"I was sick of letting the world run me so I decided to run the world."
~~~
Isabelle Cane was taken from her family at 6 months old, leaving behind 7 older brothers and a twin sister. In the 12 years she's been away, Izzy has faced hardships no chi...
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Sometimes I look in the mirror and see that eight year old girl who was desperate for someone to love her. Who yelled and screamed just for someone to pay her some attention, someone to love her. The one who watched her world crumble before her eyes, not knowing just how many times she would have that same unbearably helpless feeling. Then other times, I look in the mirror and see what that desperate little eight year old became. A shattered 12 year old. 12 years old 12 years old. 12 god damn years old. I have to remind myself sometimes that I am only 12 years old. I feel infinitely older, wiser than any 12 year old should be. My soul carries more weight than a person of any age should.
The mirror shows what I was, and what I am, but never what I will become. But I don't think I need a mirror for that. I know what I will become. At each age, with each heartbreak I will become a little less. A little duller, a little more fragmented. Eventually I would be a mere skeleton of a person, any form of life or light drained from me. I knew it would happen. It was about as inevitable as death for someone like me. And the way things were going, it seems to me that I may become that skeleton sooner than I think.
I was exhausted. My breakdown last night had been the final straw in my exhaustion. It felt so permanent now. A part of me had wished this tiredness would fade with time, but years later I realize it may never. I may spend the rest of my life in the midst of trying to make it out alive. Tyler had held me all night. He assured me he wasn't upset anymore, although he had said we would talk about it all later on.
I hadn't slept for a second. My mind felt raw, like someone had taken a bat to my brain. I kept seeing her, the blood coating her skin. She had been stabbed. That's what the autopsy said. I knew who had done it. We all did. And when James Calder was arrested a month after Marley's murder, he acted proud of what he had done. Practically gloated that this was all his fault. He called her a cheater. Said it was his revenge. Marley was no cheater. She just wasn't. But even if she was, it was a petty offense to lose your life over.
He was sick. That's what the courts had said. That's why he got let off with a plea of 'mental instability'. Maybe he was sick. Or maybe he was just angry. Either way, I was the one who truly paid the price. At least Marley was free from the horrors of the world. At least she didn't have to see this injustice take place. It would kill her. I know it killed me.
Tyler and Logan had left an hour ago to get some coffee. Finley was watching some movie he had found on one of the hotel channels. And I was looking in my own eyes searching for some sort of life left in those green orbs of pain and sadness.
It made me sick to think there was none. I wasn't done yet. I was done fighting, but there was still life inside me. I had to remind myself that there was still life inside my cold body. I had to remind myself that 12, almost 13 years was not long enough. I sighed, as my search continued. The unique green of my eyes clouded over with tears, but I wouldn't let them fall. Not today. I was done crying. I had no tears left.
