I know it's been a very, very long time :P But my Word still isn't fixed and I've been having to do ridiculous amount of coursework because my college sucks and told us we had longer to do it than we actually did.
Anyways, here's a new installment :) And if you're lucky, you might get another one later :D
I promise I'll actually make a happy one soon, seeing as it's nearly Christmas :D
Chapter Twenty-three
"He's pleaded guilty," was the first thing my mother said to me as she entered the unit during visiting hours. She was grinning so much, I was afraid her face might break. I gave a small smile back to her and continued playing card games with Tammy. "Well, aren't you pleased?" the smile had disappeared and she looked slightly hurt at my reaction. Truth be told, I didn't care what happened to him. Just as long as he wasn't allowed near me anymore.
"Yeah, sure I'm pleased. I'm just a little tired, that's all." I didn't look at her as I said it, just waited for her to sit down next to me to begin her inevitable rant as to how little she really knew her own brother. How much he must have hurt me and how sorry she was that she hadn't spotted it sooner. I'd told her countless times I didn't blame her, but of course, she thought differently and coped by sharing how guilty and upset she was with me and my father.
After an hour or so of my mother repeating what she said everytime she visited me and me murmuring the same reactions at the same places in her words, she left for the day and I breathed a slight sigh of relief. Tammy had moved elsewhere since my mother had come in, but she returned as soon as she left, asking me if I wanted to talk about anything. I shook my head and asked if she wanted a game of chess, I was a pro. She laughed and agreed, fetching the fold-up chess game kept in the corner of the games room. It was rarely used and covered in dust to show this fact. I blew the dust off and set up the board and chess pieces, Tammy didn't seem to have a clue about where they all went. I tried to explain it to her, but she looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language and I stopped. We began the game and played for about ten minutes before; "Check mate."
"What the hell?" Tammy looked from the board to me and back to the board again. "How the hell did you do that?"
"Practice," I grinned, cracking my knuckles and setting the board up again for a second game. After a few minutes of silence as we started to play again, I put my knight back where it was at the beginning of my move and looked at Tammy, who in turn glanced up at me, her eyes questioning. "I hope they put him away for a very long time," I said, trying to continue with the game but no longer being able to concentrate.
Tammy nodded sympathetically and told me it was okay to hate him. "Plus, you don't have to give evidence against him if he's pleading guilty. It's best for you. You have no idea just how hard it is to testify." She stood up and lifted the back of her jumper, revealing three scars, each around five inches in length. I heard a gasp escape my lips and she pulled her jumper down again, returning to her seat and taking her turn in our game of chess. "Step-dad," she explained, then reminded me it was my turn. After a few minutes, she said, "He denied it was him who did this to me. Made me talk about it in court, through a camera to a screen in the courtroom where everyone could see me. He never hurt me like your uncle hurt you, but he was a drunk. He beat me up, punched, kicked, bit, even slashed my back."
The vision of her three scars refused to exit my mind and I asked if she minded telling me what happened next. She signed and continued. "After I had to testify, I went home and swallowed every pill I could possibly find with a bottle of vodka. Well, I tried. My mum burst into the house half way through and phoned an ambulance. Mental health team chucked me in here. That was a few months back."
"Did your step-dad get found guilty?"
"I don't know. He killed himself before they had a chance to find a verdict." She looked down at the chess game sadly and I got up and walked round to her to hug her, just like she had done for me. "It's not me who needs the hug, Keira. What happened to me is over, it hasn't ended for you yet."
She was right. It was just the very beginning.
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.
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
Eventually, I had gained enough weight and responded well enough to my meds in the unit to be allowed home for the weekend. I was more nervous than excited and I still fell victim to fast chatter about nothing and everything, making others laugh and mutter "Nerves". I talked to other patients more than I had done since I'd been there and told them about everything my mother had promised we could do over the weekend. I was going to visit my baby cousin I hadn't seen for months and take her to the park where they had a pond where we could feed the ducks, swings, a slide, a sandpit, the lot. Waiting for my mother's arrival that Friday afternoon, I packed my things on Thursday evening and placed my bag next to my bedroom door, ready to go. Although I knew she would not be arriving for another 20-or-so hours, I kept glancing at the window and bit my nails until I could feel them sting and could taste a little blood. I wiped my nails with tissue and was called down to dinner.
As my dinner was being measured out for me, both my legs were shaking. I couldn't keep still no matter how hard I tried and several of the nurses had to ask me to stop every few minutes. Eventually they gave up and let it continue until the end of dinner and Anita sat with me afterwards to talk to me about the weekend. I told her I was excited to see my little cousin and she smiled, prompting me to continue talking to her by asking questions if there was more than a few seconds of silence between us. Knowing it made me happy, she began asking more details about my cousin.
"So what's her name?" she asked.
"Milly," I smiled. I guessed her next question before it left her lips and answered it quickly. "She's two. She's my auntie Louise's little girl. On my dad's side. She's a little chatterbox and everyone knows how happy it makes me when I'm around her, she brings out a genuine smile in me, more than what a lot of my family can do."
Anita continued asking questions until my two hour supervision time was up, but neither of us mentioned it and continued to talk. There was a few moments of silence after slight laughter before her face became serious again. "You're showing positive signs of recovering, Keira, but I think there are a few issues you've yet to face up to aren't there? I was told you had quite a close relationship with another patient in the eating disorder clinic you were in."
I froze and looked at Anita with wide eyes, much like a rabbit caught in headlights as they say. But I already felt like I'd been hit by a car, if only it weren't metaphorical. She'd told me the relationship I had with this other patient was closer than what individuals usually seem to get whilst in inpatient care, so it had been written down in my notes to be discussed at a later date. Clearly they had discussed it with the staff at this unit when I was moved. Why? I didn't know. All I knew was that my entire being ached when I thought about her, when anything reminded me of her, a touch, a taste, a smell. Everything that was beautiful made me think of her and it hurt to think I may never see her again.
"What I'd like you to do Keira," she paused, "is to write a letter to this girl. Explaining your feelings. It won't be sent of course, but I am hoping it will help you express your feelings in a more positive and productive way rather than through the form of hurting yourself."
I nodded and retreated to my bedroom, unable to say anymore to Anita. Tammy sat cross-legged on her bed, colouring in a picture of a dolphin in an animal colouring book she had been given as a distraction to her problems. I glanced at it as she carried on colouring, either unaware of, or ignoring my presence. Her artistic skills reminded me of a child's, the colourful scribbles carrying themselves off in different directions and refusing to stay within the lines. "My counsellor always told me I had trouble staying within boundaries." Her voice made me jump and she smiled at me, placing her near-blunt pencil by her side. "Apparently your personality shows through your art, even if it is just colouring in."
I smiled back and sat on my bed, shuffling through my bedside drawers for my pad of paper and a pen. I couldn't sleep with Naomi on my mind, so I felt I had to write the letter as soon as possible. I put my pen on the paper and wrote Naomi. Twenty minutes later, it was still only her name that had stained the paper with ink. Each second that passed made it more painful to see her name in front of my eyes. There was no more I could write and I fell into a sleep filled with several dreams with Naomi's face everywhere I turned. I wasn't ready to deal with losing her yet.
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.
