Door-slammed

a,short,story,from,my,archives written,for,"change" in,highschool

The door slammed.
        Her eyes hurt and her face felt raw.  She uncurled from the ball she had formed herself into, her eyes raced over the destruction that lay around her. Using the wall to help her stand, she felt some relief in that it was over for the night, the only trace of him was the beer bottles scattered on the table and the wreck the room was in.
        Beginning to tidy up the wreckage of this visit to her reoccurring nightmare. She saw something, her reflection. The mirror at the side of the room captured the way she felt, the ruin but another trace of his visit. She froze, before her was a face, red and raw, smudged with the run of makeup. Unable to contain it, a sob she escaped her tired and frail body as she moved closer yet to the mirror. Her throat hurt, and her breath barely came to her lips. She still stood staring, wanting to scream: ‘That’s not me!’
         Prevented from moving away, by the feeling of futility in cleaning the chaos, she stared at this alien image. “Is this who I have become? Is this who I am going to be?” she questioned, wanting to say them out loud but finding no voice.
         Then, she felt it. Despair. It rushed through her body as she stared at herself, realising that it was her. Her figure had dwindled from the diet modifications she had been forced to make, and she was a gaunt shadow of the feminine curvy shape she had once was. She was no longer the masterpiece of creation that she, long ago, thought she was.
         She wanted to cry, but her eyes too sore and dry would not let her. She had become a frail and distant trinket, given up on her dreams and had wasting a part of her life. She had let herself be chained to man who loved his booze more then her, and tossed her around as if she were a rag-doll. She struggled to find something reminiscent of who she really was.
         Turning away from the image, she knew what she had to do. She knew she couldn’t go back, but if she had any chance of making it in the world she had to get out of there, and get her life back on track. She needed to find herself
          Pulling a duffle bag from under the unmade bed, she began to rip clothes from the pile beside it, shoving them inside. With the growing feeling that she had to no time to waste, she tossed things off the small table looking for the keys.
           Her life back in her own hands she left. Never wanting to return.
                   
Once again the door slammed, yet the sound it made was different, and nothing would ever be the same.