Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Concrete Angel ❯ Concrete Angel ( Chapter 1 )

A/N: I'd like to dedicate this to my best friend, Heena, who's been through some serious shit in her life, yet is still the most incredible friend anyone could ever have.

 

 

Concrete Angel

 

She walks to school with the lunch she packed
Nobody knows what she's holding back
Wearing the same dress she wore yesterday
She hides the bruises with linen and lace

A little girl plodded slowly along the pavement on the way to school. She clutched a lunch box to her chest, her dress flapping around her knees. Shifting the pack into one hand, she yanked her sleeve down before anyone saw her arm.

It hadn't been very hard to decide what to wear to school. She'd just donned the same dress she'd been wearing for the last three days. She had to admit, it was probably starting to get a little ripe. But that didn't matter. All her other clothes with long sleeves were in the wash. It didn't matter that it was summer, and her dress had long, heavy sleeves. Most little girls would have been uncomfortably, but this one merely clutched the sleeves in her fists so they couldn't ride up.

 

The teacher wonders but she doesn't ask
It's hard to see the pain behind the mask
Bearing the burden of a secret storm
Sometimes she wishes she was never born

It was curious, the teacher had decided, how the girl always seemed to wear long sleeves, long skirts, or trousers. She did wonder about it a little. Sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a shadow on the girl's skin, or a flicker of something, some hidden emotion, in those endless eyes, but when she looked again, it was gone.

Sometimes, the girl would stay off school for days, or come in limping, and she always seemed to have a note excusing her from PE.

The teacher watched her closely now. It was strange, she thought, for the child to be wearing a long sleeved dress in this weather. The girl noticed she was being watched and looked up to meet the woman's eye. She smiled blankly at her, before bowing her head and returning to her math problem. The teacher frowned. For a moment there, she thought she saw…but it was probably just her imagination. A child couldn't hide the kind of pain she thought she saw in that girl's eyes. She dismissed it as the peculiar seriousness young children often have.

Yes, it was all very curious. But, the teacher decided, since the girl had not actually said anything, to not ask about it. After all, it wasn't really any of her business.

Through the wind and the rain she stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can't rise above
But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place where she's loved
Concrete Angel

“Hello.”

The girl looked up from her position on the bench in the playground to see a little boy standing there.

“Hello,” she said, “are you new?”

He laughed cheerily, “sort of. Can I sit down?”

She nodded, and slid over to make room. He flopped down next to her and beamed at her.

“Hello!” he announced again, “nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” she echoed, shaking his hand when he offered it. He grinned at her again and she smiled her mechanical smile at him.

“Do you want to play tag?” he asked, and when she didn't answer, tapped her gently on the arm and shouted, “You're it!” before speeding off across the playground, laughing. She stared after him. When he noticed he was not being followed, he stopped and jogged back to her.

“Hey come on,” he whined, “it's no fun on my own. You have to try and tag me.”

A sudden, sly smile crept across her face, as she reached out and poked the boy on the arm.

“You're it!” she cried, and ran across the playground as fast as her little legs would carry her. He grinned and chased after her, yelling, “Hey, that's not fair! I wasn't ready!”

For the first time in a very long time, the girl was smiling, genuinely happy.

Somebody cries in the middle of the night
The neighbours hear but they turn out their light
A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate
When morning comes it'll be too late

The constant crying coming from the house next door was starting to worry them. there was a little girl there, they knew. They wondered sometimes why she was always crying. Spoiled kids today, had been their decision the first few times, always crying when they don't get exactly what they want. But after a while it started to disturb them. Sometimes it sounded like she was dying. And it was non stop. Almost every night, the crying would start. Sometimes they thought about knocking on the door and asking if everything was alright, but they never actually did. They thought about it. Let it not be said they didn't care.

The woman moved away from the window and twitched the curtains closed. Her husband looked up from his newspaper.

“Do you think we should maybe go round and check…?” she began. He looked thoughtful for a moment, before eventually shaking his head. They had this conversation once or twice a week, and it always ended the same. Sometimes they wondered why they bothered saying it. They always came to the same conclusion

“Best not. After all, it really isn't any of our business.”

Through the wind and the rain she stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can't rise above
But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place where she's loved
Concrete Angel

The boy watched sadly as the man was handcuffed and shoved roughly into a police car.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered as the small black bag was lifted into the ambulance and driven away.

The neighbours had come out of their house to see what all the noise was about. The boy watched them as they stared in horror at the crime scene.

“Oh my god,” the woman croaked hoarsely. Her husband put an arm around her comfortingly, looking just as pale as she.

The group of hysterical people was getting larger as others emerged from their houses. People who were now denying they knew anything bad was happening in that house at all.

The boy sighed and turned away.

They always said that. There was a word for it, when you knew something was going on but pretended you didn't to alleviate your own guilt. Denial. Yes that was it, denial. As he understood it, denial was a bad thing. Denial got people killed.

A statue stands in a shaded place
An angel girl with an upturned face
A name is written on a polished rock
A broken heart that the world forgot

The funeral was full of people in denial. Her class had gotten the day off to attend, and half her street seemed to have come. Most were crying. It was sad. She was a nice little girl. People had liked her. People thought they were her friends; that they'd known her.

Her teacher was standing in front of the grave. There was a little cherubic angel on it, to indicate she was only a child. The angel's face was upturned, as though was preparing to fly. The teacher stared at the name engraved on the tombstone.

Jessica Robinson

21st March 1999-30th July 2007

Too young. Far too young.

The girl sighed from her position, as she watched the mourners depart. Many of them were lamenting about how they thought they knew her. how could this have been happening right in front of them without them noticing?

You can't ever really know what's going on with someone deep down. And sometimes you can't stop it. but sometimes you can. You've got to try.

You've got to try, she thought, or they might end up like me.

Smiling sadly for the last time, she turned away from the grave, and looked at her friends.

They were like her. Victims. They knew her. And yet they didn't. Because they hadn't been through what she had. And she hadn't been through what they had. No one ever goes through the same thing. It's different for everybody. There are people who are saved. There are people who can be saved, but aren't. And sometimes, there are people who just can't be saved at all.

So what do you do when you know that? When you know that sometimes, you really can't help?

You try anyway.

 

Through the wind and the rain she stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can't rise above
But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place where she's loved
Concrete Angel

 

A/N: Child abuse is happening every day. Hundreds of children are living in fear, and people just pretend it's not happening. If you know anyone you think might be in danger, please don't stay silent. Please tell someone; help them. It is your business if someone is getting hurt. You have to help them, or they might end up like this girl. Some kids get out. But so many don't. It's important, and you can't just turn your head, ignore it and hope you're just mistaken. Thank you.