bbf - backstabbing best friend

warning - violence; beating up, pain, fear. mental health; broken home, poverty, minors.

"Have you ever thought about what I feel?!" I yelled at Marina. My beautiful dress, the one I've been working on for so long and so hard lay in pitiful, tattered rips of fabric.

Marina glared daggers at me, her eyes flashing dangerously. She crossed her arms with a frown, "I don't care," she said, her voice severely cold, "What happens to you and your nasty dress!!"

A few unshed tears made their way down my cheek. I pointed an accusing finger at her, "Oh, of course," I laughed maliciously, putting all my sarcasm into it, "You don't care about me or my dress because all you care about is winning." I replied, my tone just as cool as hers, if not more.

I can't believe I had ever befriended this girl, ever told her my secrets, my fancies, my dislikes and everything. I can't and won't believe it.

"You-" Her words were cut off as the door slammed open, and something even worse happened: Ms. Reegan, our principal, came striding in, head held high and radiating a ew-get-away-from-me-I-don't-like-you look.

I sent another glare in Marina's way and sat down on one of the benches, exhausted from the screaming match me and Marina had just had.

Ms. Reegan's eyes flitted to and fro between me and Marina, as if trying to find out who is right and who is wrong. I tried to talk with my eyes to her, desperately telling her, "Ms. Reegan, believe me, please, Marina destroyed my dress for the finals of the fashion competition!!!"

Ms. Reegan finally decided to set her glare on.. Me. Oh, yes, of course, I'm playing victim, now, aren't I? Ugh, why does no on at school supports me.

Even my best friend back stabbed me.

"What happened between you and Marina?" Ms. Reegan demanded, still looking at me with that furious aura, "Kimberly, I want you to explain yourself."

I took a deep breath. This was bad news. Ms. Reegan never calls anyone by their first names except if they were in trouble. And now, if you add the fact that she's looking at me with horrible glower that makes her look ten times more uglier, I'm in deep trouble.

That's the main problem with me: I already know that I did (but in this case, I didn't) do something bad and will experience harsh punishments and consequences, and I don't care.

I don't know if that's got something to do with my rough childhood and my young memories of a broken home still as raw in my mind as if it were yesterday.

I've seen my mum getting beaten up by father, who comes home late, drunk, and hits mum with his glass bottle. Mum always told me to go to my best friend's house, that is, Marina.

Father's beatings were daily, almost every weekend. Mum's face was always bruised and red, with scratches that never heal.

I've seen my father kicking, hitting and overall trying to defend himself from the police men's grip. All that happened because I called 911 when I was 12. I did it myself, since my mum was way too scared that father would positively, literally kill her if she reported.

My brother was then a baby, and I was the one who took care of him; I fed him, took him showers, bought him ice cream with my money from selling paper dolls that I crafted myself from what paper I have at home, and protecting him when my mum's getting beat up and we have to escape to Marina's house.

So, now we're orphans, with my mum having divorced my father, and my mum is now stuck in a psychiatric hospital ward.

With what little money my mum had given in her will for me and my brother, we managed to survive, my brother now in sixth grade of primary and I'm in high-school.

I've started a business; lemonade, dog-walking and lawn-mowing. I open my lemonade stand every afternoon after school and on weekends I walk dogs.

I can only mow lawns in the summer or other holidays, since it takes one or two hours to clear up everything. Oh, and on Christmas holidays, I shovel snow to get a dinner of biscuits, instant noodles, 50 cent hot chocolate and a hot dog each for my brother and me.

Even that is luxury. If not many people want me to shovel their snowflakes, then we'll have to make do with cereal, stale bread and cheese with a two dollar pack of pepperoni and ham.

Once or twice, we had a real Christmas dinner, from my high-school or when Marina invited us, since she pitied us and she came from a rich family.

"Hey, I asked you. You should answer, if your principal asks you something!" Ms. Reegan's voice snapped me out of my train of thoughts.

"What? Oh- Yeah," I rubbed the back of my neck as I looked down at my battered-up shoes my wealthy but selfish aunt had gotten me for my fifteenth birthday. "Marina destroyed my dress, that I had worked on for two months, by setting the skirt on fire, dousing the top in water, ripping the skirt after it got burned and cut the top into pieces after it was dripping wet." I said.

My eyes stung with tears, as I remembered how pain-stakingly I had to save up to buy materials for the dress. If I won first place in this year's fashion competition, I would've gotten a thousand bucks.

Okay, it might seem weird, because a thousand bucks is a lot, but this is an international competition, with students and top fashion designers alike, battling for victory.

Now, my dress is gone. Just like that. Poof. No more possibility I might win a thousand bucks and buy that fifteen dollar action figure my brother had wanted to buy for a long time.

Sad fate, cruel world, broken heart. Is that all I'm ever gonna feel all my life? I just really hope my brother will go and marry well, so he can help his sister to live.. well, properly.

But, he's about thirteen, and I'm nearing seventeen. I'm the one who has to get married first. I'm the one that has to marry first and well.

Oh my goodness, I wish life would just drop a blessing in my way and I swear that I'll be grateful all my life.