Torn Again (Story) [short]

‘No one cares,’ the thought surges through her mind as she watched the pinwheel spin. The pinwheel was a gift that her best friend had won for her at a fair. The very same best friend she was in a rip-roaring fight with.
Her gaze then falls on the picture her friends had snapped for her. The picture of a teenage guy she had a crush on. A crush known and ridiculed by him.
She sighs and lets the music surround her. She listens to the song and looses herself in it. She lets it take her to a place where there is only happiness, blue skies and grass the shade of the greenest green; a place where tears and misery don’t exist. Then suddenly chorus jolts her back into cold hard reality.
She frowns unhappily. That song was the song her ex-boyfriend sang for her. The ex- boyfriend she spent the whole night before talking to; the ex-boyfriend she had fallen for again.
Pushing all those thoughts to the back of her mind, she pushes herself to her feet and gets ready for school, the place where most troubles start.
Upon arriving at school, she is surrounded by her friends. Her best friend is not among them. Instead, her best friend is sitting with a group of her own friends, laughing and gossiping.
She struggles to keep the smile on her face, the twinkle in her eyes, the note of happiness and delight in her voice. No one realizes the pain, the sadness, the grief she goes through.
The day is made of blur pictures filled with blur figures. She moves around on automatic; leaving her free to wallow in self-pity and pain.
She looks happy, carefree, and fine. But inside, inside a little monster gnaws on her heart, driving her insane; never giving her a moment of peace, forcing her to make a choice into further misery. A deep, dull ache deep inside her makes her feel incomplete, alone, like she is nothing….
She goes home. Only to be rewarded by the sound of angry shouting of her parents. Her parents who pull her into their web of anger and frustration, further adding the burden of choosing a side when every side is the wrong answer. Finally, she is tossed out of their tangled web, mangled, broken, shattered.
She lies alone in her dark room, trying to make a choice; trying to make the nightmare end. But no, nothing could possibly erase this horrible feeling, eating her up from inside.
Soon, midnight rolls by. The house is still and silent, so silent it sends a chill down her spine. Suddenly, she sits up and makes an instant decision. Silently, she sneaks out of her room. Out into the living room. She walks out the door- and disappears into the night.