Prologue
There is sacredness in tears…they speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.
-Washington Irving
Prologue
Aya
I was 9 when I met my stepfather. He was this tall bear of a man who seemed to talk more often than not. He knew I liked reading, so he would get me bookmarks from different countries that I realized he just bought in the city as a set. I think that’s what made it worse, how friendly he seemed. At first.
My mother worked 3 jobs to make ends meet. She was always tired, except when she would come home to the smile he had for her.
“There’s my girl!” My stepfather would say. She would smile back like she was just a girl, and not a nurse who worked back-to-back overnight shifts.
At first, it was fine. Normal. Great, even. Then all of a sudden, it wasn’t.
The first time he hit me, he slapped me across the face for not doing the dishes properly. The next time it happened, he got upset with me because I stood in front of the TV to ask him something. He threw me down and kicked me in the stomach. After that it kept happening more and more, never when my mother was home. Any joy I exhibited became annoying. Any showing of dissent became punishable. By 10, I began to understand that I had to earn love, earn peace.There was a period in my childhood when it seemed like his fists never left my body.
I don’t remember the pain as much now. But I remember the quiet. The bruises. The hiding. The way I learned to be invisible so I wouldn’t draw attention. The way I learned to try and anticipate needs. It would always work...at least, for a little while.
My writing became morbid. Any friends I had, I didn’t think I deserved to keep, so I pushed them away. I was ashamed. Lonely. Absent from my own life. Mom wondered why I became so quiet, so pensive. I learned in that time how to live around people instead of with them. How to exist a little less so that those around you could live out their lives a little more. When you’re like that, you start to live inside of yourself. You build a home within, and the world can only see the locked door that leads to it.
I knew if I told my mother, she would cry everyday when she thought I couldn’t see her, just like she had when I was 5 years old. I didn’t want to be responsible for taking away her happiness, so I hid. I hid the bruises with clothes. I hid the sadness with smiles. I hid the fact that I was dying inside every day behind my imagination.
My hiding place became any story I could find, as long it wasn’t my own. I did this so much, I didn’t even realize when my mother started to notice. I didn’t see when there was no strength left in me to pretend. I was a dead soul, and one day my mother found me in decay, with no power to cover what I never wanted her to see.
My stepfather was here one day, and the next he was gone. I didn’t ask any questions, I just watched the sirens blink as he was taken away.
All of a sudden, I was free.
But I realized soon that I didn’t know how to be. All of the pain I had experienced was a prison. All the scars a cage. All of the shame became a weight. The freedom I had, I couldn’t understand. But I wanted to. I needed to.I finally met someone that made me think that I could.
Until he found me.
