Damaged Girl

A super-short story about a girl, from a dysfunctional family, who is dumped on the doorstep of her mysterious neighbor.

The light of the first floor bathroom makes my face look pale and sickly. The bulb is supposed to simulate natural light and I find myself hoping that this isn't how I naturally look.

I lean in closer to the mirror. The lines seem to deeply saturate my face. I trace them to the places I've been, the things I've been through.

I'm forty and no closer to death than I am to life.

There's a hard knock on the door and I come back to now. I don't want to answer but the neighborly thing to do is part of my cover.

The lady from down the street is waiting with her daughter. She looks infuriated; the daughter's head is down

“Here. Take her,” the mother says.

I look at the daughter. Her skin is pale like mine, paler in the moonlight. “Do what?”

“Take her. We can't deal with her anymore.”

“What'd she do?”

“Does it matter? What doesn't she do?

The daughter's name is Miranda. They call her Mandy.

I'm hesitant, reluctant, “I'm not sure about this.”

The mother grabs her arm and tries to guide her through the door. “Go on, Mandy, get in there.”

Mandy seems to be reluctant as well. I can't say I blame her.

“Um... I'm not sure this is appropriate,” I say.

The mother appears to be on the cusp of a breakdown. Which isn't rare for her. “It's not that big a deal. I just... I just can't f**k with her s**t anymore.”

There's a moment where nothing happens. The mother, who's about my age, is a little on the heavy side, but dresses like her daughter. Her tight jeans and low-cut Converse All-Stars make her look ridiculous. Like a middle aged teeny bopper. Her breasts all but pop out of her tank top.

“Look. You can take it. I... I can't. I thought I could, but I can't. It's just not something I can do, I guess,” she says.

I look at the two side by side. Mother and daughter? Best friends? I see a conflict of interest. Perhaps you should be her mother instead of trying to be her peer. “What about your husband?”

“He's not gonna mind I don't think,” she turns to Mandy, “Go on. Go.”

Mandy finely yields.

“Sure he would. I mean, it's his daughter,” I say. I want to tell the mother to take a chill pill, but I'm pretty sure she's already on something. So I just step to the side to let Mandy come in.

“Well... I don't know. He's still at work. I suppose I can ask him when he gets home.”

So to maintain this neighborly cover I agree to this unusual request. I just don't know what else to do. “Yeah. Just call me later. I'm sure this can all be worked out.”

But the mother started walking away well before I finished. Her shirt rides up slightly, and her hip-huggers have a black g-string peeking out over the top. I doubt anyone will be coming to get this girl tonight. I shut the door.

Mandy's hair falls just at her shoulder blades. A fine, shimmering brown with slight blonde highlights. Her body, long and thin. Her slender fingers held her cheeks as she rested her head in her hands. She stared at the floor. Motionless.

I wondered what could possibly be running through her mind.

Her eyes, heavy with mascara, swelled with tears, but her face showed no expression at all. Disposed of, she was just a shade over fourteen and, save for me, she was already on her own. And I'm fairly certain that she wasn't in the hands of someone who could nurture her. Not now, not in her current condition.

We're but mere acquaintances. She's the daughter of a couple that live in a secluded cul-de-sac of the suburban development I moved into just over twelve months ago.

I'd been invited to their house, for drinks and a movie, on more than one occasion. And she always behaved mannerly and respectful. Her mother talks about her as if she was disobedient, a hardline malcontent. But I'd never seen it. I could fathom no reason, from my experience with her, for why she was sitting at the far end of my sofa.

No reason, that is, if you don't include her parents.

The situation was not one that I was familiar, or all together comfortable, with. What does one do to console a girl who was, essentially, abandoned at his doorstep. Do I hug her? Should I touch her at all?

No, it's fair to say I wasn't comfortable at the least. I moved down next to her and patted her back. She collapsed into my arms.

I held her. What else could I do?

“Why,” she asked, her voice quavering.

“I don't know.”

Her disposition obviously lacked the usual exaggerated animation one would expect from someone her age. Only calm, honest confusion. I had never been in the position of having something so vulnerable in my company. Not when I wasn't the cause, at least.

Despite her mature appearance and behavior, she was still just a child. There was no reason for me to believe that she had the capacity to emotionally accept what had happened to her.

And yet she was as somber as a woman more than twice her age. Her reaction was more like that of a woman who had just broken off an engagement. Like she knew it was over but still sought to validate herself in terms of the relationship, and wondered where to go with her life now that it was over. And because what she most likely needed wasn't something I knew how to give, I gave a haphazard improvisation of what I thought she needed to hear.

“Look here. You're a good kid.”

Isn't this what one would customarily say in times like this?

She raised her head from my shoulder, but avoided eye contact. I could see that her mascara had smeared, faint soot colored trails streaking down her cheeks.

“How do I know that?” she asked, her voice soft, a near whisper.

Because I really didn't know her all too well I didn't know how to answer her. What ever my response, it would be, at best, a guess.

“Well... have you ever gone to jail?

A slight laugh snuck past her tears, “No.”

“So there's one good thing. Have you ever taken candy from a baby?”

Another quick laugh. Though she continued to focus on some imaginary spot in her lap, some place that was much further away than here, her mood became less intense, “Once, probably. But I was little then.”

“Well, that might be a strike against you. What were the circumstances?”

“What?”

“What led to you taking the candy... from a baby?”

The corners of her mouth curled slightly upward ever so discreetly, “I don't know. I was just a kid.”

The irony of her response clearly had escaped her. She answered as if she had traveled beyond the world of adolescence into adulthood, but she was a child reminiscing about being a child.

Her nerves seemingly calmed, she again rested her head on my shoulder, her chin softly lay just below my collar bone. And then she whispered a plea that I could never have expected.

“Tell me you love me.”

The already awkward situation became ever more so. Even if I lacked the ability to empathize with her position I had no trouble sympathizing. It was evident that she was feeling alone and abandoned. And I felt it my duty, right then and there, to put her troubles to rest. I had a sinking feeling that I would be unbearable to myself if I didn't.

Is that all that she needed? Is that all any of us ever need? At that moment all I knew was that she needed reassurance. So I gave it to her.

I put my mouth closely to her ear, so close I could feel her hair, sweet scented and soft, swaying on my lips as I told her, “I love you.”

The words drifted from what seemed like another world and I felt more like an observer, hearing them fade into the distance, than the speaker of them. Their association to me was as relative as the flapping of butterfly wings on the other side of the world. But I could tell their purpose was served as I felt her body finally relax.

After what was probably hours of despair it only took a matter of minutes for her to fall into slumber's gentle embrace.

I look at the damaged girl sleeping on my couch.

I shield her from the cold.

I brush the hair from her face, a baby's breath on my finger tips.

I see that we have been to the same places.

Author's Note

Be kind. It's a good story. Publication ready, I think. I've been trying to break into publishing for a while now, no luck. Figure I'd start with the smaller stuff, work my way up.