The Broken Girl...

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own. This girl she looked similar to me but her hair was darker and her eyes were bloodshot and red. She had blood coming from every orifice and pouring from what appeared to be slit wrists at her sides. Her hair was matted and she looked as if all the blood had been drained from her body as she was so ghostly pale. I gasped...surely this was not what I had become? I tried to think back to the night before...vague memories surfaced. More and more as the days went on my brain would not function and I could not remember things that had just happened. I remembered he was drunk again(damn that liquor) and shouting again. Had he actually hit me this time? I couldn't recall... I looked to my wrists and they weren't bleeding. I feel my eyes and nose frantically searching for the blood coming from my reflection's eyes and nose. There was none to be found and then the most horrific thing of all happens... she smiles at me and tilts her head. The broken girl I'll call her, my reflection she has her head tilted in an unnatural angle and she laughs. She is laughing of all things! How mad is this broken girl!? Wait, is she laughing at me? So, mustering up my courage I ask her..."What exactly is so funny?" Still laughing the broken girl says, "You don't know who I am do you?" I say, " Well, of course not." Broken girl- "My dear, I am fear. Your fear specifically." Suddenly, she lunges out of the mirror and into my world. I take several steps back but I do not scream lest I wake him. I'm not sure which is more frightening at this point the broken girl or the man in my bed. After several moments, I manage to ask her..."What do want? Why are here?" She cocks her head in that unnatural way of hers towards the man in my bed and says but one word..."Run." It's not that I hadn't thought of running before of course and I certainly didn't need a horrific looking broken girl coming out of my mirror to tell me this but when she said this I felt a conviction in my chest like I'd never felt before... The broken girl then looks to me and says, " I am your reflection if you stay. Stay if you wish to die. You get one warning." and with that she steps back into the mirror. I look at the mirror and suddenly the reflection is my own again but shockingly I notice I have a nose bleed. I reach up to see if this is true or another reflection trick of the broken girl but when I draw back my hand it is covered in blood. I need no further time or thought. I gather a few items for myself and my children and leave. I cannot let this man break me and I cannot become the broken girl in the mirror. He has tried so hard to break me, I question everything I do. The sad thing is that most of the time he doesn't even have to lift a hand to me. The words that come from his tongue lashings where I am called a spoiled conceited brat, bi-polar, toxic and compared to several things which are considered close to dirt I feel the sting of each word as if it were a slap to my face or a stab in my back. Somedays I wish he would just hit or stab me so we could get this damn thing over with but alas after the lashings he then tells me he loves me. This doesn't feel like love anymore. It feels broken. Months later...in a new home happy and getting healthy me and my children are doing better but...where I can't see he may be lurking. Watching, waiting, stalking, awaiting his chance to pounce again on what he sees as his prey and then I would have to ask will this ever be over? Will the broken girl come back to take me to her world?