Through the wind, and the rain, she stands
Hard as a stone, in a world that she can't rise above.
But her dreams giver her wings, and she flies
To a place where she's loved.
–Concrete Angel, Martina McBride.
The girl was only ten.
Her mother was a drunkard and a druggie.
Her father had run off with another woman when she was only six.
No one seemed to care about her.
Her teachers spared her pitying looks, but never investigated the bruises on her skin, the tears on her cheeks.
The other children never spoke to her.
She had only one friend, a boy who lived next door.
He understood her pain.
He lived with his older brother.
His parents were both dead.
No one knew what happened to her at night, behind closed doors.
No one seemed to care, until it was too late.
It happened late at night, when everyone else was sleeping.
The girl's pleading and tears only made the beating harder, the lashes thicker, the pain more difficult to bear.
The mother's rage was too much for the girl.
She tried to run.
She got down the stairs before the mother caught her.
The mother held a knife in her hands.
The mother had a grin on her face.
The girl screamed.
The mother laughed.
The funeral was a quiet affair.
The mother was not there.
The mother was in rehabilitation, facing years in jail for murder.
The teachers blamed themselves for not helping her.
They cried.
The children blamed themselves for not knowing her, getting to know her.
They cried.
The girl's friend's brother blamed himself for not seeing her pain.
He cried.
The girl's one friend remained dry-eyed.
He was the only one who had truly known her.
He knew that she was happier wherever she was now than she had been before.
She was happier in Heaven than on Earth.
She watched over him, now.
He was her angel in life, and now he was his angel in death.