Consequence Of Existing

As a child, I had this strong belief that I was a princess.

Not because I wore crowns or silk dresses. Because of where we lived.

Our house stood far from everyone else, hidden between restless trees and an ocean that never slept. The forest wrapped around us like a kept secret. From my bedroom window I could see the waves crashing and overlapping - rising, folding, fighting for space. The wind was always strong, bending the trees in one direction as though they were too tired to stand upright any longer. The birds never sang gently here. They screeched - sharp and jagged, their cries cutting through the air like warnings.

But children don't hear warnings.

They hear magic.

So I told myself it was a kingdom. And if it was a kingdom, then I was its princess. Maybe I needed my life to be a fantasy. Fantasies are easier to survive than truth.

I remember the smell of pancakes drifting upstairs in the mornings.

Butter melting. Sugar warming. My father's laughter rising from the kitchen - deep and careless - and beneath it, my mother's, light as smoke. They weren't always home, so when they were, it felt sacred. I would force myself out of bed just to see it: flour scattered across the counter, eggshells cracked carelessly, some pancakes burnt and some perfect, my parents moving around each other with a rhythm I couldn't name. My father would flip one too early and my mother would laugh, pressing a streak of flour into his cheek. I would sit in the doorway and watch, memorising the gestures as if I could somehow keep them.

I thought that was what forever looked like.

I thought love was loud and warm and unbreakable.

That memory used to comfort me. I would replay it on lonely nights, polishing it until it shone - the flour in the air softer, the laughter fuller, the ocean outside protective rather than relentless.

But memories are strange things. The more you visit them, the more they change.

At some point the warmth began to thin. The light in the kitchen dimmed. The laughter stretched unnaturally, like it no longer belonged to real people. And then it stopped being a memory at all.

It became a nightmare.

The same kitchen. The same morning. The same pancakes on the plate in front of me - only now the ocean wasn't just loud, it was violent, the waves crashing as if trying to climb onto land. The trees didn't bend; they thrashed. The birds weren't singing.

They were screaming.

My parents were still laughing. But they weren't looking at each other.

They were looking at the door.

I would sit at the table, small and frozen, holding my fork mid-air. The pancakes on my plate grew darker, burning without flame. The sweet smell of butter shifted into something bitter. Metallic. The laughter continued - too loud, too forced, too long.

Then came the knock.

Not gentle. Not polite.

Three hard strikes against wood.

My father stopped smiling first. My mother's hand tightened around his. The ocean went completely silent, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

I would try to turn my head.

I never could.

I never saw who was at the door.

I only ever woke to silence.

I woke drenched in sweat, heart hammering against my ribs. My hands shook in a way no blanket could fix. I pressed them to my face and tried to steady my breathing - it's all a dream, it's all a dream - but my stomach had other ideas.

I barely made it to the bathroom.

Afterward I leaned over the sink and splashed cold water onto my face until the trembling slowed. Then I looked up.

The reflection staring back at me was not the ten-year-old girl who had lived in that forested house. Not the girl who had sat in the kitchen doorway watching her parents laugh.

Eight years.

Eight years of waking to the same nightmare. Eight years of fragments I could never piece together into a whole. And yet I remembered enough. I remembered the police - their boots on the floor, their hands on me, their voices low and urgent: it's okay, it's okay. I remembered the cabinet beside the refrigerator, how small it was, how dark. I remembered being carried out of it. I remembered the blood - red, every shade of red - spreading across the floor like a river, thick and vivid in the way only real things are.

But I couldn't find where it came from. I couldn't see their faces. I could only thrash and scream their names while a voice repeated, calm and firm, everything is going to be okay.

Now I stood at the mirror with adult eyes and adult hands and adult fear, and I understood something I hadn't at ten.

Okay was never a promise. It was just the only thing left to say.

I brushed my teeth. Washed my face. Stood under a long, hot shower, trying to scrub away what the nightmare had left on my skin.

My alarm rang.

Shit.

I was late for my therapist appointment.