Rose Morley MIVS
The Final Choice
A girl strode through the street-light night remembering the days and weeks leading up to this day. The flashback came abruptly, causing her feet to lurch slightly against the orange tinged tarmac. "You're worthless girl, worthless; you should have never been born!" her father vociferated in his drunken stupor; showering her in spittle, "You're pathetic, do you hear me, pathetic!" Her father's face was ruddy and mottled, with a bulbous nose and flaccid lips. His hand whipped across her cheek, cracking as it made connection. The girl knew there would be a bruise in the morning, just like every morning since she was six. Her father's nauseating smell rolled across her face, reeking of sour sweat, cheap beer and nicotine as he slammed her against the wall, pushing his face up against hers. His diminutive, piggy eyes bored into hers, dared her to fight back, dared her speak. She didn't. She never did.
A muffled sob caught in her throat as she remembered the many nights that were spent in an analogous fashion to this. As she turned onto a main street she flipped up her hood to elude the stares that a teenage girl with bruises on her face and anguish in her eyes would always invite. As the bright lights of Harrods bathed her face, she looked up and saw the mannequins, a mother, father and two perfect children smiling insincerely. Another reminder of things she had never had and things she never would have.
The girl hurried on, desperate to escape that part of her life, only to stumble onto another. A school. She closed her eyes willing herself to block the memories that would come rushing to her as she saw it. They came anyway. The group closed in on her one break time, behind the bike shed. Thirteen of them in total, five girls, eight boys. They didn't just dislike the girl, they hated her. First came the comments, scathing remarks about her home, family, and appearance. She didn't start crying because it hurt, she cried because it was all true to her. Then they started kicking, started punching, started pulling. When they left her she was a bloodied, broken, bereaved mess sobbing silently on the gravel. The girl didn't go back to school after that.
She sighed with near silent despair and she started moving again; past Sloane Square, stalking past shop windows barely glancing at the gifts and treasures inside. She had practically reached her destination. She flitted onwards, a black wraith against the city walls. Finally she reached it. Albert Bridge. The girl slowed her pace to a laidback walk, breathing in the crisp night air as she strolled onto the bridge. She kept on walking till she reached the centre of the bridge and stared at the scene in front of her.
It was a dark but clear night with no clouds scudding across the sky; the stars shining like pinpricks of diamond, luminous against a black canvas. The girl's eyes moved down to the buildings in front of her, the lights of the streets and houses twinkled a beautiful contrast to the pain inside. Finally down to the water, glistening black small ripples catching the orange lights making it shimmer like a fallen angle's wing. The girl sighed, her heart wrenching as she let the wonderfully calm and lonely sight fill her with pain.
She swung herself up so she was standing on the wall separating her from the water. The girl took another large breath of cold, stimulating air filling her lungs with the frigid air. She looked at the water again, a sheen of iridescence hiding the powerful, sinister, writhing monster underneath. She knew the water would be glacially cold but she didn't care. She knew she had nothing to look forward to in life, so why not let go? Finally the girl thought the thought, made the decision, made the choice...and fell.