Sorry it took so long, but I was in London for a few days with no laptop. :P
Chapter Seventeen
I tried to swallow the lump that had been caught in my throat as it threatened to spill out my terrible secret in one go before I had the chance to explain everything to her, to tell my mother it was my fault and to beg for her forgiveness. She tilted her head to one side as I drew in a deep breath and tried very desperately to begin. But there was one thing that I could not tell her. Something I had decided upon years before this chance had arisen. I could not tell her that it was in fact her brother, Dale, who had been the one to rob me of my childhood at the tender age of six.
“When I was…” I began, but stopped. I couldn’t tell her everything; I had to be really careful. “Younger,” I decided, “I was a bad kid. You remember the things I used to get up to, right?” I thought back to the little things I used to do with James, like when we used crayons to draw on the walls and used paints on the cream carpets. My mother chuckled as if recalling the same memory.
“That didn’t make you a bad kid,” she said, face not showing any signs of laughter anymore. “Just made you a regular kid. Same as James.”
“You’re a bad kid,” He whispered in my ear. I shuddered at his hot breath against my cheek and the smell of alcohol burning my nose. I felt the burning pain rip me almost clean in half and salty tears escaped my eyes and fell down my cheeks. I felt them wet against the corners of my mouth and I focused on the taste of them, distracting myself from the former taste of his lips against my own.
“They’ll never believe you.” I heard him zip up his flies and I opened my eyes to look at him. “Even if they did, they’d know you deserved it. If you were a good kid, it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Keira?” My mother’s eyes were riddled with concern and she had rested a hand on my knee.
Before I could say anything, a nurse drew open the curtains and said we had visitors. My mother removed her hand from my leg and stood up, ready to greet whoever it was; probably my father and brother to see me before I was taken to the unit. I looked up in time to see my Auntie Margaret, my mum’s sister. I smiled as she came in, trying to reassure her, to get rid of the concerned look etched all over her face. However, my smile dropped before I was able to as my next visitor walked in.
“Hey, Dale,” my mother said hugging him.
I forced a smile and silently begged to a God I didn’t believe in to keep him away from me.
I'm gonna tap him like a maple tree. I'm gonna search him for some syrups. I'm gonna be having sex with him.
“Never lose faith in yourself,
and never lose hope;
remember, even when this world throws its worst and then turns its back,
there is still always hope.”
"People have abused you lots in the past? Why do you then abuse yourself more?" - Quote
Sometimes I feel like I'm alone, Sometimes I feel like I'm not that strong, Sometimes I feel nothing at all, Sometimes I feel vulnerable, Sometimes I feel a little fragile
I had wanted to get the train to the unit, which was located in London - a two-hour car journey away. But of course I could not find one person to agree with letting me go on my own, so I was stuck in the car with my entire family. My parents in the front were whispering quietly to each other whilst James was sat in the back with me, complaining about how he’d rather be at football than sit in a car for hours to take me to a house full of crazy people. To myself, I also wished he was at football instead, with my father at the sidelines, cheering him on. That way, I could be on my own with my mother to finish what I had tried to tell her before Uncle Dale interrupted us.
At the hospital, shortly after Uncle Dale and Auntie Margaret had arrived to see me, my father and James had also arrived, making small talk with my auntie whom they had not seen for months whilst Uncle Dale shot constant looks at me which sent shivers down my spine and caused my breath to get caught in my throat. I sat silently like the good little girl that I was, nodding at appropriate times and answering questions anyone asked me.
“So are they going to figure out what’s wrong with her?” I heard my uncle ask my mother. She shrugged sadly and he nodded, slowly turning to face me with a threatening look.
His face disappeared behind glassy, wet tears as my eyes filled up with the salty substance and rolled off the ends of my eyelashes, causing his face to change to that of faked concern and my mother came rushing to my side, asking me what was wrong, asking if I was feeling pressured by the amount of visitors in my small cubicle. Looking up at my uncle one last time, I nodded and my mother politely asked both of her siblings to leave as I was becoming a bit overwhelmed. My father and brother stayed however, and though I desperately wanted to share the secret I had been keeping for so long, the lump in my throat blocked the words and kept them below the surface, as they had been for the past twelve years.
Closing my eyes and leaning my head against the backseat of the car, I tried to imagine telling my mother. I tried to imagine her reaction to hearing each word, each syllable spilling from my lips. In the darkness I had wrapped myself in, I could see her face as she uncovered the truth. I could see her weighing up the options she could give me as she tried to think of the best solution for the entire family as well as herself and especially me. I could see the single tear in her eye turning into a full flow of tears as I started from the beginning. As I started from the very first night I could still see as clear as day in my mind.
As we drew closer and closer to the unit, I told myself the only way I could keep my entire family happy was to get better without telling anyone a thing about my uncle. It would be easier that way for me surviving the time in the unit, and the rest of my family. Minutes before we pulled up outside the unit, I squeezed my eyes shut and took every secret I had ever acquired and put them in an invisible box, locking it tight and threw away the key.
I'm gonna tap him like a maple tree. I'm gonna search him for some syrups. I'm gonna be having sex with him.
"People have abused you lots in the past? Why do you then abuse yourself more?" - Quote
Sometimes I feel like I'm alone, Sometimes I feel like I'm not that strong, Sometimes I feel nothing at all, Sometimes I feel vulnerable, Sometimes I feel a little fragile
