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She sat quietly next to the bed in a chair, silently guarding the figure that lied tangled in the blankets. The woman struggled with something in her sleep, writhing in the bed as though she was in great pain. Jessica sat and watched afraid to wake her; she knew that waking her in these moments would only make it worse. She watched as the woman slowly opened her eyes, "Mommy?" she had said, as though she were a small child looking for reassurance. Jessica sighed softly, "I am here honey, go back to sleep."

Jessica felt a tear run down her face. She quickly wiped it away and stood up and walked from the room. She hated nights like this, they were so long and so lonely for her. She hadn't slept in months and feared that she may never sleep again. She had stood guard throughout each night making sure no harm came to the woman she had just left sleeping in the other room. As she walked past a mirror, she looked at her face, it looked much older than her short fifteen years, the bruises on the side of her face were healing slowly and the cut on her lip still caused her pain but it had been her own fault, she knew better than to wake her from her dreams. She had thought Jessica was a demon sent to torture her, and no matter how much she had tried to make her see that it was only her, she simply could not see past her own delusions.

Jessica was happy that she was the way she was tonight, she was easier to handle when she was like a child. She had pretended to be her mother and it made her realize how alone she really was, oh how she longed to have someone to reassure her at moments like these but Jessica had no one. She was alone in the world, the only person she had in her life was the woman sleeping in the other room. That woman was her mother, she had fallen victim to an illness that Jessica wasn't equipped to fight. She woke up one day and wouldn't talk to her, and then one day she was talking only she was talking to someone Jessica couldn't see. It had scared her, but she had no one to call and no way to call even if she did. Several months before Jessica and her mother lived so happily in a home that they had made for themselves. It seemed as though everything was going to work out after all. Jessica could hardly remember those times, they seemed like some other life lived by people that she could no longer recognize. Her mother had always been so strong and now she had to bathe her and dress her, she was the mother now. Her life was over before it had begun.

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