the bathroom and washed off her makeup that had drizzled down her smooth clear skin. She looked at herself, at her life. She looked at her mother sitting in her makeup chair tears and trembles all over her body. Scarlett knew at that moment all she could do is pray. Pray for a new way a new life a new beginning. Pray for her father to find God and himself and discover something more out of life. She wiped off her face and looked in the mirror at a girl her and her family only knew. The girl that broke easily the girl that cried on a regular basis. The girl who was afraid to walk into her house the girl who dreaded going home. The girl that was scared for her life, her mother’s life, and even her father’s. She fell asleep next to her mother clinching the phone close to her hand and that night praying her father was okay.

She woke up that morning to a frantic mother still trying to find her husband. Scarlett got up got ready and covered her knee with a new pair of seven jeans. Her long blonde hair put into perfect curls and her makeup flawless than ever. She looked in the mirror tried cracking a smile and felt tears creep up in the bottom of her eyes. She breathed in and out and then composed herself. She told her mother goodbye and told her everything would be okay. She grabbed a star bucks on the way to school blared her music and pulled into her usual spot. She got into class and sat in her usual seat, where two girls complimented how she looked today. “Scarlett you are always so beautiful you are so lucky.” Scarlett just smiled and thanked them for the compliment. The more class went on the more she heard the two girls talking how perfect Scarlett’s life was and how she was so lucky. She got everything she had everything and she was just perfect. Scarlett looked down at her knee and rubbed it. She put her pencil in her hand and saw on her long skinny fingers the perfectly manicured nails with a chip from the night before incident. She crossed her arms and slouched as if to cry, and just dropped her head. As one girl tapped her and said, “What is it like to be you, so perfect righttt?” Scarlett turned around got red in the face and teary eyed and said, “My life isn’t what it seems, and there’s more that meets the eye. You see part of me, not all of me.” The girl’s just looked at Scarlett because in that instant a brave small girl confident and poised broke down and fell to her desk head first and started balling. Through her teary eyes she peered and flashbacked to last night. The room was silent and all eyes were on Scarlett. The perfect poised flawless girl had broken, but what the class didn’t know is that she had always been broken.