Triggering (SI/Sexual Abuse) - World Without End, Amen

[SomedayLeila]

______________
Prologue: Lily

“Please, please, no!” Her mouth formed the words in desperation, but no sound escaped. He closed the knife into her right hand, curling her fingers around the handle. His hand wrapped around hers, he brought the gleaming point to her left wrist. She twisted and fought, but her strength was no match for that of her father. The silver tip found its way back to her forearm.
All her other bruises seemed to fade into the background as he pushed on the knife, breaking into her pale skin. Blood welled to the top, splashing over. Her eyes were wide, with the fear more than the pain, as the knife slid across her wrists.
Three on the left, three on the right.
And then he had her in his arms, as the blood flowed, telling her that he wished she could have been good and beautiful like her sisters. He laid her on the floor of her own bedroom, and walked away.
And all I could do was watch, because I was on the other side of the glass.

Someone once told me that eyes were the windows to the soul, but I thought that they had it all backwards. Eyes weren’t the windows, but rather, windows were the eyes, the peepholes, perhaps, to the rest of the world. A world that wasn’t mine, but all the same, I could look at, through the glass.
When I was little, my mom said I spent almost all my time at the windows. “My little window-watcher Lily,” she’d say, shaking her head slowly and smiling. “What a cutie you were.” And I’d smile too, showing her that I thought it was cute too.
I’ve learned that faces, faces are a whole grammar of words we can’t say. Conversations held in blinks of the eye, tilts of the head; monologues in the raising and lowering of a single eyebrow. I like to think I can speak this language, but the truth is, I’m just learning. I used to speak other languages; when we’re younger, everyone can speak a whole language full of question marks. Why is the sky blue? Can you fall off the edge of the earth? What happens after you die? But slowly, as we grow older, the questions seem to fall away, shed like an unnecessary layer of skin.
I tell you this to show you that I’m not mute. It’s just that a long time ago, I realized that it was best to keep all of my words, the audible ones that other people use, inside of me, where no one can find them.

[SomedayLeila]

____________
Part 1: Silent

I slid into the last seat, last row of my first period history class on my first day of high school, hoping no one would notice that I was late.
“Lily Haskin?” The teacher is big; he has a loud, booming voice and seems to take up half the classroom all on his own. He looked like a football coach to me, but maybe not. I wouldn’t know, I guess.
I nodded, nearly imperceptibly, wrapping my arms around myself for comfort. He looked at me, seemed to really see me for the first time. “Oh!” The exclamation slipped out of him, as though he hadn’t really meant for it to. “Lily Haskin,” he nodded. “Of course.”
I watched my classmates giggling behind their hands through the safety of my bangs. School means trying to be a chameleon, to blend in just enough that I don’t stand out from the crowd. If no one looks at me, if I can remain invisible for seven class periods, then I’m safe.
High school, I’ve decided, is basically just a big game of dodge-ball. Just run around, get safely from place to place without being hit, and you’ll be fine. But sometimes, those big colored balls whiz out at you seemingly from nowhere. And then sometimes, you find a big wall to hide behind.

“It’s your fault she’s like this, Mark, you know it is!”
“How can you blame this on me? You’re the one who sent her to that goddamn school before she was ready! You’re the mother around here; I’m not the one raising the child!”
“You’re just such a…a…a sexist jerk! ‘You’re the woman, you need to cook and clean and raise Lily properly.’ Well I’m tired of you BS-ing all the time! Why do you do this to me?”
“I’m doing this to you?”
They’ve done that for as long as I can remember – fought about whose fault I was. Who went wrong and turned Lily into the screwed-up, silent girl she is today. And other things, too – who spends the money, who takes out the garbage, who’s a better person…
I used to think that it was my fault that my parents seemed to hate each other. I thought that somehow I was inadequate, that I had done this to my family, by being so messed up. Actually, I don’t think they really realized until a few years ago that their fighting wasn’t a secret; they would always fight late at night, not realizing that every word they said floated up the heating vents, straight into their daughter’s ears. I think they still don’t know that every night, I’m forced to go to sleep listening to the lullaby of their shouts.
One night, when I was six, I shouted back. “I can’t sleep, Mommy! Can we please turn down the volume a little?” This was something my first grade teacher said to us on a daily basis, and it seemed to work on us six-year-olds.
I think I may have heard them laughing.

[ConcreteAngel]

oh, wow leila, this is amazing
really well done, written, yes
birlliant
*hugs*
xxxx

[SomedayLeila]

thank you Daisy *cuddles* personally I think it's crap but I like to write
an an I has more *giggles*

[ConcreteAngel]

I WANT MOREEE
please?

[SomedayLeila]

Poetry was the last class of the day, right after Algebra. I’m not sure why I decided to take poetry, but I needed a creative writing credit, and I guess poetry sounded better than journalism.
I stared at the top of my desk, the fake wood glossy and smooth under my fingers. With a pencil, I added my name to the collection of bored students who had nothing to do but write on the desks. Lily. I rubbed it out, though. No one would remember me anyway.
Students began to fill in the seats around me, laughing and chattering. One girl looked familiar…I watched her giggling with the girl across the aisle, her perfect blonde ponytail swing back and forth. Bianca…Brittany…Brianna. Brianna. She lived next door to me, I think…yes. Or something like that.
The room grew quiet, and the teacher’s voice startled me out of my thoughts and back to the present. She was young, and pretty – you could see all the boys’ mouths drop about three inches – but she didn’t look like one that would try to make me talk. So that was good.
“This is Poetry 1-2,” She tells us. “Here, we’re going to learn to read and interpret poetry, but more importantly, you’re going to write poetry, learn how to express something in just a few short lines.”
She tells us to get out a pencil and a notebook, and just write whatever came to mind. I twirled the pencil between my fingers, unsure of what to do. I doodled in the margin, scribbled out my doodle, and looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes left before the bell.

The next morning, they yelled at me for listening in on their “conversation.” That’s what they called it, a conversation. Even I, little six-year-old Lily, knew the difference between a conversation and a fight.
Sometimes, I think they like me better silent. That way, they don’t have to worry about my interruptions. I don’t talk back to them. I don’t scream. Even when I’m there, they can be alone in the house with their shouting. It’s like…I’m not really there.
There was one night, when I was nine, when my parents went out for the night. I’m not sure if it was a date, or they were going to a meeting, or what, I just remember that they decided that I was old enough to stay home without a babysitter. So I made myself a peanut butter sandwich for dinner, ate it in front of the television. I tucked myself into bed, and waited. I waited for the screaming and yelling that always lured me to sleep, until I realized that I really was alone. And it really wasn’t coming.
I cried myself to sleep that night. Because, even though I hated the fighting, to my nine-year-old ears, the silence sounded worse. The silence was the sound of being all alone.
The next morning, my mother kissed me good morning, and asked if I’d gotten along all right by myself. I had smiled, nodded, and flipped my pillow over to the other side so that you couldn’t see the tearstains.

The paper I handed Ms. Ellis at the end of class, ripped from a spiral notebook, was crumpled, crossed-out, and even ripped in places.

I want to scream
But my mouth won’t open
Words can’t come out, no
Screams would shatter
My walls
Break
My webs
I can’t let it all
Come crashing down
But sometimes I wonder
Why I spent so much time
Building up walls
When I should have been
Building bridges.

[AbandonedPixie]

Leila me deary this is awesome*skwishes and hands you a lolly*

Can't wait for more=D

xx

[ConcreteAngel]

wow
just wow
amazing

[SomedayLeila]

thanks guys
I will have more soon =]
*cuddles Miste and Daisy*

[Popple]

wow this is amazing
I told you you were a fabulous amazing talented thing!! =]
your wonderful me loverly <3

[risenfromperdition]

wow.
<3
meh at rents arguing *nod*
good writing <3
love youuu

[SomedayLeila]

She handed it back the next day. “These aren’t graded,” she told us. “I just wanted to get to know you a little.”
I look down at the pitiful attempt at poetry in my hands. Ms. Ellis has written a comment on it, in purple ink – Lovely writing, Lily. I believe you have a lot of words up there, that just never find their way out. After that, she had drawn a smiley face.

I walked home from school, the leaves crunching beneath my Chucks. I picked one up, twirled it between my fingers, the let it float away. I picked up another one, watched it settle into my palm, and then closed my fingers around it, crushing it to dust. In a murder mystery, it’s always the obscure details that seem to matter in the end. What he ate for dinner. How high her heels were. Whether or not they took a walk in the garden afterwards.
So will this moment matter? In the long run, does it matter if I demolish this leaf? When I was little, I used to play games with myself – if I touch that crack, my whole life will be different then if I don’t. If I swing an odd number of times…
Mom was in the kitchen when I got home, humming to herself as she stirred something on the stove. She paused to smile at me. I smiled back.

When I first stopped talking, after taking me to a bunch of psychiatrists and determining that nothing they were doing was helping, my parents were constantly trying to talk to me.
“So, Lily, how was your day?”
“Hey, Lily, what would you like for dinner?”
After a while, they turned to the ‘yes or no’ questions.
“Lily, did you have a good day?”
“Would you like spaghetti for dinner, Lily?”
And after that, well, they just stopped. They still talk to me, but not so much. It’s just that, well, I guess talking to me is kind of like talking to a wall. There’s not much you can say to a girl who’s not responding.

Upstairs in my room, I sprawled out on my bed. My room is a tribute to the little girl I used to be. Maybe more like a memorial. Three bedraggled teddy bears and one bunny rabbit sit on a shelf above the bed, and old drawings that I’d never bothered to take down plaster the walls. The bedspread is still the Disney princess one from third grade that I’d wanted so badly. I just…couldn’t seem to get rid of it.
“Lily!” My mom called from downstairs. “Dinner!”
We all sit in semi-silence, the only sound being the clink of silverware against dishes. I pretend that the chunks of potato and meat in my soup are drowning prisoners, and the only way I can save them is to drain out all of the poisonous liquid with my magical silver spoon. I like to play games with myself at times like these, so that I don’t have to listen to the silence.
“So.” The word, out of my mother’s mouth, clanged around us, echoing. The sound of a voice seemed out of place at the dinner table, as though words weren’t allowed.
“So,” she said again. “The neighbors finished remodeling their house!”
“That’s great, honey,” my dad replied, in the tone that said clearly, “And I should care because…”
I wanted to ask my mom why she brought that up, about the neighbors’ house. Why it mattered. Because it didn’t, it didn’t matter. But then, what did matter? Does anything really matter? I wanted to open my mouth, to let these questions spill out. But I didn’t.

[ConcreteAngel]

i is in love with it....

[SomedayLeila]

“Growing up,” Ms. Ellis told us. “All of you are doing it, right now. Growing, changing, leaving childhood behind. So that’s what your first assignment will be.” She paused. “In some poetry classes, you may learn the different types of poetry – couplet, free verse, haiku, cinquain…but that’s not what we’re here to do! So I want you all to write – in any style you like – about becoming.”
Her finger arched toward a boy in the front row. “Yes?”
“Do we have to do it, like, now? Or is it homework?”
“We’ll start now, in class, Jared, but you’ll have the whole week to complete it.” She smiled happily.
I chewed my pencil; look down at the blank page. Wondered if there was a class on doodling. I could get an A-plus in that…
Someone told me once that doodles mean something, that you can look at them at tell what kind of a person you are. Like fortune telling, I guess. I looked down at the swirls blossoming from my pencil, wondered if they meant anything about me.

I was ten when I stopped talking. I remember being at school that day – a long weekend had just drawn to a close, and everyone had that rosy look of being free, of being allowed to run wild for those few, blissful days. I remember that look.
I often used to think that the school system would do better to only have four days of school a week, and have Wednesday off, if only so that kids could have that look on their faces more often. I wonder if the teachers ever even noticed it.
But then again – what does it matter?

The grass is damp at night. I wonder if anyone else has ever bothered to figure this out – that there’s little dew-droplets on the grass not only in early morning, but also late at night. Eleven thirty-seven, to be precise.
Holding a flashlight to beam my way, I walked softly across the yards of my neighbors and onto the grounds of the local junior high school. Sneakers safely tied together and slung over my shoulder, I climbed up the cold red metal of the fire escape, up onto the platform.
From up there, I felt like I was the only girl on earth.
I hugged my knees to my chest, trying to keep out the chilly breeze that ripped through my whole body.
As I pulled my hair out of its ponytail, letting the wind whip the dark strands around my face, images flooded my mind.
A little girl. She’s dressed in a plaid skirt and blouse, like the kids at private school. A bathroom stall. A…a boy…


The sky is beautiful at night. So many stars, just little bursts of light poking out from the darkness.
When I was a little girl, I used to think that my Daddy owned the moon. He told me so one night, driving home one night.
“See how the moon always follows us, Lily?”
I had looked out the window, and to my amazement found that it was true. Wherever we went, the moon followed.
“Why does it do that, Daddy?”
“Because it’s my moon, Lily-girl! It follows me wherever I go.”
I had smiled in wonder and awe at the amazing man who was my father, who owned the moon.
Now I realize how stupid I was. The moon never moved at all, only the car. But I was too little to even doubt that everything my father said was absolute truth.

[ConcreteAngel]

oh wow.
It's so beautiful...

[SomedayLeila]

The pattern of the metal left an imprint on the palms of my hands, deep red stripes across the pale skin. I ran my fingers along the indents, knowing they would fade in time.
The sun is a funny thing. By that I mean, it always seems to come out when you least want it to. As light began to creep up, a sheer glow on the tips of the grass, I knew I had to get back in, to be in bed in time to “wake up.”
I didn’t want to go back in. With my entire mind, I just wanted to stay up on that fire escape. I wondered how long it would take for people to find me. Or even how long it would take them to notice I’d gone missing. Because when you’re invisible, no one really notices when you’re gone.
I went back the way I’d come, taking longer than necessary to meander through the backyards. Inside, the house was still dark, the lights off, but the pale sun just beginning to filter through the windows.
“Lily?” My mother’s groggy voice floated out from her bedroom. I stopped mid-step, hearing the floor creak beneath me. Several moments later, I tiptoed – very carefully – across the hallway and into my bedroom, flopping down onto the bed.
I pulled one of the teddy bears off the shelf. Melvin, this one had been named. I ran my hands over his worn fur, the buttons hanging by just a thread. On an impulse I hadn’t had since about the first grade, I pulled the stuffed animal to me and hugged tight.
I stirred my cheerios around my bowl, letting them get all soggy as they floated in the milk.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Mom asked with a minimal level of concern.
I shook my head, grabbed my backpack, and ran out the door.

I was four when I started kindergarten; a whole year younger than the rest of the class. My mom was worried because not only was I younger, but I had always been very small for my age.
It was a private school, but all that meant to me was that I got to wear a uniform. I entered a classroom full of bright colors and laughter that day, ready to make friends and color and do all the fun things Mom and Dad had said you did at school.
I took one look around, and started to cry.

Every morning, I pick the same seat on the school bus. Somewhere near the middle. A window seat. One of those inconspicuous spots that no one notices.
No one ever sits beside me.
On the way to school, I liked to watch the people on the sidewalks. I wondered about the woman rushing along, dressed in a grey sweatshirt; the old man taking his time crossing the street, despite the honks of cars trying to get by.
Has anyone ever watched me this way? Has anyone ever bothered to take two seconds out of their day for Lily Haskin? Do they ever look at me and wonder what goes on behind my eyes?
Has there ever been anyone there, when I didn’t even know anyone was looking?

Seems like just yesterday, I sat finger-painting
Purple swirls, dots of yellow
Like words lost, written in the sand
And washed away by the sweeping tide
Beauty, exchanged for a stick figure
First-grade crushes
To a first romance
I want to swing on the swings again
Holding hands on the playground
Wind blowing through my hair
Time took it away, for
When did show-and-tell
Become kiss-and-tell,
And finger-painting
Become poetry?

[Popple]

WOW 0.0
Thats is amazing
it's so beautiful

[ConcreteAngel]

you write so brilliantly and lovely leila

[Zedebee]

Oh sweetheart.....
This is absolutely amazing! You write so beautifully and the story itself is so gripping.
I can't wait for more =)
xx

[risenfromperdition]

wow. just wow.
you're amazing darling <3