As if a switch has been flipped, the man stands up, brushing away where my hand was mere seconds ago, as if brushing away my touch. An inexplicable sensation–a hollow, aching feeling–fills my chest, and I cannot explain why. My heartbeat has returned to normal, and I realize this was a big mistake. He seems to agree to that because he stares into my eyes with the hardness I saw him wear the other day in the cafeteria when he refused to tell me his name. He still hasn’t told it to me, and he doesn’t know mine either, which makes us even.
I no longer feel the need to hide from him when he looks into my eyes, for the demons I was afraid he would see are no longer there. The bricks are built up piece by piece until a whole wall stands in front of us, separating us both. I turn on my heels without sparing him a second glance before walking to meet Ray with renewed determination.
Survive this place, stay the fuck away from others.
Ray stands outside the restroom, and I nod at him with a stiff smile that doesn’t reach my eyes to assure him I’m okay. We leave in silence as he takes me back to my room.
I regret the entire bathroom encounter, but what I regret the most is letting him see even an iota of my true feelings.Never show your weakness,and I let him see them–something I will regret even more later on.
Chapter 12
Naya
The clock’s ticking onthe wall is a constant reminder that time is passing and that the world outside is moving on without me. It’s as if I’m a ghost in the world outside, with no one looking for or worrying about me. I have no parents or family members who expect me, no one who has filed a missing person’s report with the police. My mother took the only family I had left. That word–family–tastes bitter on my tongue, and I want to wipe it out of existence. Why are others allowed to have families, and I am not? It’s truly unfair, and the thought depresses me, making my stomach sink to the lowest pit with a lump of anxiety.
I pick at the cuticles on my nails, trying to push them back with my fingers to receive a smoother surface. The roughness of my cuticles that have grown over my nail bed makes something crawl inside me, as if insects are nibbling my skin before being sucked into my bloodstream. Just thinking about that makes me want to furiously scrub every inch of my body. Insects are disgusting.
Tick tock, tick tock.
Those are the only sounds I allow my ears to hear as I stare down at my knees and the black, puffy sweatpants I wear. As of a few days ago, my only possession was a backpack filled with dresses. I have placed them at the very bottom of the backpack and have no intention of wearing them again. I don’t remember how long I’ve had the bag, if I received it at Grimhill Manor or from the time before, something I don’t want to remember either. As far as I know, I own nothing valuable.
I crane my neck, feeling the on-coming headache spread through my body and radiating pain from my neck. I don’t know why it has been sore since I arrived here. It frustrates me to feel like I’m stumbling around in the dark and can’t find my footing.
The last time I was at the hospital was when my mother drove me off the road deliberately, and no one had packed a bag for me then. They left me defenseless, strapped to a hospital bed, as my mother told me she had big plans for me. The chill of terror still lingers in my mind, reminding me of my panic and fear. At that point in my life, my grandparents couldn’t keep custody of me.
The feeling of multiple needles sticking into my body is like a burning orb, waiting to catch fire in every skin cell and destroy me from the inside out. But my inside hurts the most, the pain in my chest and the realization that nothing will ever be okay again.
I did not even have the chance to say goodbye to my grandparents, who raised me since I was seven years old.
It fucking hurts. Everything hurts when I think back to a few days ago when someone knocked on the door as I was home alone, my grandparents only at the store nearby. I will never forget the look of utter determination on the rock-hard woman’s face, her jawbone well protruding from the contour she used on her face and the highlighter of her makeup. Her eyes were some I have seen far too many times, the same icy gaze that doesn’t show an iota of compassion. As usual, her dirty blonde hair was in a tightly knotted knot on her head, and the costume was right in place.
A social worker.
My heart sank to the floor as those dreaded words came out of her mouth, sending me into the pit of hell and drowning me in the tsunami of rage and fear I felt inside.
“The court has made a decision. You are returning to your mother. Her request to regain custody has been approved.”
Even now, as I lie here strapped to a fucking hospital bed, I feel the scream ripple through me, a shrill tone that sends my heart into a screeching frenzy. I knew even then that nothing would return to normal when the social worker came unannounced and knocked on the door. I knew then that my life would forever change. After ten years, why would my mother want me back?
It’s been ten fucking years of no contact with the person who gave birth to me, ten years of living a reasonably okay life on the outskirts of Yorkshire with my grandparents. Two people who actually cared about me. Moving from Edinburgh to Yorkshire was the change I needed. It gave me a chance to heal from all my traumas. Of course, it was challenging because my grandparents believed their son killed himself when I knew the truth, but no one trusted a seven-year-old over an adult. I couldn’t really blame them.
Why the fuck did my mother want me back?
But now, I know the answer to that question. It wasn’t because she wanted to try to have a relationship with her daughter again, not because she felt I would have it better with her than her ex-husband’s parents.
No, she wanted me back so she could sell me.
Ship me off like a fucking bargaining chip.
She stands before me, the same dead look in her eyes as before, her streaked hair still wild and unruly, despite her best efforts to tame it, just like all those years ago. I barely recognize her anymore. The gray-black rings under her eyes indicate all the years of lack of sleep, and the scars and wounds on her arms are a clear sign of the drugs she has taken.
Is that why she is doing this? So she can continue to be a junkie? A worthless human being who deserves nothing. One who should have died all those months ago, not my grandparents. They say they died from old age, but I can feel it in me, that the woman standing in front of me had something to do with their deaths.
As I witness her turning away, I can only see a crimson color in my mind as my emotions overfill with rage.
“No! Don’t fucking leave me here!” I scream in pure terror mixed with utter rage, but the woman before me laughs in my face and walks off, leaving me with the sour smell of the hospital bed I am strapped to.
And I promise myself.
