She's Broken Because She Believed Novels & Stories

I whisper against her hair, “I’ve got you. You’re safe.” She looks up at me then, her eyes red rimmed, her face blotchy from crying. And still she’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Not because she’s perfect, but because she’s real. She is here, breaking apart in front of me, and trusting me to catch the pieces. She doesn’t know what that does to me. Her voice cracks as she says, “I’m broken, Jake. He broke me.” I cup her face in my hands before she can turn away, forcing her to see what I see. “No,” I tell her, firm and unshaking. “You are not broken. You are surviving. Do you understand that? Surviving isn’t weakness it’s strength.”

Tears were streaming down from her eyes. Hearing every word of hers, Nevan's fists curled. The truth had infuriated him. She had been suffering so much since her childhood. No one had ever been beside her. She had always found herself alone but yet, she smiled for everyone. She showed the world how brave, courageous and strong she was but deep inside, her own broken pieces were slashing her soul. They were harming her will to live her life and today, those broken pieces had shoved her on the edge of death.

She put her hand on my shoulder and smiled, "But hey, look on the bright side! You're living a better life now." I snorted, brushing off her hand dismissively. "My father left. I got accused of killing my sister and mom. I tried to suicide and then I had a near death encounter with a serial killer. And you're saying that I am living a better life? You have a weird way of thinking." "You're still alive, though. So, doesn't that count?" She smiled bitterly, "Some people... are finding it hard to do just that." Somehow, the way she said it made me pause. I shook my head, thinking that I was just imagining.

Amber liquid spread across the white surface with glittering shards of glass, but I didn't even flinch. I simply stared. At him. At Ethan. Smiling in photographs that felt like knives driven straight into my chest. Something inside me cracked. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just... Cracked. My knees gave out beneath me, and I collapsed onto the floor. For years, I had convinced myself that I had become someone who no longer cried. That weakness had died with the boy who had once believed love was enough to keep someone by his side. But tonight... Tonight that illusion shattered.

Her grip on Melanie’s left hand tightened even more, until the sound of something snapping could be heard. Melanie’s friends were immediately shocked by the sight. They never expected that the girl they’d bullied earlier that day—simply because she’d been approached by Albert, Melanie’s boyfriend—could break Melanie’s wrist so easily. It was a stark contrast to the girl’s reaction earlier that day, when she’d only been able to tremble in fear and cry.

"That's not what I meant." "I know." Nate walked closer. "But that's what you did. You took her trauma and you used it to protect yourself. And the worst part? She believed you. She sat across from me in that coffee shop and told me that you confirmed what her family's been telling her for twelve years. That she's worthless. That she's only good for what she can provide other people. That being broken is just a fact about who she is." The words hit like a fist to the chest.

"When I was a girl. Before Margaret. Before Sergei. Before any of it. I dreamed about mountains and rivers and open skies." "What happened?" "Life." She turned to face me. "Life happened. And I let it break me." "You're not broken." "I'm shattered." She held up her hands. "Look at me. I'm trembling. I haven't stopped trembling in thirty years." "That's not broken. That's human." "Same thing." "No." I walked to her. Took her hands. "Being human means being afraid. Being broken means giving up. You haven't given up." "I've been hiding."

She felt sixteen again, barefoot in that shelter, a paper bead bracelet on her wrist, and a secret in her chest that she thought would kill her if spoken aloud. Then she saw Marla’s smile in her mind. And River’s hands building bookshelves. And her own feet walking into a world she was told she’d never survive. She breathed in. And began. “There was a night I thought would be my last,” she said. “A night where I left a hotel room, pregnant, invisible, and convinced no one would ever care. But here’s the thing about brokenness. It doesn’t mean you’re done. It means you’re in process.

I had to be honest and set the record straight. "I don't know," she said, her voice serious. "The truth is, I don't know. Part of me wants to be alone because the trust you have to put into believing in someone is great. I took it for granted and ended up broken both physically and mentally. And when there are parts of you that are broken, you're never the same again, so that's why I don't know; if that happens, which I doubt, I'll see what I could do in that case, but the first thing I have to make sure of is that this man is a good person." Her words were harsh, but those last ones settled in my mind and made my blood boil with rage.

She never regretted a thing she did, and she never begged for anything, let alone mercy. I used to be so frustrated whenever she laughed in my face, as if she could see how much it annoyed me that no amount of torture I put her through ever broke her. But then I quickly realized that maybe, just maybe, the reason she didn’t crack under the pressure was due to a very simple fact—the fact that she was already broken. She had to be. Something inside her was broken beyond repair. Something that turned her into the nightmare she became. I don’t know why Sofia crossed my mind when Lizzy told me the truth. The truth that I should have found surprising but…didn’t.