Broken Doll by Lesley Whyte

He called me his little broken doll. I wasn't sure if it was a compliment. Actually, I'm still not sure, but I like to think it was. I always pictured little girls who loved their dolls so much that they broke them - squeezing them too tight, playing with them too wildly, taking them to bed when really they should have been left on a shelf. I thought it was a cute little pet name. I thought it was a sweet. He wasn't good with words, he wasn't good with feelings. But it was something we shared, something that brought us closer and made what we had real.

Turns out he called me his little broken doll because I was pretty but damaged goods. Still, that's not necessarily a bad thing.