Reflection

One girl with self-image problems, and another whose life hasn't been easy connect as friends and help eachother in a way that only they could.

It’s unbelievable how one day can change everything that you thought about the world, everything that you knew, and everything that you believed about yourself. For some people, this day never comes, but for others it comes too soon, and you have to decide whether you’re going to accept the change, or fight against it. For me, this was the hardest day of my life, for more reasons than one, but in the end I believed that I had made the right choice, I can only hope that I was right.

  I was walking home from school, trying to avoid any people who might stop and talk to me along the way; I wasn’t in the mood to make small talk with someone who doesn’t really care. The cold pavement was getting gradually smaller as I approached the abandoned apartment that stood next to my house. It was dark and gloomy, with the windows broken and covered with planks of wood and whatever that was left of the paint peeling off of the sides. Many times I considered going inside just to see what it was like, but fear always got the better of me.  

  I was just about the pass the house when I heard rustling in the bush next to the door. It was the only form of life on that property but it just outlined how dead everything around it was. I kept walking, increasing my speed slightly, but that’s when I heard it again. Something was definitely in that bush, and the thought of being next to the abandoned house with no one around me was becoming much less appealing. I started jogging, hoping to make it past the house and into my front door as quickly as possible without freaking myself out too much. My footsteps were crunching against the dirt road that marked the end of the pavement.

  When I was away from the house I made a sudden stop and turned around to take a last look at the dump that was behind me, but as I did something crashed into me and sent me falling to the ground. My arm was throbbing and my eyesight was dim and unfocused, leaving me with a nauseous feeling. A figure was standing before me, though I couldn’t make out any features apart from the fact that it had short hair and was wearing a top with what could be a jacket and a pair of baggy pants.

   I hadn’t hit my head on the pavement, so it was unlikely that I had a concussion. I closed my eyes for a minute and when I reopened them my vision was much better. The figure was still hanging over me but this time I could see that it was a girl with light olive skin, grey eyes and short light brown hair. She was in a brown baggy top with a dark jacket and cargo pants and was wearing cheap runners for shoes.

  “Wow I’m so sorry; here let me help you up.” The mysterious girl held out her hand to me but I pushed it back and got myself up. “Or not, that’s fine.” I felt like telling her to buzz off but first I wanted answers as to why she ran into me.

“What do you think you’re doing out here sneaking up behind people and rustling in bloody bushes terrifying whoever walks past!?” She was startled, but she deserved it, she’s not the one who got pushed onto the dirt floor.

“Well I could ask you the same question, but it seems pretty obvious. You walk past here every day so I’m assuming you live somewhere nearby. I was coming up to say hi since we live near each other but apparently that’s a crime in your eyes. The rustling in the bushes was me getting out of my house because the door’s a bit unsteady and I’d like to still have a door hanging in the entrance.” She seemed so straightforward, but she couldn’t be serious. No one even steps foot in the broken down house, let alone lives there. Even if she did live around here, I would’ve seen her walking around.

“Well yeah I was walking home, but you can’t be serious about living in that run down shack, it’s barely standing and it doesn’t even have windows. But fine, if you really live there as you say, show it to me.” I started walking towards the bush next to the door, the closer I got, the more miserable the place appeared. I got to the piece of shrubbery and turned around to see that the girl was just behind me, I hadn’t even heard her footsteps. She kept moving forward to behind the shrub and started crawling into it. Moments later her hand appeared from the same place and gestured for me to follow it.

  Any rational person would have run by now, everyone knows not to trust a person that you’ve just met but I didn’t care, I wanted to find out if this girl was telling the truth. I crawled in behind the bush to find a large hole in the decking. The girl was already inside it moving further underneath the house, so I followed until she stopped and started to stand through a hole above us.

  The inside was dimly lit by the small rays of sunlight seeping through the cracks in the wood covered windows and all around me were small supplies. A mattress and blanket with food rappers scattered around it, coins thrown around and bottles of water, most of which were empty or half full. The walls were just wood panels and the floor was creaking so much with every step it felt as though it was going to collapse at any moment.

“Welcome to hell. Sorry that it’s a bit of a mess at the moment, but my maid’s taking the day off. By the way I’m Jasmine, Jasmine Burk.” She smiled at me and held her hand out again, this time in a shaking position.

“Sophia Harrison.,” I shook her hand and took a seat on the mattress, “so what are you doing here by yourself? Are your parents away or something?” She sat down next to me and started to tell me her story. At first I was curious, but by the end of it I was just depressed. She came down from Sydney to Victoria not that long ago after her parents kicked her out of home on her sixteenth birthday. She was as old as me and had to fend for herself, hiding in this house and trying to survive. She was adopted when she was one and the parents that adopted her told her that they knew who her real parents were. They spent years telling her that her real parents were worthless and pathetic, and that must be why she’s so useless.

  Tears started dripping down from her face and I noticed that my eyes were watery too. Trying to imagine what Jasmine had been through was near impossible, and it wasn’t for a couple of minutes that I even had the ability to talk.

“Well you know what; you’re not staying in this place any longer. Grab what you want and come with me.” I crawled back under the floor and out of the house with Jasmine close behind me. I walked next door to my house and dragged her to my room. It was a small one story house and my room wasn’t overly big, but it was better than what she was living in before. “I know mum will be fine with it and although it’s not much, at least it has windows and heating.” I looked around at my painted red walls and black carpet. Never before had I really appreciated what I had, until I heard Jasmine’s story.

  I walked towards my hanging mirror and began to take my makeup off. My shoulder length chocolate brown hair framed my tanned face. The black eyeliner around my light blue eyes was smudged due to tears and my skin had patches of dirt on it from the crawling. I took out my blue contacts to reveal my dark brown eyes and looked at myself, disgusted with what I saw. It was so plain and average. The roots of my dyed hair were showing the natural red and even my skin had lost its even tone.

  “So you hate yourself then? I mean no person goes through that much hassle to change everything they can because they’re fine with the way that they are.” I turned around, shocked at what I was hearing. Jasmine, who has only known me for a few hours, was already starting to make assumptions. “I can see that you’re offended by what I’ve said, but honestly, think about it. I’ve just told you why I’m the way I am, so come on, cough it up.”

  So I told her about my self-hatred; about the number of times that I’ve looked in the mirror and seen a face that disgusted me. How I go through phases where I think that I’m fat, so I stop eating, or when I believe that I’m not pretty enough, so I try to change it. How I’ve tried to convince myself so many times that it’s because I want to be the best that I can be, so I change myself to be that, instead of who I actually am, because who I am, isn’t good enough. I didn’t like admitting that stuff, because I wasn’t only admitting it to Jasmine, but I was also trying to convince myself.

  Mum came in a while later and I told her about Jasmine, and asked if it was okay if she stayed here for a while. She was fine with it and told us that her sister Molly and her husband were coming in a week to visit. They lived in New South Wales and mum doesn’t get to see them very often because of that, so she was extremely excited. Mum looked like me except without the contacts and dyed hair, so she still had her long red hair and brown eyes. She works at two of the local shops to provide the small amount of money that we get, so because she’s always working, she’s never home to spend time with me. At least now I’d have Jasmine to talk to after school and on weekends.

  Months passed without any problems until the day when I discovered hundreds of dollars in Jasmine’s draw of belongings. “Where the hell did this come from? You don’t work and you didn’t have it when you came here so what is it!?” It was then that I learnt about her thieving history. How she had been surviving on her own and why she couldn’t stay in Sydney anymore. “When you first met me you weren’t just coming up to say hi were you? When you pushed me down and saw that I was weak? Why the hell I trusted you is a question that will never get answered! Now just get out, get out of this house and run back to the hole that you came from!”

  Jasmine ran out of the house and for weeks later no one had seen her until a police officer came to our front door telling us about the robbery of a golden locket from Jasmine’s parents from Sydney. Her parents had reported it missing and it had enormous money value. Apparently they had evidence that Jasmine was here, so the police came and tracked her down. Before coming to this house they found her running out of a shop with stolen items. They chased her down to the old house next door and she disappeared into the bush next to the door. The door was kicked open by the officers and they ran through the house, but it was falling apart so they retreated. Straight after they exited the property the roof collapsed and the house crashed down. Jasmine’s body was found amongst the ruins lifeless.

  After the police left I ran to my room and lay on my bed soaking the pillow in my tears. I couldn’t help but feel that it was my fault. If I hadn’t told her to leave, then she wouldn’t have run back into the broken shack, and it wouldn’t have collapsed. My mother came in soon after that to try to cheer me up, but at that point in time, nothing could make me feel any different.

“I know that it’s hard to deal with, but just remember, you have to let people go. Everyone who's in your life are meant to be in your journey, but not all of them are meant to stay until the end.” She left after that, and I started to go through Jasmine’s draw. At the bottom of it I found an envelope addressed to me. I looked through it and it read:

Dear Sophia

         I’m so sorry that I couldn’t be more of a friend to you and that I had kept things from you, but I believe that it was for the best. If you had known about all of my past then you wouldn’t have thought of me the same way again. I know that I won’t see you again and I give you this letter in hope that it will be an apology for what it is that I’ve done wrong. You were the closest thing that I had to family, and even though us meeting was accidental, it was the best moment I’d had in a long time. Remember that you don’t have to hide who you are, because who you are is better than anyone that you pretend to be. As an apology I’m giving you the golden locket that was given to me at birth from my actual parents, it is worth quite a bit of money so it should help you with the money problems. Tell your mother that I thank her for having me and that I appreciate her kindness to a stranger. I won’t say goodbye because it really isn’t the end, but only a whole new beginning.

Sincerely yours, Jasmine

PS: I hope you’re window’s not broken, I had to climb through it to get into your room to deliver the letter.

Inside the envelope was a small golden locket, with a keyhole that was meant to open it. I held it close and started to sob. I showed it to my mother with the letter and we both decided not to sell the locket, but to hang it on the wall as a way to remember Jasmine. Molly and Derick came the next day to comfort us, and even though they had only met Jasmine once, they still missed her. We showed them the locket and that’s when their faces turned pale.

  The locket was given to Jasmine at birth by her parents, but the key that opened it was still with them, so then if they found each other, the locket could be opened. Molly took her necklace with a small key hanging around it and inserted it into the small keyhole. Inside the locket was an inscription, “Be who you are, not what others make you”.

  There’s one day in people’s lives, where they’re made to question everything that they know about the world and themselves, but for some, that day never comes. I was one of the lucky people, who got that chance, and for me, it helped me to see myself in a different way, and maybe it did for Jasmine too. Even those who are gone still stay with us forever, and no matter who it is they can have the greatest impact on our lives, if we let them. I’ll miss Jasmine, but at least she taught me things that without her, I would never have known. Only the good die young.

Reviews

[Jaxter_Nick]

That was beutiful...but very sad... Still a good read tho...