Broken Girl(63)

But the voice in my head knew when to strike. She knew when I was at my weakest. She was the same voice that dictated my moods when I couldn’t handle the stress of trying to be someone everyone else wanted me to be.



Now, here we go again. Rose, when will you ever learn that whores like you ain’t worthy of grieving?

‘Yes I am.’ I answered her in my head.

No, you’re not. Do you honestly believe Sybil’s family is gonna overlook you being there?

‘Maybe, I don’t know. I need to be there.’

No you don’t. Oh, f*ck, come on Rose, can’t you see, you’re the hooker-low-life-roommate that left the door unlocked so Dax could come in and kill her. It’s your fault she’s dead.

‘No, it’s not! It’s not my fault and you’re not real!’ The nine-year-old broken little girl deep inside me screamed back.

Oh, but Rose, I am real and I’m really in your head. I’ve been with you forever, I know you best and now I’m here to help you remember your place. You aren’t worthy, never been, never will be.



I pushed my hands up across my face. My skin and hairline damp from the perspiration pushing through my pores.

Briggs noticed.

“Rosie, you oka’?” He brushed his fingers across my hands, still cupping my face. I didn’t look up. This time the f*cked up voice in my head was relentless.



Isn’t that cute. You almost could have had him. I bet if you let him kill Dax, Sybil would be here. You shouldn’t have stopped Briggs from killing him. Sybil’s death wouldn’t have been for nothing. Oh, wait, it was for something, it took one more filthy, dirty whore off the street. You’ll always be a dirty broken girl who whores herself to feed the monster inside. No wonder Briggs or Shane don’t want you!



“Shut up, shut up, just shut the f*ck up,” I screamed at the top of my lungs into my hands as I swayed back and forth. I was trapped where I was. I couldn’t escape her. When she’d shown up before, I’d have a place to go, a motion I could do that would cause her to lose the grip she had in my head.

Briggs stopped the car; my body jolted forward.

“Wha’ the f*ck?”

Briggs’ voice carried and filled the car. He was demanding, almost like he was coming from a place of fear, a place he’d known for way too long.

I hopped out of the car, pacing the dingy sidewalk riddled with yesterday’s trash.

“I’m worthy, do you f*cking hear me? I’m f*cking worthy. You can’t break me anymore, I’m not that scared little girl anymore. You will not win! Do you hear me? YOU. WON’T. WIN!” I hollered into the gust of wind that kicked up and swirled around me. The chill of the wind coming off the bay spread across my face, loosening the grip the voice had in my head and as if the wind cleansed my soul of the wicked. Suddenly, the voice in my head was silent. And just like that I was left on the sidewalk clinging to the only thing I knew.

When I lowered my eyes back down to Briggs, he was standing there, unmoved by my outburst. The look on his face told me he was familiar with the demon I was battling, as if in some intimate way the pain in my life was connected to his. He nodded, his body firm, tense, like he was ready to protect me. I blinked slowly, and nodded back, in an instant his arms were around me.

“Shhh, you’ safe. I’m here. It’s over.”

“I . . . I . . . I—”

“Come on, Rosie gir’, get in the car.”

Battling the need to be healed, I knew I was safe, packed away in the care of Briggs until he pulled into the Cypress Lawn Cemetery.





AS BRIGGS PASSED through Daly City I recovered from the complete unraveling of my mind. The tick of my heart didn’t echo through my ears nearly as loud as it did just thirty minutes earlier and the knots through my shoulders relaxed once I leaned back on the headrest. Most of the time the badgering voice wins, but today, today it just couldn’t, I couldn’t let her win.

Kean turned into Cypress Lawn Cemetery, prettified by a massive white marble archway and well kept rolling hills of manicured green lawns, suddenly I realized Sybil had been born into privilege. For some reason, I visualized Sybil being buried in a decrepit, unkempt, unmarked cemetery. Sure I grew up in San Francisco, and I knew we buried our dead in Colma, a town that had more real estate for the dead than the alive, but it had been very few and far between times that I actually went into a cemetery. My only point of reference was the ones in scary movies. Besides that, I’ve never actually seen someone buried in a cemetery, I didn’t even go to see my grandma buried.

My skin was hot, the car had become stifling as we drove the narrow roads. I desperately wanted to peel the pain from every cell in my body and bury it in Sybil’s grave. Leave the last bit of expectation where it all started, tucked below the surface of who I was. Life would be so much easier if I was numb.

Briggs pulled to the side as he scanned the sprawling lawn cluttered with a small group of people huddled around an open square grave. Suddenly, there wasn’t a moment to catch my breath or think about how I was going to react. All I had were tiny pieces of my own awareness that I was here and up there on those rolling hills across the narrow road was Sybil’s body motionless in a casket.

I looked back at Briggs and watched him curl his bottom lip in between his teeth as he struggled to recognize any of the people dressed in black. My heart exploded into a hyper rhythm as I noticed him narrowing his eyes. I looked back up and saw Martie sitting behind a polished, dark wooden casket. Standing next to her was a minister, the Bible in one hand as he flicked a stick with holy water from the other. Finality flowed through my veins . . . done and over. It looked like the minister was setting her soul free.