It wasn't real.
That's what I wanted to believe, what I needed to believe.
I told myself that over and over, like a chant, a mantra, a lifeline. But the words didn't take.
It wasn't real. It couldn't be. If it was real, then this was my life now, and I wasn't ready to accept that.
There was a high-pitched hum from the fluorescent light above, faint but persistent. A soft, maddening buzz that gnawed at my skull with every flicker. It had been going on for hours. Maybe longer. I couldn't tell anymore. Time didn't move forward. It almost didn't exist. It looped, curled back on itself like a snake eating its own tail.
Drip.
The faucet in the sink, in the counter to my left, had started leaking. A slow, rhythmic, irritating pattern. Each droplet landed with a metallic tap, echoing off the stainless steel like a metronome of madness.
Drip.
Buzz. Flicker.
I sat curled up on the table. I wasn't strapped down this time, but that didn't make me free. I pulled the thin blanket tight around my shoulders. Useless against the cold, but gave the illusion of comfort. The metal creaked every time I shifted, which wasn't often. Moving hurt.
My whole body ached.
My arms were wrapped in gauze — layers of sterile white material, stained with red blotches. The left one throbbed the most. That cut had been deeper. It wasn't a sharp pain anymore, just a dull, insistent ache that pulsed in sync with my heartbeat, as if the wound itself was alive.
I hated how the bandages made me feel damaged. My perfect soft arms that I guess I'd taken for granted, ruined. Now they were evidence.
Drip.
Then, like a cruel joke, I heard James's voice in my head. "Trauma doesn't make you damaged goods."
He meant it. He really believed that. But lay there, wrapped in bloodied bandages, in a room that hummed and flickered and whispered its indifference to my suffering — I didn't.
Because this felt like damage. Not metaphorical. Not emotional. Real. Tangible.
Even breathing felt wrong. Every inhale was shallow, cautious, like my lungs were afraid to expand too far in case it provoked something.
Sleep would've helped, maybe. But I didn't dare close my eyes. That's when they came. Not just him, but the dreams, too. The ones that weren't dreams at all.
That was the trick, wasn't it? They'd wait for you to let your guard down. Close your eyes for just a second and then—
A sound.
I flinched at the footsteps, quiet in the hallway beyond my door.
Then gone.
I stayed frozen, heart hammering, ears straining for movement.
Drip.
Flicker.
But nothing came. Just the incessant noises of the room.
And I was good at listening now. I knew how to parse silence. Knew the difference between a distant door shutting and the click of the lock being turned on my own door.
I stared down at the gauze again. My fingers twitched. Part of me wanted to tear them off, rip them away just to feel something else. Something like defiance. Just to remind me that I still had agency. That I wasn't just a puppet on a table.
'Fuck you, Tyler.'
But the other part — the part that knew how much damage lay beneath — wanted to pretend it wasn't there. If I didn't look at it, maybe it wasn't real. Maybe none of this was real.
Still, his voice echoed in my head. That awful calm.
"You're learning already. Good girl."
Like I was a pet. A project. A toy.
God, I hated him!
But worse, I hated how he made me doubt myself. How sometimes I didn't even recognise my own thoughts anymore.
I curled tighter, forehead against my knees. My ribs still hurt from how hard I'd cried earlier. I'd cried until my body gave out. Now there was nothing left. Just a dry, burning ache behind my eyes and the rawness in my throat that came from sobbing too hard for too long.
There was no catharsis in this.
Only the slow erosion of self.
Later, because memory is a cruel thing, it came for me. Without warning, my mind veered sideways.
Memory doesn't ask for permission.
Suddenly, I was eight years old again.
The dryer hummed down the hallway, a steady, comforting background noise. The smell of lavender detergent clung to the air, soft and familiar. I sat on the old kitchen counter, legs swinging, while Mum stirred spaghetti on the stove.
Cooking made her feel in control when she was anxious. She'd been doing it a lot that month. The bruises on her arms probably explained why, but I was too young to realise it.
"Too much garlic," she muttered, tasting from a wooden spoon. Then she looked at me, changing the tone of her voice to something softer and more high-pitched to keep me at ease. "What do you think, Em? You're my little critic."
She brought the spoon to my mouth and let me taste it. I grinned at her and nodded enthusiastically. "I think it's perfect!"
She laughed. That beautiful, husky laugh that made me feel like nothing bad could ever happen. "You're biased, darling," she said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
Then she kissed the top of my head. "Go tell Amber, dinner's almost ready."
I froze.
Oh, God.
Amber.
Why did I remember that?
Not now.
Not yet!
My mind buckled. Panic rose like bile in my throat. I grabbed my head, fingers clawing through my hair.
Snap out of it!
Snap out of it!
But it was too late.
The memory had its claws in me.
I jolted with a strangled cry, lungs burning as I gasped for breath. My shirt bunched under my hands as I clutched at my chest like I could force the panic back into its cage. But it was spilling out. Flooding me. Drowning me.
The taste of the memory still lingered in my mouth, in my nose — garlic, lavender, cooking oil, pasta sauce — and now it was poison.
Now it was grief.
My body folded in on itself, my fingers gripping my pants so tightly they turned white, anything to stop the spiralling.
But it didn't stop.
Not when it came to her.
Tears welled up, unbidden and hot, and streamed down my face. Ugly sobs. My shoulders shook with them, violent and uncontrollable, as if my body were trying to purge the memory to save my mind.
I rocked.
Forward and back. Forward and back.
Panic crept in at the edges, whispering lies that felt like truths. 'You'll never forget. You'll never heal. You don't deserve to.'
And some part of me believed it.
I stayed like that for... I don't know how long. Time was lost when it hurt this much.
Eventually, like a tide receding, the storm began to pass. My breathing slowed. My fingers uncurled. My limbs loosened.
I lay down on the table again, sideways this time. Cheek against cold metal. It grounded me. It didn't fix anything, but it was something to pull me back to reality.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
'Shut it down. Bury it. Later. Not now.' Because that’s what I’d been doing for years since it happened.
The memory still burned at the edge of my thoughts, that name I'd tried so hard not to remember, but I shoved it back. I locked it away with practised force, like slamming a door on a scream.
I couldn't afford to remember. Not fully. Not yet.
I lay there, limp and hollow, for a long time, listening to the incessant buzzing and dripping and flickering of the faucet and the light.
The mind's funny like that. You'd think it would protect you. That it would shield you from the worst of it.
But it doesn't.
Not when the trauma hits.
Sometimes it cuts you open and makes you look at everything you've ever wanted to forget. It takes you back to something good just to remind you how far you've fallen.
The warmth is the weapon.
My stomach turned. I pressed my palm against it, trying to will the nausea away, but there was nothing left in me to throw up. Just empty air and guilt.
I still remember the sound of my father's belt sliding from the loops. That sharp, anticipatory quiet before it snapped through the air.
I remember that vividly.
It haunted me long after he'd gone.
I remember her standing in the hallway, fists clenched, eyes burning with a fury I didn't understand then.
She was always braver than me. Always louder.
But I should've protected her.
A man's pained scream in the hallway finally brought me back to the present.
I flinched, then stiffened.
Then, almost robotically, I sat up, wiped my face with the back of my hand, and told myself to move. I didn't believe it yet. But sometimes the motion came first.
I slid off the table. Cold feet touched the cold floor. I looked around.
I hated the room.
I hated the sound. The light. The metal bed/table.
And I hated what I'd become in it.
But, I had to remind myself of the one thing that still made me, me. I had people. I had family. And a best friend Tyler had tried to convince me had stopped looking for me.
But I knew Isabel well. Better than he ever could. I knew she'd go to the ends of the earth to search for me.
And though none of us knew where I was — myself included — she'd find something sooner or later. Some kind of clue. Like a bloodhound.
I knew she would.
I hoped she would.
And that's what Tyler couldn't stand. I wasn't broken yet. Not all the way. Not like he wanted.
I drew in a slow breath. It trembled, but I held it.
I couldn't fight him physically. But I could remember. I could hold onto the sliver of hope still within me. And I could wait.
I stared at the door, my gaze fixed on the handle.
I knew he'd come back.
But so would I.