Broken Survivor by Jennifer Labelle

to sleep all day? Ugh!”
    Holly was startled awake by Sierra arguing with her mother before Sierra stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind her. She cringed as the memories from the night before came rushing back.
    Charlotte knocked on her door, then poked her head inside and smiled sheepishly. “I guess you heard that, huh?” She walked in and shut the door softly behind her. “Don’t mind Sierra. You just gave us all a worry last night.”
    “I’m sorry,” Holly whispered. She then recounted everything step by step in her mind and cringed. “I’m mortified, and can assure you this will never happen again.”
    “I certainly hope not. Listen, Holly, I know you’re going through a lot of things right now and it’s hard to process the reality you now live in, but you have people who care about you. I hope you know that.”
    “I do, thank you.”
    “Good. Now you rest up and enjoy the day off, because I’d like you to stay in today and think about things. In the meantime…” Charlotte stood and stretched. “I’m going to go get some errands done and think of another consequence for your actions.”
     
    ***
     
    “Hello, Holly, you’re looking well.” Jace motioned for her to take the vacant seat in front of him.
    “Thanks, I guess.” She bit her lip and decided to keep her weekend festivities to herself. She didn’t need the lecture. She already felt bad enough. Lesson learned, big-time.
    “You guess?” He shook his head. “Honestly, Ms. Hewitt, you need to learn how to take a compliment. We’ve got to work on some positive thinking here. When we’re positive and feeling good, it makes us want to succeed and gives us a determination to want to better ourselves, don’t you think?”
    “If you say so.” She shrugged.
    “I do, so…” He got up and clapped. “What do you say we play a game?”
    “What kind of game?” She eyed him warily. “Because that’ll determine whether or not I play along.”
    “Well, for today it’s a word game. I say a few words, and I want you to think of something positive to say about them. It’s easy. For example, if I say February , you could say something like, love , because February is associated with Valentine’s Day, and so on.”
    “Let’s give it a shot, I guess.”
    “Okay, great. So here it goes. June?”
    “Birthday.”
    “Good, now how about books?”
    “An escape.”
    “Sister?”
    “Protector.”
    “Father?”
    “Let’s not go there.” She scowled. “I’m sorry, but there is nothing positive associated with that word for me.”
    He nodded and carried on. “Something we can bring up at a later time. School?”
    “Friends.”
    “Mother?”
    Sadness crossed her face, and she couldn’t keep her answer to one word when it finally came to her. “Beautiful, unconditional love, protector, nurturer, amazing, kind, good, heartfelt, one of a kind, the best—God, I miss her.”
    “Okay, okay, those are some great answers.” He held out his hands and continued with the exercise. “Child?”
    “Sweet.”
    “Home?”
    “It used to mean safety once upon a time.” She looked up from fidgeting with her hands and wiped a lone tear away. “At least, when it was just the three of us, it was.”
    “You mean your mother and sister as well as you?”
    “Yes,” she whispered. “When Christian was around, you never knew what to expect. There’d be good days and bad, horrible times. When he was in jail, or would attempt to go into rehab, it was fantastic. My mom would be at ease, there were no eggshells to walk on, and we spent a lot of quality time together. There were shopping trips, the beach, movies, and Thursday night dinners at Hurley’s Restaurant on the market. You see, they had these awesome specials on the finger foods, and we’d go to town stuffing our faces with nachos, chicken wings, zucchini sticks, and potato skins.” She gave a sad smile. “Things got bad sometimes, but I’d like people to know she did the