The tears were running down my face. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to go back to my own little dream world a world where he, the man who I thought loved me, hadn’t hit me for one of the most trivial reasons known to mankind. He wanted sex, I didn’t. What was he, a caveman? Couldn’t he understand the word no?
I had screamed, begged, and cried, and now I was standing in the shower, being weak, and tears running down my face. Or, in reality, one couldn’t refer to them as running anymore. What was really happening could only be compared to pouring rain, the tears were pouring down my face. Or was it the shower water? I ran my tongue across my bottom lip. I tasted the salt, it tasted like sorrow. Deep sorrow and so much pain. I felt the sobs rake over my body, but I couldn’t hear them. Had the water made me deaf? No, it was the numb feeling. I could feel the bruises, but most prominent were the bruises on my heart, the ones that made every breath feel like a knife stabbing at my insides.
Do you remember the little mermaid? Not the Disney version, I mean the real folklore. In that brutal version part of the witches curse is that the little mermaid has to take every step and feel like knives are making their way into the soles of her feet. That’s what I felt like…many tiny knives making their way into my heart. With every breath more pain came. And with more pain, came more tears. I felt like I could never be clean again. I hadn’t even been able to turn the water hot enough. I could feel it scalding my skin, but it didn’t hurt as much as the bruises left behind on my heart.
Sighing deeply, I closed my eyes. “One, two, three, four, five,” I counted loudly to quiet my inner voice. All of a sudden I wrenched my eyes open, heavy breathing- his eyes. His deep blue, cold eyes were starring into mine whenever I closed them. The tears that had ceased began anew. Stronger this time. If the past minute had been pouring rain, this was a tsunami of tears. Maybe I would drown in tears I thought, no hoped to myself.
Bastard.
The word flashed through my mind. But I love him. Came next. But he doesn’t love you. Tears…more tears. Why won’t he love me? Because I’m horrible, I thought. Because I bit him, because I didn’t sleep with him. If I really loved him, I would have done it. I knew that this was true, but why didn’t I love him? He was kind to me. He beat you, and he was kind? Stupid girl. Yes, stupid girl. Stupid girl for provoking him, for biting him, for letting him hurt me. Even more tears. If I tell someone he’ll murder me. If I don’t tell someone I’ll murder myself.
The water was making me dizzy; I turned of the water and walked to the linen closet to get myself a big towel. The water was dripping between my shoulder blades, but my back was hurting, so I didn’t feel strong enough to simply wrap a towel around it. The heat had made the mirror in the bathroom useless, so I walked up the one tilted on my armoire. I knew what I would see, but the gasp still escaped my lips. Bruises, a split lip, more bruises, my cheek, where he had boxed it was a deep purple from the burst blood capillaries. Slowly I lifted the towel; the ribs not only hurt when touched, but also looked like they had been hurt. When he had touched them, touched was most definitely the wrong word, when he had abused them I had felt it. And now I could see it. It scared me more than I had thought. More tears started their tsunami approach, but none of that scared me as much as my eyes. They were dark and swollen from crying. And when one looked closer, when I looked closer I could see the hurt, the tumult going on inside my horribly muddled brain. The thoughts flying around as if they had been shot out by a pin ball machine were jumping from one end to the next. From conclusion to problem, and back again to start anew.
Pyjamas. Yes, finally, a practical thought. I went over to my closet, rummaging through the mess. Picking up the most comfortable thing I could find, my grandmother’s old dressing gown. Barefoot I stumbled into the hallway, going into the kitchen to find myself some chocolate. I needed to be soothed by something, needed it or else I would collapse. I wanted my mommy, but in a way I didn’t. I was glad to know that both of my parents were gone for the night to meet with our landlord and that my baby sister was safely parked at her babysitter’s house.
It didn’t take me long to find the chocolate, along with some tee, and a heating blanket. Walking on my tip toes I went to my bed…and just sank down on it. Setting the tea down carefully, looking at the picture of Audrey Hepburn hung high on my wall. Audrey, the role model in every situation…a woman that had in a way helped me to get through any phase in my life. When I was sad I’d pop Breakfast at Tiffanies in the VCR and have a good long cry at the, “I don’t want to put you in a cage, I want to love you,” part. Love, there we had it again. How would Audrey handle love? Audrey was married three times, she didn’t handle it very well. I wanted one love, one final love that would last me a lifetime. Nothing less and nothing more, but of course that is quite a lot to wish for.
But, this isn’t about Audrey Hepburn. This is about Katie Alee. Normal girl, also known as a complicated wreck. That’s me. And I worried about what Audrey would do, but I didn’t’ know what she would do…I only know what I did. I cried. Fell down onto my bed and sobbed away. If that wouldn’t be embarrassing enough, I sobbed words, and they were, “I want my mommy.” I sobbed those words like a mad woman also known as a toddler. Over and over again. “Mommy, mommy, mommy, help me.”
It took me a while, but at some point I moved on to asking god why he was doing this to me. I had never truly believed in god, maybe a goddess, but never god. Here I was, after minutes, though it felt like hours, of crying for my mommy begging god to tell me why I was being punished like I was. Was it because I didn’t go to church? Was I a bad girl? Was I a bad person? Yes, I had decided. Yes, I am. If I wasn’t, the universe wouldn’t be punishing me.
After that phase I sat up on my bed, drank the tea that had gotten cold by now, ate some chocolate and begged to let it work. Now, looking back on it I realise that I did a lot of begging that night. Begging for happiness and begging for answers. That would be all the begging for one night though, because what I did next would be the action that I’d regret for weeks, maybe years, to come. I stood up. Went back into the hallway, crossed over to the living room, and got the phone. Then I went back, slipped under the cool covers, and turned on the comforting heating blanket. Seconds later I was feeling warm on the outside, even if I was even colder on the inside. I dialled. Even though I didn’t like the girl I was calling very much, I knew her number by heart, because it is the number one calls when one feels alone and afraid of the world. Her name was Faith Conn and she lived about 10 minutes away from the house I had lain on the floor of just hours ago.
It rang.
She picked up, answering the phone on the third ring in that horrendously sweet voice of hers. My tongue needed to be untwisted, but I did it in time and told her who was calling. She sounded surprised, but pleased to hear from me. We chit chatted about school and our grades for a few minutes. She asked me about how I was liking honours classes, I told her that it was a challenge, but also a challenge that I craved and needed. All of a sudden she asked me how my day had been and the sobs started again. I do believe that I scared her a lot that night. Everything came tumbling out. Every fear, every move…everything I did and everything that he did. She was silent. Then she coughed, said, “What an asshole, leave him,” and that was it. My world was crashing down around me and all she had to say was that?
Next, “Why didn’t you want to sleep with him, though. You two always look so in love?”
My throat twisted again and I felt like throwing up.
“Katie?” came her question out of the receiver.
I was numb, “Because, I wasn’t ready, because…I didn’t want to, because,” every one of my “becauses” were running into one another until the tears and the sobs started and every sounded obscure and stupid and unbelievable.
She was silent, and from one second to the next her demeanour changed, “Alright, we’ll see each other in school,” and then hung up.
After that hang up, the first traces of real loneliness came tearing down on me. Who did I usually call when I was scared and alone? Him. Who couldn’t I call? Him. The Elvis lyrics came tumbling into my brain, “I’m so lonesome I could cry,” and I was. I felt like everything had left me, like nothing could ever help me again.
I got up again, this time to put make-up on, because I knew that my mother would come in to check on me as soon as she got home. This is where another battle started. How do I hide this? How? I goggled and goggled, until I found a promising side that was teaching girls how to hide hickeys. Well, this was a similar thing, it wasn’t a love bite, it was done in anger, but it had similar results. I layered the make-up on after cooling the bruises with an ice pack I usually used after dance class because my muscles would feel sore. I changed my white bedding to a very colourful one, because I was afraid that the make-up would be left behind on the linen. Laid back down, turned the heating blanket to a comfortable temperature, and stared at the ceiling. For hours and hours I didn’t move a muscle except for the one known as my brain. That muscle wouldn’t stop working. It was still making out every single scenario. Everything that could have gone differently than it had. At some point I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up whimpering.
Have you ever woken up crying? Probably not, it is not a very pleasant thing to happen. Now, I had the wonderful act of waking up crying at 4 in the morning. I felt like a bus had hit me, even worse like a bus had hit me and I would never get up again. I wanted to die. It was as simple as that. A stronger person than me would have probably done it, but as always, I was too much of a coward to just walk into the bathroom, get out the aspirin, and take ten. I knew that it would have killed me. I’m small I’m not even allowed to take the adult dose of medicine. Ten little pills would have been enough, but I didn’t do it. Couldn’t do it because I was too afraid of dying.
I wasn’t sure why I was crying. Yes, the images kept playing in my head, over and over again. His eyes, his cold, dark blue eyes making their way into mine…his hands, which were cold and sweaty, but most of all much too strong. Why couldn’t I be a jazz dancer? I mean, ballet was hard and all, but I did not give you the type of muscles used to fend of an attacker. So, there were the images and then of course the pain. Everything ached. I could not point out a single part of my body that didn’t hurt. My eyes hurt from crying, my hands from shielding myself, my face from the obvious, and even my teeth hurt.
Before my mind got a chance to start up again I swung my legs out of bed, wincing in the process, but still going on. Fantastic, was my first thought. He robs me of my dignity and of my ability to just do what needs to be done. He was making the usual act of just going numb a lot harder. This wasn’t numb, this hurt. It hurt like hell…
Padding back into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich, looking out the window to see that the parents had gotten home already. After I made the sandwich I went downstairs to the basement. Turned on the TV and smiled as the On Demand welcome screen popped up. I needed comedy, so Sex and the City it was. Four hours of Samantha’s lucid sexscapades later I was sitting there. I didn’t laugh at all. I was just sitting there, glad to hear some sort of noise. Afraid of the quiet, because I knew that the silence would be filled by my never ending sobs very quickly. I wanted to be strong, I didn’t want to cry anymore, didn’t want to think about what had happened, but the more I tried not to think, the more I thought, the more I cried.
He had always been hurtful. Had always hurt me mentally, once or twice slapped me, but I never thought about it. Sure, he was a real man…he was never gentle, he was like a boxing champion. Always rough. A man that always took that roughness for passion. I didn’t know what had happened to him in his past to make him so incapable of just being gentle. Of just holding me. That incapability to just hold me and tell me that everything would be okay. And now, now nothing would ever be okay again.
I’m not with him anymore. I am now in a very caring and loving relationship with a man that is trying to help me get over those events in my life.
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