Despite my best efforts to maintain a calm façade, she almost screams at me, and it only stirs the irritation inside me that threatens to boil over the surface. I am not afraid to hurt anyone, regardless of their gender, and frankly, I don’t care about anyone but myself.
I simply don’t care if I hurt her feelings. Instead, I find it amusing to see the last bit of hope in her eyes crumble like glass breaking into a thousand pieces when she realizes she has lost me. She’s too annoying anyway, always a stick-up in the ass. Life was good before she joined our trio.
“I don’t want to fuck you because I don’t want you. It’s as simple as that. Take it or leave it, but leave me the fuck alone.”
As I stare down at her, I watch her squirm, intimidated by our height differences. Rage fills her body as she clenches her hands, her veins popping until she can hardly breathe. As she stares at me, I can tell she intends to hit me before doing anything else.
Tryhitting me.
Sure enough, her hand raises the next moment, but I catch it just as quickly. I twist it backward until she yelps from the pain, and tears sting her eyes.
“Pathetic,” I mutter before turning on my heels. Just as I’m about to leave the room, I turn around and call out to her. “Don’t touch me again, got it?”
Leaving the room, I feel Aubrey and Calvin’s piercing gaze on me as the door bangs shut and the sound of the door slamming echoes through the space.
Fuck,that mysterious girl has totally fucked up my head.
Chapter 14
Naya
I haven’t always livedin a prison-like home, and I still remember happy memories from my childhood when I lived in England’s countryside with my grandparents. Although the unhappy memories outnumber the joyful ones, the happy memories still remain. For two years now, I have lived in two places that feel more like prisons than a home. I never truly had that–a home.
The weight of my sins presses down on me, but I still don’t understand how I arrived at this point. Doctor Lewis mentioned amnesia, that I lost my short-term memory because of an accident I was in, but I still can’t trust her. I’ve never trusted anyone but myself, and now I don’t feel like I can anymore with darkness taking over. It’s difficult for me to admit it out loud, but I am terrified of what will happen next, how my life will be, and if I will even be able to escape.
I must escape and survive, for I don’t know what else to do.
God, everything is so messed up.
My hands pick away at the skin under my feet as I’m deep in thought, welcoming the pain as a pleasant sensation that leaves me completely satisfied with the outcome. In all honesty, the fact that I don’t recall any of the relevant things involved in the matter makes me feel helpless and as if all hope is lost, that no matter what I do, nothing will ever be okay again because this is how my life was created to be. Sometimes I believe I am meant to be miserable, to never know happiness.
Whenever I had a difficult day at Grimhill Manor, I knew Everlee’s comforting embrace would always make me feel better. She gave me the solace I craved to get through the days, but now I’m bereft, and sometimes I think my mind invented Everlee out of desperation. I’m confined to this room with four walls, silence broken only by my breathing.
And this room I’m in? It’s surrounded by an entire institute with dozens of corridors, all leading to different places, like an endless maze. And this institute? It’s surrounded by a large fence with barbed wire on top.
I’m trapped, trapped, trapped.
And it hurts. Each day I’m not out in the world brings an unbearable tightness to my chest that I can’t shake. I have a feeling of impending doom and a voice in my head telling me I will never have a happy ending. It’s a voice telling me I shouldn’t even try to escape because I am not good enough and will never succeed. That I belong here. Yet another part of me has been smoldering for years, one that bursts into flame, pushing me to escape. Most of my emotions are centered around that part, and I must keep going.
Because maybe, just maybe, I deserve a free life after all. Despite everything I have done.
I take a long, slow breath and focus on the feeling of the air on my skin as it flows in and out. I’m sitting on the floor of the room, my back resting against the bed, my shoulders covered by a non-suffocating blanket that provides comfortable warmth.
Even though I’m not sure what motivates me, I feel like I need closure, so I approach the wardrobe standing by the wall and take the backpack from Grimhill Manor. In fact, I am not even sure what I will get out of this experience, but I feel drawn to it as if I were in a calling.
My feet are bare, and I slowly lower myself to the floor, tucking them into a tailored position, the right one a shade rosier than the left. With a deep, harsh breath that feels like a step closer to my death doom, I unzip the backpack and look inside. Immediately, I’m hit by the old, decaying smell that reminds me of something that’s been around for too long, an old house with mold. It’s disgusting, but strangely familiar. A familiar home I lived in for months after my mother left me strapped to that hospital, despite knowing it would ruin my life. She only cared about drugs.
With stinging eyes, I avert my gaze as I scrunch my nose to mask the unpleasant aroma, catching sight of my Grimhill dresses. I had promised myself I wouldn’t open this backpack again, but now that I’m looking at these dresses, I’m reminded that nothing was a product of my imagination.
I feel a pang in my chest as memories waft through me; the walls close around me, and my heart pumps on auto-pilot as if it cannot communicate with the rest of my system. Seeing those dreadful dresses, their old-fashioned designs, brings me tremendous sorrow, as it reminds me of when I used to look like a real-life doll or dress-up toy.
I am stupid. God, I know I’m stupid when I lift one of the dresses, that white-black checkered dress I used to love because it was the only dress that didn’t make me feel like I would suffocate. I despised the other dresses because they stuck to my skin, making my palms sweaty.
A crumbled piece of paper falls out of the backpack as I unfold the dress, along with a handwriting I recognize all too well. As I read the note, tears fill my eyes, and the heat of them becomes almost tangible; the salty droplets smudge the ink as the realization of who wrote the note sinks in.
I am not sure if we will survive this escape, but I want you to know that no matter what happens, you will always be on my mind. Thank you for being the best roommate and friend, and thank you for making my time here a little easier.
- E.
