Excerpt: The Story of Bea White

Bea gasped. The girl looking back at her was not a Bea she had ever seen before. Her essential face was there; yes, there was the heart shaped face and the large grey blue eyes, and the honey streaked brown hair. But she was eighteen now, and she did not look like the woman she had imagined she would become when she had last looked in a mirror. When she was twelve, she had looked forward to the day when her baby cheeks would disappear and she would have the slender, pretty face of a young woman. But the young woman in the mirror was not slender. She was underfed and hollow. She had dull hair, sad eyes, and pale cheeks, except for the large, fading bruise that blemished her left jaw and cheek.

In surprise and embarrassment, Bea stammered, “It’s not his fault. You said so yourself, the alcohol makes a person do things he would not do if he were in his right mind.”

“And the man drinks it anyways,” he said bluntly.