"Why did you do all this?" I ask. It's the question I should have asked all along.
"You wished to be normal more than anything in the whole world. You were so broken and no one knew how to help you. The orphanage didn’t know how to help you because they didn’t know what you had been through. But I do. I get it."
"How did you know what I wished for?"
He runs his hand down my cheeks again, "I watched you non stop for two years. There isn’t a thought in your mind that I can't read on your face." He bends and brushes his lips against mine so softly. The kiss is intimate. I'm scared of intimacy but I'm not scared of him. Not anymore. I don’t understand why he kisses me. Why he does anything. I want to go back into the dark of the cell.
"What do we do now?" I ask. I feel lost and overwhelmed. I don’t know how to find normal from where I'm standing. I've never felt more broken.
"You go back to school and start over. New year, New Leaf, new you."
I shake my head and snuggle in closer to him, "I don’t want to. Can I stay here?" I don’t want anyone to see me or the things I've done.
He chuckles. His laugh reminds me of the creepy guy kissing my thigh. It makes me shudder. I push it away and just see him as he is. I don’t want to think about the things he's done either.
He clears his throat, "Sarah, you are a master of denial. No one is as good as you are. I don’t want you wasting this. You need to work on you for a while. And I have to go back to work."
I don’t want to face a world where I did any of those things. I shake my head. He lifts my chin, "You have to actually live that life you want."
I glance up at him, "I don’t know how to live with what I've done."
He nods, "You will. I want you to start figuring things out. It's a long road from here but you can do it. You know the truth now. No more pretending."
I don’t believe him. It might be that I don’t want to. I want to bury my head back in the sand.
Chapter Fourteen
The doctor's office feels different. So do I. Weeks of pacing it has improved many things but worsened a few others.
"You're sitting in a chair with your back to the window," she says and sips her glass of water. I look behind me and notice I am. I frown at the window.
I turn and look back at her, "I guess so."
She smiles, "That's an improvement."
I nod, "Yup." Her smiles and approval don’t measure up to what they did before.
"Is the lonely still coming?"
I shake my head. "No." I don’t tell her that it abandoned me in the dark.
"Do you feel more free?"
I bite my lips and do an inventory of feelings, "In some respects. I'm not scared. But that's because I don’t care. If I die tomorrow it won't matter."
"You know that's not true. You have friends and a family you need to meet. If you died you would never meet them." She is testing me still.
I sigh, and nod, "I guess. I just feel so stripped bare. One good thing though is I don’t feel like washing my hands all the time. It doesn’t matter if I do or not. They won't ever come clean." I lean forward and take the glass of water in my hand. Her eyes widen. I sip from it and even stick my fingers into the water to fish out the cucumber slice. I take a bite. There is a moment where it's hard to chew, but I force myself.
"That was a bold statement. But you know that’s not true. You aren’t tainted with the death of Emalyn." She nods.
"No. I don’t know that. But I do know I don’t have to worry about the germs because that was never what I was trying to get off. It's the same as the corners. I don’t need them. I'm not in the hole. I'll never be there again."
She watches me, "You don’t seem happier, Sarah."
I grin and laugh. "I'm not. My brain was forgetting those things for a reason. You and Eli made me remember them and now instead of dealing with them slowly, one at a time, they're all in my face. I don’t know where to put them all. I can't make them go away, so I'm numb. It's like I'm refusing to look. Like I know the facts but I don’t want to feel them."
She folds her arms, "That’s excellent. The way you described that was excellent. You still are trying to put things in their places then? Make things tidy?"
We have had the same conversations for weeks. I'm almost ready to attack her. Instead, I laugh and have another sip of the refreshingly cold water, "I am. I'm better in some ways but I can't get rid of thirteen years of training and discipline." Sometimes I miss the simplicity of the cell and the beatings.
She taps her fingers on the sofa and smiles softly. "Well my thoughts on that are that you were living in a false reality. You weren’t dealing with the things that happened to you. You can't ever heal and move on if you don’t know that you're damaged and why. Let's move on. Have you been seeing Mr. Adams since you freed a couple days ago?"
"Who?"
She smiles softly, "Eli? Eli Adams."
My inhale tugs in my chest, it catches on something like a sweater on a nail. I shake my head. I know my face is obvious so I just say it. "He won't see me. He texts me. He won't take my calls or speak to me. I don’t blame him. I know it's my fault."
Her eyes narrow, "How does that make you feel?"
Anger flares. I want to snap at her but I take a breath. "Not good." My voice is soft. I can't make it louder, not without screaming.
"Why?"
My head snaps up, "WHY?"
She jumps at my snapping at her. But it doesn’t stop me.
"WHY? YOU FUCKING LOCKED ME IN A CELL AND BEAT ME AND TRIED TO DROWN ME AND HE TOUCHED ME AND MADE…made me think things." My voice drops off and gets stuck in a heaving gasp. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed about how I feel about him and what I did.
"Get it out." She challenges me.
I rock on the chair and hug myself, "I shot her and I swear I can't drop the gun." I cry so hard I can't breathe. My tears and words are silent.
"What would have happened had you not? Had you just stayed outside and played with the toys."
"H-h-he would have hurt her like the others."
"How many kids did he leave alive?" I don’t answer or look at her. I just hold myself and shake. She answers for me, "None. He left none alive. You saved her a much worse fate."
"But if I had shot him she would be alive."
"There is no if. You have to look at the choices and the circumstances. You were six-years old. The only thing that ever saved you was that you were hers. Not his. He wasn't allowed near you. Even with her protecting you, you were alone in the world."
"I still am." I whisper, still squeezing my eyes shut. I can't do the light of the room with the things I've put out there. The light feels too bright for a second. It shows too much. "Can we do the grateful thing?" I whisper again.
She stands. I open my eyes, to see her offering me her hand. I take it.
We walk to the mats. She lies down and pulls me with her. I lie back and close my eyes.
Her voice becomes the soft pillow my fears rest their weary heads upon. "You are alive, Sarah. You made it out of the room and the house and the orphanage. You have air and space and someone who loves you so much he would hurt himself to break down the walls you have built. You are grateful for the simple facts of friendship, air, and freedom. If Emalyn were here she would tell you she was grateful for the freedom you gave her. The life you gave her. The air she breathed and the space she got. But you need to be strong enough to let her go."
My eyes are closed. I see it all. I see it the way she says it. I can't make Emalyn grateful though. I think they're right. I did what I could. It was the wrong thing, but it was what I could do. I tried. I failed but I tried. I need to let myself see that.
Eli's words come back to haunt me. He said that if he had raped me that the one act wouldn’t ruin who I was. I was stronger than that. In my heart of hearts I believe that. Pulling the trigger and freeing her cannot ruin me forever. I need to get past it or at the very least accept it.
"Be grateful for the things that you can control. They are there for you to control. You choose the ways you live and love. You control that. Letting go of the other things, the things you can't control, is easy when you feel like you control the life and the love."
I nod. I believe her. One day I will control the way I live and love.
"You are grateful for Mr. Adams and the way he takes care of you and loves you. He is your family and you are grateful he chose you. Family is rarely a choice and he chose you. As an orphan that is a great feeling."
I take the breaths as they come, slow and steady. She lies there next to me and doesn’t speak. It’s the quiet reflection time.
I take a mental inventory. I am grateful for Eli. He is my family. I'm not ready to meet the Mastermen family who I was taken from. I'm not ready for all of that. I am grateful he and Dr. Bradley have agreed to let me take some time before I see them. I can't bear the thought they will see me as the broken girl I am. I want to be perfect when I see them. I just want to be normal.
I open my eyes, but they flutter in the light. I'm not scared anymore of what will be there when I open them. I'm not scared. Eli took my fear from me.
He gave me hope in return.
He took the lonely too.
Instead, I have a broken heart and a sickening case of something I refuse to name. But the memory of his lips on my thigh brings it back.
My stomach convulses. I sit up.
"Done already?"
My face is flushed. I nod, "I need to go." I walk away and press the elevator button like a madwoman, like always.
I ride down alone. I'm so lost in thought, I don’t notice the man standing in the doorway when it opens. I step out into him. I jump back, "Oh sorry." I say, until I see it's Eli.
