Sara III

The room’s dark.

My limbs are cold.

My throat’s closed. It’s desperately is trying to find any moisture that it can. It burns and it’s strangling me. My eyes are not any better. I can’t see them but I can feel them. It’s like their buried in sand and I can’t close them. I’m bleeding somewhere. I can’t tell anymore.

All I wanted was to die, but this is worse.

I’m given a cup of water and a plate of nothing but rice. I think this is the only thing I get for the entire day. I can’t tell the days from nights. This room is far too dark for me to keep track of time. I think it’s been a week, maybe two. Does it matter? I’m trapped here. I’m being tortured and I don’t even know why.

A light shines from the only door in the room, then it opens. A shadow walks in and stands in front of me. “They haven’t been giving you enough water,” he says. His voice is dark but smooth. He’s kneeling in front of me but I can’t see his face.

A glass cup is placed in my hand. Half of the waterfalls on my face rather than my mouth. Still, it’s enough to free my throat from suffocating me.

“Do you know where you are?”

I don’t answer.

“Do you know who I am?”

I don’t answer.

I just want to die.

“See we planned to mentally break you so we can build you up to serve me. Then we found out something interesting and it made everything you’ve gone through pointless.”

My eyes begin to adjust to the light that’s coming through the open door. I can see the man’s eyes. They’re stone blue. They’re cold. I’m scared. This is the most light I’ve seen in days. I realize that I don’t even remember most of my time here. Did I mentally blocked everything out?

“Still, you have a purpose and you’ll live. You should thank me though. I’m the one who brought you here after I found you in the alley bleeding out,” he laughs. “You’re pretty stupid. They’re much easier ways of dying than to cut your wrists.”

I don’t understand.

The man gets up and leaves the room. He leaves the door open and the light never goes away anymore.

My legs are shackled by chains connected to a singular polo that connects the floor and ceiling in the middle of the room. My hands are covered by dried up blood that came from my fingernails. What have I been doing when I wasn’t thinking.

That’s right. After a while a just stopped thinking. It was easier than to feel everything. So I did mentally checked out. Good. Shit, why couldn’t I just die? It would have been easier for everyone. It was supposed to be so easy.

I can still feel everything that I felt while my blood was traveling down the pavement. My hands were burning and I could feel the heat of the blood leaving. It was so painful and yet it felt like all the weight on my shoulders was leaving. I felt my soul leaving my body.

How was I kept alive?

My wrists wrapped in bandages.

A man walks into the room sometime later. He’s taller and more built than the previous one. He sets down another tall glass of water beside me. As I’m a bit more careful drinking it, he unlocks my chains.

“It’s time to go,” He says lifting me by the arm.

Everything hurts. Everything wants to break and I think I scream. I can barely walk. The man has his dark hands wrapped around me as he carries me into the light, where it’s just a hallway. It’s nothing but gray. Then past the always in another door. It opens and the sound of the city explodes. All the sounds come in at once that it all sounds like a giant horn.

The man lets me go and another body wraps itself around me. I look around and everything is such a blur. I can’t see and can’t hear anything. I stare at the man in front of me and he seems familiar yet I don’t know who he is.

Sounds start to come back. “She’s been out of it for the past couple of days. She should go to the hospital. Tell em you found her in an alleyway,” The large black man says to the smaller guy hugging me.

My vision clears up, “Sara, I can’t believe you’re okay! Jesus fucking christ I thought you were dead!” His voice calls me. His. It’s Him. It’s Andrew, my twin brother.

He’s here. My brother is here to take me home now. Everything is okay now. I can’t believe it’s over now. I’m so happy. What is this? I haven’t smiled in so long. Why can’t I always feel like this? I’m just so fucking happy right now. I hope I’m crying. I really do want to cry right now.

Andrew takes me to the hospital. I learn that it’s impossible to talk right now so I can’t answer his questions. “What happened? Why did you disappear? How did Lyle find you? Were you hurt?” The most I could do was a nod or shake my head.

The hospital staff feed me, bathe me and make me feel human again. They ask me all sorts of questions and I answer all of them once I’m able to speak. They ask me why I ran away. This is the only thing I don’t answer, so Andrew answers for me. “She was being bullied at school and felt she was alone. I failed her.”

My father comes one day. The second I see him my body locks up. He doesn’t say anything and instead chooses to just fucking stare at me. I can have his shitty ass locked up for what he did, so why am I so fucking afraid. I can’t move.

“Find somewhere else to live. I don’t want your deadbeat ass,” is all he says after minutes of silence. “You’re leaving here as soon as they let you.”

So this is it huh? I’m just homeless now? I can call child services, hell I even think the hospital did so why didn’t they find anything wrong? I’m just doomed to have a miserable life. There’s no point in staying alive. Even if Andrew stays by my side, how long will he give a shit? He’ll just abandon me once he learns I’m gay. Once that happens I’m done for.

I don’t have a purpose.

Then Grace walks into my hospital room. She hasn’t changed. She’s still the little twerp with glasses a bit too big for her head. She’s genuinely happy to see me. Her light somehow enters my void of nothingness.

“I’m so glad Andrew finally found you!” She smiles. “I miss you so much.”

“Grace…”

“We all thought you were dead. I was so scared.”

Somehow her words make me giggle. “I’m here.”

“Yeah!” She grins. “Listen, if there’s anything I can help you with just ask. You’ve already helped me so much and never asked for anything in return. You’re the only friend I really have left.”

Only friend? “Where’s Emily?”

“Oh, Andrew didn’t tell you…” Grace pauses and nervously plays with her hands. “Emily’s in New York. She lives with her mom now.”

Grace tells me what happened. She doesn’t know that Emily had a panic attack because of me. Again, it’s my fault. I’m just destined to ruin everyone’s lives. I’m better off dead. I should be dead.

Grace and I talk for a bit. She tries to cheer me up after learning Emily moved to New York. It’s been about a month since the accident. I’ve have been gone that long, huh? I want to apologize but I don’t have a phone anymore. I tell Gracie to tell Emily that I’m sorry for scaring her like that. She obliges and Emily calls a few minutes after the text is sent.

I apologize in person again. She cuts me off, “No! I should have been paying attention to what you’ve been going through. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Emily is too good for me. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, but I’ll come and visit when I can!”

After Grace leaves, I’m left alone for a while. I’m able to think for a bit. I have to be alive for a reason. I just have to. There isn’t a reason why I am if it’s not destiny. Maybe I can become stronger so I don’t ever have to feel like this anymore.

No. I’ll never be strong enough.

Andrew walks in sucking a bag of Capri Sun. “You know, Dad kicking you out kind of works out doesn’t it?”

“He told you?”

Andrew sits beside my legs. “Now we can call child services on his ass but we’ll both get moved to places we don’t need or want. I don’t need the stress of that right now and we have a year until we’re 18 anyways. You hate living at home so it works out a bit.”

“Where am I going to live? You’re forgetting that part.”

“Easy,” Andrew shrugs. “Ask Emily’s dad. He don’t got a daughter anymore.”

“He never liked me in the first place.”

“What about with Isaac? Wait no, he’s gay and I’m afraid you’ll go gay too, uh,” Andrew takes a drink. “Grace? Her parents are stacked have you seen her house?”

“It’s just her and her mom.”

“Really? In a house like that?”

“Her mom works at a hospital and is never home. I doubt she’ll take me in.”

“Don’t know ‘til you ask, in fact,” Andrew jumps up and tosses his Capri Sun into my hands. “I’ll ask her for you, B-R-B.”

“Andrew!”

There’s no arguing with my brother. He leaves as soon as he arrived. He drives a good point that I haven’t thought about. Dad doesn’t want me in the house anymore and I don’t want to be there after what he…

I’m scared.

I’ve been so scared this entire time.

I’m still scared.

I wrap my arms around my legs and clench myself together. What is wrong with me? Why am I so weak. Why can’t I be like mom? She was so nice, cheerful and calm. Why did she have to die? I miss her. I want a cigarette.

Hours later a pretty woman with brunette hair walks in. She looks familiar, sort of like…Grace. She’s just an older Grace. This must be her mom. “Hi,” I greet her.

“Hey there, you must be Sara. Grace has told me a lot about you. I’m Virginia, her mother.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Virginia’s aura feels warm and light. It’s just like Grace’s. I don’t feel as tense which is good. Sometimes it’s really hard to realize how much my body can relax.

“I think I ran into your brother in the lobby earlier. He came to me with a weird request.”

“Oh, that? Don’t worry about it, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I scoff it off. It’s quite embarrassing.

I catch Virginia looking at my wrists and I quickly hide them. “Grace was really worried about you. She told me you went missing and begged me to bring her here when she found out you were here. You’ve been good to her, so you have my thanks.”

“Oh, uh, no problem.”

“I’m really sorry for everything you been going through. It’s just, what your brother said, it’s unreasonable. I don’t know you so I can’t take you in.”

“It’s okay, I understand. It was a crazy idea anyways.”

Virginia sits in the only chair in the room. She examines me. Her eyes match the intensity of what Cody’s eyes can do. Just what the hell did Andrew tell her? “So tell me about yourself. Why are you here? Why did you run away?”

Wait, is she serious?

“If you lie to me I won’t take you in.”

She’s serious. She’s absolutely serious.

“I...There’s something,” I pause because I’m fumbling over my words. I want to tell her everything and I don’t even know why. My fear stops me again. “There are some things I’m not ready to talk about.”

“It’s okay,” Virginia smiles. It calms me down. “You don’t have to tell me everything, but I do need the truth.”

I close my eyes. Everything inside tells me I can trust Grace’s mom. There are a lot of things I never admitted to myself. I think there are a lot of things I have yet to admit. “I’m addicted to cocaine,” I start.

Ever since Elizabeth's death, I doubled down on how much I did. The only way I could afford it is because my brother just has pounds of it lying around and gives it away when he wants. I think it was my way to cope. Not just about Ellie, but with everything else. My father likes to beat me. Andrew doesn’t know or at least I don’t think. He doesn’t know I’m gay either and I’ve forced myself to do things to keep the charade of being straight. I fucking hate myself so much. There’s just so much fucking self-hatred that I can’t stand it.

Life hasn’t been the same since Mom died.

That’s why I do so much coke.

Then there was that night…

He crossed a line I never thought. I want to throw up. I don’t tell Virginia this.