Part 6

Chapter 31

I haven't fallen into a flashback at all today, and I think I'd call that progress. I'm not an expert or anything, but it has to be progress right? It has to be something good because I'm really tired of all the bad. This whole flashback thing has to end sometime. There's only so much I can remember, isn't there? I mean, how many memories can I have in a time span of sixteen years that I don't want to remember?

So without the memories invading my mind, I finally have time to enjoy being out of the desert and back home to the ocean. I can finally enjoy being out in the sun walking along the beach. This is something I'd normally do alone, but Sara and Catherine are attached to me wherever I go these days. They're not even letting me sleep alone anymore.

Since I had that whole flashback and had that weird thing with me killing myself, they don't give me much space. They also give me blunt objects to use for everything. I think using a fork at this point is really pushing it with them. They don't even take shifts anymore for watching me. I get both of them all of the time.

That might mean something to me if I wasn't stuck most of the time lost in a torturous oblivion. Sadly, it might be necessary that they both be around. I'm a big girl. I'm a strong girl. If I did something…if I went after one of them…if something happened then it just might take both of them to control me. We all know that sometimes it's really difficult for me to control myself.

Well at least they're staying a few feet behind me. Maybe they're trying not to be too suffocating, though I'm not too sure that I don't need to be suffocated by them right now. I know that if I had ended up in a hospital then I'd be tied down at the very least. I'd probably be drugged out of my mind too. They'd induce their own oblivion so that I wouldn't have to live through mine.

Maybe that's what I should have done. Maybe Catherine was right. Professional medical help is always supposed to be the right thing, isn't it? Doctors can do no wrong?

Funny thing is though, every time I went to the hospital after Laura had given me a good smashing they always sent me back with her. The doctors knew shit. They saw me and thought they knew my life story. I was a rough and tumbled kid bound to get a few scraps here and there. There was no possible way that my mother could be the one beating the shit out of me, that didn't fit into their world. I guess it would require too much of their time to investigate all the scars.

And I do have plenty of scars on my body. I don't even remember how I got them all. That's what I'm flashing back to these days, I guess. Something inside of me is forcing me to remember every little thing that happened to me so that I can go completely crazy.

I can't help but think, just a little bit, that maybe there's something that I really do need to remember. I don't know what it is and I'm afraid of what it might be. If my brain has done so much to not remember, why would I possibly want to remember it now?

It's not a fully conscious decision, but I stop walking and turn towards the water. I look out over the waves and remember how I used to escape to the beach. I never took anyone else with me.

One time, I took some pen and paper out here with me and I wrote a letter out to my sister. I told her that I needed help. I told her that she needed to come and save me now because Mom and Dad had gotten worse. When they found out that I was good in school, they decided that they wanted to beat the smart out of me. I wrote her telling her that I didn't think it was possible. I carefully wrote out our address again just in case she had forgotten. I put a number she could reach me at on it too, just in case she didn't have it.

Instead of sealing the message in an envelope I put it in a bottle. I thought that since she never answered any of the letters I sent, then maybe this message would find her. Or maybe this message would be found by my real family. It would be found by the people that were supposed to be my parents and supposed to be my siblings. They would find the message and then they would find me.

Catherine and Sara come up next to me and stand on either side of my body. They're waiting for something from me, I can tell. They could want another profound confession from me. They could want another story from me about how my childhood really did suck.

"You never answered the letters I sent you," I say out to the ocean. "You never sent me anything back. Did you ever get them at all?"

We all have to know that I'm not talking to Catherine. I didn't even know she existed until I reunited with my long lost sister.

Sara takes a step away from me, but I pretend not to notice. "I was afraid to open them." She answers to the wind softly. "I was afraid to find out how your life was. I knew I couldn't handle it."

On a measure of good excuses that's a really bad one. I can't even answer that. I can't even try to answer that.

"When you first came to stay with me," her words falter, "I brought out that box of letters I kept and I read through them all. I wish I had read them sooner." Her last sentence is almost too soft for me to hear it.

I turn to face her. "If you had what would you have done?"

"I would have taken you away from there." She sounds sure in her answer but I don't believe it. I think she would have left me there anyway.

"From what I understand you drank too much and weren't very emotionally stable." I turn back to the ocean. "That's what you've been telling me since I came to you." I look down and push some sand around with my bare feet. "So would you have really come?"

She doesn't answer. "You know what I think you might have done," I keep focused on my feet. "I think you would have drunk some more to try and forget that a girl named Melinda ever existed."

I'm not looking at Sara, but I can feel that she wants to say something to me. She wants to tell me that I'm wrong, I bet. She wants to tell me that I've got the whole thing messed up in my head. She wants to tell me that she wouldn't have left me there. But…she doesn't say anything and I know why.

"Let's follow the evidence," I raise my head and take a quick look at both Sara who can't hold my gaze and at Catherine who can't look at either of us. "That is what the two of you do, right? So let's follow that." I shift my stance so that I'm not putting as much pressure on my still aching foot. "You left me with your parents, Sara." I shouldn't call her mom now. It doesn't feel appropriate. "You left me with them knowing what they did to you and you say you thought it would be different, but you don't' really believe that. You say you got kicked out and I know that's the truth, but you wanted to leave anyway. After living with them anyone would want to save themselves first."

Sara still doesn't say anything. Catherine doesn't either. "So you leave but you get this gnawing feeling in your gut that it wasn't the best thing to do. You try ignoring it but it doesn't go away. So you carry it with you and you try to drown it out with alcohol. You can't drown it out completely, because it's always there under the surface so you take this job with the CSI so that you can protect the people that couldn't or can't protect themselves. You fight so hard to save them because the person you really need to save you still don't have the courage to face." I turn back to Sara. "Am I wrong?"

"Melinda," Sara starts but doesn't finish. I'm not wrong.

"When I first came to you," I keep my eyes on her this time. "I didn't understand anything. I didn't know hardly anything at all. I had only one goal in my life and that was to get away from this family. I didn't want to have a sister and I didn't want to have this family at all. I thought I'd act how I needed to so that I could survive until I was eighteen. I was going to get a full ride with this scholarship and I was going to run away and never look back. I was going to try and do the same exact thing you did."

"I'm sure you would have done it better," she says. "You've always been stronger than me."

I shrug. "I never was stronger. I think I was angrier, though. I hit a lot more people than you did."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Catherine says gently from behind me.

I raise my brow and turn to face her. "For real?"

Catherine nods. "We always argued at first, mostly over trying to get her to follow the rules and rein in her temper."

I smile briefly holding that one thing that Catherine has given me in my mind. I don't know why it's so important to me, but it is. My smile fades pretty quickly though and I turn to face the water once again. "There's something inside of me trying to get out." I say through a labored sigh. "I don't know what and I don't think that if I was alone that I could handle it. I'm glad I have this family now."

There might have been a point to me talking all this much after all.

Sara gets some courage from somewhere and puts her arm around my waist. "I'm glad I've got this family too and it's a whole lot better since you became a part of it."

"And whatever it is trying to get out," Catherine puts her hand on my shoulder and I turn to look at her, "we can handle it."

We stand there together watching the ocean then eventually the breeze gets too cold for us and we walk back to the house. Catherine starts moving around in the kitchen, preparing food, I think and Sara and I sit together on the sofa. There's nothing for either of us to do really. If there's more than one person in that small kitchen then nothing would ever get done. The space is too small.

I'm sitting back on the sofa, trying not to think about anything at all. It's been a better day today and I don't want to risk that by thinking too much.

"Do you still hate me?" Sara asks me softly. I wonder how long she's wanted to ask me that. "I would understand if you do. You should. I do."

I slowly nod my head. "Yeah, a part of me does." There's no point in lying about it. We get along better these days and I think I act better towards her, but everything isn't just forgotten. I know everything isn't forgiven. "The more I understand about all that happened the harder it gets for me to keep it up, though. I think it's getting harder and harder for me to say that I would have done it differently. I don't have righteous indignation anymore."

"But that doesn't mean that the choices I made weren't up to me." Does she want me to hate her?

"That's true and I probably won't ever forget that, but I'm also really tired of hating right now. It doesn't make sense to hate the person that means the most to me anymore." That might have been an over-share. I really am going completely crazy.

My mom reaches over and takes my hand, but doesn't say anything. I take a quick glance over my shoulder at Catherine and she doesn't even bother to try and hide the fact she was listening in on our conversation. I give her a brief smile and turn back to Sara.

"You should burn those letters I wrote. They won't do either of us any good anymore."

"I'll think about it," Sara answers me but I don't think she's going to burn them ever. If I know her just a little, then I know she's going to hold onto them for a very long time and let them be part of her self-torture.

The part of me that still hates her, the part of me that's still alive and not dying quietly at all, wants her to read them every night and cry. That part of me wants her to never be able to get over those letters that she didn't bother to read until they were old, dusty and useless. That part of me wants that to be part of the punishment she deserves.

As a matter of fact, I start thinking about the punishment and I feel myself slipping away again. I feel that other part start to take over again. The one that was able to survive everything by being someone who loved violence, thrilled in other people's pain, and didn't care about the scars on my body.

But tonight, she will not take over. Tonight she will not be a part of my life. I don't need her to survive anymore. I don't need the protection she offered me. I don't want it. Tonight I will have dinner with my parents. Tonight I will be myself again.

I can't afford to be anyone else anymore.



Chapter 32

"Whatever it is hurting you, I won't let it anymore. I promise you're safe with me."

The day my parents died. I stayed the day with a girl I had met at a party. She was nineteen when we met and knew how old I was. I told her the truth. She was the only one that knew the truth about me.

I stayed the night with her because I couldn't go back home. Mother had found out that I had more than a passing interest in some of the girls I was around. Mother was out to break me. She had come at me with a knife, a favorite act for hers, and slashed up my forearm.

"Baby, shh. Settle down now. I have to take care of your arm."

Mother never stopped slashing at me. I dodged the knife until I reached the front door. She told me not to go. She'd told me that if I ever came back she'd kill me. I believed her. If I came back I knew I was dead then. I knew that I was dead, and I wasn't ready to be dead yet not after everything I had all managed to survive through.

"Do you think you need to go to the hospital? Does it hurt bad enough?"

She started to run after me as soon as I left the house, but she didn't follow me for long. She wouldn't bring our family business out onto the front lawn. Too many people could see her yelling at me telling me that she was going to kill me. Too many people would be able to see who she was behind the closed door.

"Melinda, talk to me. You have to let me know what's going on."

Mother lowered the knife and gave me a look I had never seen from her before. She looked defeated. She looked as if I had won, but what I had I won? What had I won by running away from her yet again? In my mind, I thought I lost. I was forced out of the house and I was going to be forced out on the street to fend for myself. I had no money on me and clothes I was wearing were dirty and bloodied. No matter what I tried to do Mother would always win.

"What happened tonight?"

Something wasn't right about that. Something wasn't acceptable about Mother always winning and me always losing. It wasn't okay with me anymore. I had told her to leave me alone before. I told her that if she laid a hand on me ever again then I would fight back. I didn't stay to my word. But I wasn't gone yet.

"You need to talk about it, Melinda."

She wasn't going to win, not today. I could feel the blood dripping down my arm and the loss of it was starting to make me a little dizzy, but I wasn't going to run away. I wasn't going to let her kick me out. I was going to stay to my word. I was going to fight back and I was going to prove to her that she could no longer beat me. I was the strong one, now. I was the better one.

"I want to help you."

I went back into the house. Mother wasn't expecting me to follow her back into the house. She started yelling at me and I wasn't going to take that from her anymore. I told her as much. I told her to shut up. She waved the knife at me again, but she didn't stab at me. There was something in me that I knew she should be afraid of and she knew it too.

For the life of me I can't remember what happened after I went back into the house. I don't know how I made it to Nikki's before I passed out from blood loss. When I showed up at her apartment I had a towel wrapped around my arm, I must have put it there. I don't remember that.

There's a lot about that day that I don't remember, but now I remember where I got that jagged scar on my forearm from. Staring at it long enough forced me to remember at least that much. I bet Nikki knows the rest. I bet I told her because I told her everything. There's not a lot I did without her knowing about it.

I sit up in bed and realize Sara and Catherine are asleep on the floor next to me. I told them they could have the bed, but I guess they wanted me to get it on account of my 'condition' and all. It doesn't matter now. I'm not going to stay in bed all night.

As carefully as I can, I swing my legs over the side of the bed that Catherine and Sara aren't sleeping near. My feet reach the floor and I almost gasp from the chill of the wood. It gets cold here at night, which is unfortunate right now because all I'm wearing is a pair orange boxers with monkeys on them and a black tank top.

With hardly making any sound at all I reach the bedroom door and carefully open it. That wakes Catherine up. I can see her sit up on their makeshift bed. She climbs over Sara, who remains fast asleep and walks over to me. We meet out in the hallway.

"What are you doing up?" She crosses her arms in front of her. "Are you okay?"

The way I see it, I don't have a lot of options here. I can either tell her that I'm on my way to the bathroom-if I did that, I'm sure she'd follow me there and wait until I was done-or I could tell her that I couldn't sleep and see if she leaves me alone or falls asleep eventually.

It's important I get out of this house. Catherine will probably never leave me alone. She might even wake Sara up.

I need to get out of this house. I need to know what happened that day.

I bow my head and know that I'm going to have some very deep regrets about tonight. "I'm sorry Catherine." I tell her truly regretful. "I know you said we could all handle what it is I might remember, but I don't really think that you all can."

Catherine looks at me confused. Her blue eyes find the dim light in this hallway and a fire erupts there. She takes a step away from me. "What are you-" Before she can finish her question I reach out and with one hand grab her wrists and with the other cover her mouth. She doesn't have time to scream.

She struggles against me but she's not strong enough to break my grip. A part of me wishes that she were strong enough. Then I wouldn't have to stop her breathing so that she'll pass out and so that I can leave. My grip on her is awkward since I still have that cast on my left arm. Maybe Sara will wake up and stop me. Maybe I'll stop myself.

Sara doesn't wake up and Catherine never breaks my grip. I only held her long enough so that she'd pass out. I really didn't want to hurt her. I'm sorry that she even caught me leaving the bedroom. I gather Catherine's unconscious form in my arms and carry her downstairs. I put her on the sofa and make sure she's comfortable.

She gets one more, "I'm sorry" from me then I get the car keys and walk out the front door. I don't start up the engine but put the car in neutral and push it out of the driveway and as far away from the house as I can before I start to feel like my muscles are going to stop working.

I'm not exactly sure where Sara has stashed us, but it has to be close to home. When I reach the main rode I see a sign telling me all I need to know. I'm going in the right direction and I'm not that far away from where I need to go.

The adrenaline in my body eventually stops pumping so hard and a wave of fatigue hits me. It's late at night and I don't remember the last time I got a full night's rest. Sara and Catherine should be used to me not sleeping through the entire night these days.

My body finally fully catches up to my actions and I feel the chill running through me. I turn up the heat on the car as much as I can. I didn't bother to put on shoes or a jacket. I'm still wearing boxers and a tank top. I didn't think of getting other clothes or trying to find something to cover myself with. I was too concerned with making sure Catherine was okay. I really didn't want to hurt her, but I have to do this alone.

She can't come with me. What if I really did something bad to Laura? What if I did something that was just so bad?

I don't know that I couldn't. I don't know that I wouldn't.

All the thoughts running through my head occupy me for the entire ride. Before I know it, I'm parked in front of an apartment complex and it's almost an hour and a half later. It's one-thirty in the morning and all I can hope is that Nikki lives in the same place.

Eventually I gather my courage and open the car door. I walk to an apartment with the numbers 903 and knock softly. Someone I don't recognize answers the door. She looks me over and asks, "What do you want?"

I think she's trying to intimidate me, but not a whole lot intimidates me these days. I've seen scarier things than a woman with a tough build and a few tattoos. I've seen scarier things looking back at me in the mirror. "Is Nikki here?"

"What do you want with Nikki?" She blocks the doorway and at least now I know that I have the right place.

"I need to talk to Nikki," I cross my arms in front of me, the chill starting to invade my body again. Maybe Nikki can give me something more to wear.

"It's late. She has to work in the morning." I don't think this woman trusts me. I'm not sure I would trust me in this same situation.

"Who's at the fucking door?" I hear Nikki's voice call from the inside of the apartment.

I look past the woman, but don't see anything. "Tell her Melinda is here, please." I uncross my arms and shift my stance so that I have more balance. "I really need to talk to Nikki." My voice drops and something in me must speak to this woman because she takes a step away from me.

Nikki being the impatient type walks to the door herself when she doesn't get an answer to her question. When she sees me standing outside she pushes the woman in front of me away. "Melinda?" She reaches out and pulls me into the apartment. "What have you done to yourself? I thought you were living with your sister in Vegas?"

"I am," I answer letting Nikki lead me further into the apartment. "Or at least I was."

"You're freezing, Melinda. Why the hell are you dressed like that?" She gathers me in her arms and hugs me, providing me with a little bit of body heat.

The woman now behind me clears her throat loudly. "You actually know her?" She sounds angry.

"Sandi, it's time you go home." Nikki tells her not loosening her grip on me.

"Are you serious?" The woman asks surprised.

"Leave." Nikki's voice is even and I know that she's not about to budge on the issue. "And don't call me."

The door slams shut and then Nikki releases me. "Now tell me what's going on." Nikki leads me to her couch and throws the blanket on it over me.

I put my right arm in her lap, the one that has the new scar. "Do you remember this?"

Nikki takes my arm and takes a good look at my arm. "It healed up better than I thought it would. We probably should have gotten you some stitches."

"What happened that day?" I ask not sounding at all like myself. "I don't remember what happened."

"Oh Sweetie," She runs her fingers over my scar. "Are you happy with your sister?"

I nod. "Turns out my sister wasn't my sister though. It's a long story but she's my mom."

Nikki lets out a half laugh and grins. "No shit?"

"No shit."

"Well isn't that something? I think a revelation like that deserves a single phone call at least."

"I've been busy. I'm sorry I didn't-"

"-forget about it, Melinda. I knew things would change when you moved away."

"So you remember that day?"

Nikki's fingers move from my scar to my cheek. "The question is: do you really want to remember? If your brain isn't letting you remember there must be a reason for that?"

I look as deeply as I can into Nikki's achingly familiar green eyes. I try to find an answer in them, but she gives nothing away. "I've had a real hard time lately." I admit. "Weird things have been surfacing and-"

"-Sweetie, maybe you should let it come to you on its own. I'm sure there's a lot of stuff fighting to get out."

Only with Nikki do I act this way, vulnerable. She's the only one that gets to see me without a barrier up. I met her when I was thirteen. She spotted me at some high school party and immediately she knew what I was about. She knew everything about me and she told me as much. Nikki said she knew me because she was going through the same thing. I think she ended up going a little bit crazy too.

"I don't want to wait," I reach up and hold the hand to my cheek in place. "I don't want to go completely crazy before I remember."

"How did you get here?" She drops her hand and my hand with it from my cheek. "Did you tell your 'mom' where you were going? She's probably really worried about you."

My eyes fall from hers. "I ran away."

Nikki gets up and walks to her phone. "What's her number?"

I jump from the couch and would have ripped the phone from her hands if she hadn't pinned me with a daring look before I reached her. "What's her number?" She repeats slowly.

"I don't want her here. I don't want either of them here. If it's bad they can't know. They're cops, Nikki." Maybe that last part will scare her enough so that she'll put down the phone.

"Her number?"

It's Nikki and since it's Nikki I give away the number. I even give the right number. I give away the cell number. Then I walk back to the sofa and only hear the one side of the conversation.

"Hello is this Sara Sidle and are you missing a daughter? I'm a friend of hers. She decided to drop by and tell me hello tonight. She's fine and she's not lost in some stupor if that's what you're worried about. No, I'm sorry I can't tell you where she is but I'm calling to tell you that she's relatively okay. Well if you're the police like she says then you can trace this number and find out where she is, but personally I think you should give her some time. I'll take care of her, promise."

She hangs up and I'm left wondering what all Sara said. Did she say something about me attacking Catherine? Does she want to find me so that she can kill me?

"Don't look so paranoid." Nikki chastises me. "Your mom is afraid, Melinda. She probably thinks you went off to kill yourself or something crazy like that."

"I made Catherine pass out because she caught me leaving the room," I confess.

"I guess it was Catherine yelling in the background then." Nikki runs a hand through her long brown hair. "She sounded worried too."

"I didn't want to hurt her."

Nikki gives me a strange look then shakes her head. "I think you've changed."

My brow scrunches. "What does that mean?"

She walks up to me and lifts my chin up so that I meet her eyes. "I can see Melinda again. It's good to see."

"So," I don't move in her grip. "Are you going to tell me about that day? Are you going to tell me if I killed Laura?"

That is what I came for. That is what I need to know, it's what I'm trying to remember.

"Sweetie," Nikki sighs heavily and that's all the answer I need.



Chapter 33

"Why don't we go lay down for a while," Nikki runs her hand over my thigh. "I'm sure your mother will find us soon."

"I took her car," The statement comes out of my mouth unbidden. "They didn't have another one there."

Nikki stands up and pulls me up with her. "That means you have time to rest."

I don't say anything. I let her lead me to her bedroom and lay me down on her bed. She pulls the covers over me then slides in on the other side. She wraps her arms across my body and pulls me closer to her. "You shouldn't think about it too much, Melinda." She leans over and says in my ear. "At some point you deserve to have a life of your own."

It's easy to hear what she's saying but it doesn't make much sense to me at the moment. "I still can't remember what happened," I say softly.

"You'll remember when you're ready to. For now you need to sleep." Nikki places a soft kiss on my cheek then pulls away from me.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I know what happened now, but I don't remember it. How could I not remember it?

I take another deep breath and try to find some comfort in this moment. This isn't the first time I've stayed with Nikki. She wanted me to move in with her, when she finally got her own place. She wanted to take me away from everything that was going on at home. She's the only one that ever wanted to save me from them. The only one that said she was willing to risk everything to help me out.

Unfortunately, I was too afraid to leave. If I left, I was sure that Nikki would get in trouble for housing a runaway and then I wouldn't even have her anymore. For certain I knew that Laura would find me and drag me back. I was absolutely convinced she would never let me go; she would never let me lead a life of my own. Laura was going to hold onto to me until she squeezed every last drop of life out of me then she'd push me out into the world and tell me to deal with it.

My eyes are still closed but I'm nowhere close to sleep. My body is probably tired and ready for some rest, but my mind isn't ready at all. There's no way I can sleep without remembering. I want to know exactly what happened, and Nikki isn't going to tell me now. I know she won't tell me.

"You're not going to sleep are you," Nikki says softly into the darkness. "You can't give yourself the time you have left to relax."

I sit up and the arm that was around my torso falls to my waist. "What do you mean 'the time I have left'?"

Nikki sits up too and her arm glides off my body. "The time you have left here before you have to go back to your mom and face what it is that happened that day."

"What if I don't want to go back?" I seek out Nikki's eyes in the darkness but can't find them. All I see is her silhouette. "What if I want to stay here?"

I hear Nikki sigh and her hand finds my arm. "Then you stay here, but it's probably best you go back."

"It'd probably be best if I had never been born."

"Then we would have never met and I'd be alone." Nikki admits softly. "I would have never survived being alone, Melinda. Every time I've been there for you, you've been there for me."

Reaching out blindly I find Nikki's body and pull her closer to me. We've never been just about friendship. We've never been just about a kindred spirit in the big wide world. We've been about everything a person can be to another. We've been carrying each other's heart and soul along making sure that it doesn't completely disintegrate into something unrecognizable.

It's funny really, because we don't call each other. We don't write each other. We don't talk all the time and we don't know every detail of each other's lives, but we've never lost what we found when we first met.

So now holding her in my arms I want her to be the one to tell me before I can remember, before my body forces me to remember, "What happened that day?"

Nikki puts her arms around me. "You got caught, Melinda. You started taking too many risks, thinking that you could actually control Laura. You got cocky and thought she wouldn't find out what had been going on with Shani. You should have never gotten yourself involved with her y'know? Especially since you knew how her parents already felt about you."

I can't help but smile. Shani's father was so pissed when he found me in his daughter's bed I thought his head was going to explode. It's a real shame he ended up calling Laura though. That's why she went after me with the knife. She yelled about rather having me dead then ending up like my whore of a mother. At least the statement makes more sense now.

"When you got home Laura was waiting for you," Nikki's words make my smile fade. "You said the minute you walked in the door you knew something bad was going to happen. You said you knew that this time she might actually succeed in killing you."

I remember that too. I remember walking through that door and knowing that I should just turn around and never go near it again. Something inside me was telling me to run away and forget that I had ever lived in that place at all. Stupid me, I walked in anyway and stood in front of her and dared her to get up and attack me.

"You say she had the knife in her hand when you came in, but you didn't see it until you were too close. That's how she was able to get the first cut."

The first?

"She cut into your shoulder, but she didn't cut as deeply as on your arm. I still think you should have gone to the hospital for that. Didn't your sister say anything to you about that recent cut on your arm when she picked you up to take you to your new home?"

"We didn't talk a lot then," I answer looking almost through my shirt to the scar I know is on my right shoulder.

"That's changed?"

"A little."

Nikki makes an unintelligible sound as a response then continues on with what she was saying before. "You told me she cut you four times before you ran out of the house."

"Where were the cuts?" I ask hesitantly.

"Your arm," Nikki takes my arm and traces my scar. "Your shoulder," she moves her hand and strokes my shoulder. "Your thigh," her hand slides down to my left thigh. "And right here," her hand moves again and stops right at my heart. "This was just a flesh wound."

I lift my own hand and put it to my heart covering Nikki's hand with my own. My heart is beating a lot more softly than I thought it would be. The way I figure, I should be in near hysterics now. All I remember is the cut on my arm. I don't remember the others but I've stared at the scars.

"When you ran out of the house you told me you weren't going to go back in at first," Nikki continues. "Then you said she looked you in the eyes and it made you angry. She made you so angry that you decided to go back into the house to tell her that she didn't win. You wanted to show her that you weren't weak anymore, that she couldn't hurt you like that and get away with it. Everyone else might have let her get away with it, but you weren't going to anymore."

"And then I ended up killing her?" I ask softly not sure if I really want Nikki to answer. "Because I don't remember that part at all."

"No," I can barely see Nikki shake her head in the darkness. "You didn't go in there to do that. You told her that she couldn't treat you like that and that you couldn't let her get away with it. You told her you were going to file assault charges against her and make sure that the police knew everything she had ever done to you."

"I bet she didn't like that."

"Not at all. She went after you with the knife again, but this time you didn't stay on the defensive. Those were your exact words by the way. You told me you didn't stay on the defensive because you were afraid she would kill you this time. When she went at you with the knife you grabbed her wrist and hit her in the head." Nikki's hand drops from my heart to my left fist, part of which is still in a cast. "You didn't pull your punch. You used all your strength and she dropped to the floor. You say she was breathing when you left the house."

"I remember going back to the house with you and getting the message on the machine from the hospital." I remember that clearly.

"Your blood was still on the floor when we went back," Nikki tells me. "You thought it was weird that she hadn't cleaned it up yet. You took it as a sign that you actually did kill her."

"I went to the hospital alone," I remember that too.

"Because I wanted to stay behind and clean up the blood just in case." Nikki admits.

"When I got there they told me that my father had died, but that my mother was in a coma. She said she was brain dead or something. She suffered head trauma in the accident." The doctors told me that. They said she hit her head when she was in the accident.

"You noticed something weird about that though, didn't you? You told me about it when you came back home."

My eyes start jumping around the room and I know I'm searching for something. The memory is right there in front of me, I can almost reach it. "They hit the barrier on the driver's side. She was in the passenger's seat. That part of the car wasn't in that bad of shape. Her head injury was on the right side of her head."

"That's right," Nikki tells me gently. "The rest of that side of her body didn't have a bruise on it and when I was cleaning I found a note your father left for you." Nikki removes herself from my hold and swings off of the bed. She turns on a lamp next to her bed and reaches in her nightstand and pulls out a piece of paper.

Slowly she hands it over to me.

"Why didn't you give this to me when I got back from the hospital?" I ask as I take it, the paper feeling rough in my grip.

Nikki carefully takes a seat back on the bed. "Because you had already forgotten. I thought there was a chance of you never remembering and I wasn't going to force it. I thought it best you never remembered."

I open up the folded paper and I can see that there are words on it, but it's like I've forgotten how to read. I can't make anything out. My hands are shaking and I know that I probably don't want to be able to read whatever is on this paper.

Nikki reaches over and takes the paper from me. "You remembered anyway, though, so my plan didn't work." She lifts the paper up and starts reading it, "Melinda, when I got home I found your mother on the floor. She's breathing but not responding to me. I see the blood with it and I can only imagine what happened. I'm taking your mother to the hospital and I hope you get a chance to read this and hope she wasn't able to hurt you too much. You're a big girl and I know you can take care of yourself now. You should know that as far as I'm concerned your mother tripped when she was mopping the kitchen floor." She lowers the paper and looks back at me. "It's signed by your father."

"Oh." Dad was always really good at pretending like the obvious didn't happen. He never said anything when Laura came after me and wasn't going to say anything about-

There's a knock on the door and I bet I know who it is. I don't feel like talking right now. "I'm going to the bathroom." I feel a little sick.

I walk to the bathroom not bothering to look back at Nikki. I lock the door behind me and sit down on the floor right in front of the door. I have no idea what to do.

Nikki answers the door and Sara's and Catherine's voice fill up the apartment. They tackle Nikki with their questions, but I know Nikki can handle them. She can at least handle them for now.

"She's in the bathroom," she tells them. "She's not doing too well."

"And you left her alone in there?" Catherine asks. "She might kill herself."

I hadn't thought about that, but I guess it is an option.

"I don't think she will," Nikki hurries to tell them. "I think she needs some space."

"She can't have space," Sara yells. "She's dying in her own space."

I'm not sure that made any sense, but a whole lot doesn't make sense these days. I curl up against the door and close my eyes.

"I just told her about her-well her grandmother." Nikki tells them calmly. "Believe me, she needs time."

"What about her grandmother?" Catherine asks almost as calmly. "What did you tell her?"

I can imagine Catherine advancing dangerously towards Nikki, but Nikki will hold her ground. She won't let Catherine intimidate her.

"I told her the truth," Nikki's voice is starting to shake. I guess the two of them might be too much for her. "And that's not for me to share again."

"Melinda!" Sara calls out to me. She sounds like she's right behind the door. "You need to open the door okay?"

No I don't.

"I told you to give her time," Nikki sounds like she's right behind the door too now.

"If we gave her time this past week she would have been dead by now," Catherine says angrily. "Do you have a key to this door?"

The pounding on the door scares me and I jump away from it. My back hits the front of the tub and the porcelain is cool to the touch. When the blade first cut my shoulder it was cold too. That's what I remember about being cut the most. I was surprised by how cold the blade was.

I had heard about searing hot pain, but it wasn't hot. It was cold. It all felt so cold. That's the way I felt when I went back into the house too. I was cold.

When I looked back at Laura it was cold. "This is the last time," I said. "It stops here because if it happens again you'll lose."

She laughed. "What are you going to do? You're worthless. No one will ever listen to you because you're too stupid."

"You've given me too many scars for them to not listen." I held up my arm to show her the blood running down my arm. "They don't ignore things like this."

"You don't think they'll help you, do you? You don't think they'll be able to keep me away forever?" Her voice was hate. Her voice and her words were nothing but hatred.

"I'm going to the police. You might want to cross the border before I get back." I turned my back on her because I wanted to show her that she didn't matter to me anymore.

I could feel her coming after me before I saw it. She was going to stab me in the back. I stepped out of the way just in time and her momentum threw her to the floor. I watched her land and moved away from her. I didn't want her to be able to reach me.

She cursed my name and got back up. "I'm going to kill you this time." She smiled as she said it. "I should have done it when you were a baby. That way you wouldn't have wasted so much of my time."

She lunged at me again, but I didn't dodge her this time. I wasn't going to stay on the defensive. I wasn't going to always be the one to run away.

It was a quick motion really. I grabbed her swinging arm with my right hand and hit her with my left fist. I put everything I had into that punch because I didn't want her to get up again. I didn't want her to be able to attack me again because the blood running down my cuts was starting to be a problem. My vision had started blurring and I don't know if I could have bested her in another attack.

Her body fell to the floor right next to my feet. Her fingers uncurled from the knife and I kicked it away. I stood over her looking down at her and even then I didn't know what to feel.

Eventually my brain kicked in and told me that I needed to leave and get help, but since I did hit back I knew I could get in trouble. I knew that if anyone found out about this then that scholarship I was aiming for would never appear. If anyone found out then I'd be stuck with being a Sidle forever. I might end up in jail. I might be the one punished after everything that they had done to me. My freedom would be taken because of her.

So I went to Nikki. I went to Nikki knowing that my father would keep silent. Even if he found her dead he would come up with one of the famous Sidle excuses.

Then I went and forgot it all so no one would remember, except Nikki. I even sort of forgot about her, just to make it all that much easier.

So hey, "Look Ma," I don't know how it happened but Sara and Catherine are now leaning over me and there's blood covering my hands. "I'm a murderer."



Chapter 34

It takes me a lot of effort to open my eyes, but eventually I accomplish the small task. My arms feel weird and I quickly realize it's because my arms are strapped down to a hospital bed. There are red rings on both my wrists. I guess I've been struggling to break free.

When I finally look past my own body out into the room I see Nikki sitting next to me. I'm surprised to see her there. Then again, I'm surprised to see myself here. I don't know why I'm strapped down to a hospital bed, but I bet Nikki does.

"Boo," my voice is weak and I'm not even sure I got any sound out but I must have because Nikki's head lifts and she puts her hand on my strapped wrist.

"Hey," her voice almost sounds as weak as mine.

"So, I'm strapped to a hospital bed." It's all I can think of to say in this moment. My memory is foggy and I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here in the first place. Things seem a little misplaced. It's like my brain is trying to tell the other part of my brain something but the part that isn't listening really doesn't want to listen.

I wonder what kind of pain meds they've got me on. I think they have me on too much of it, whatever it is.

Nikki clears her throat, "You've been having a rough time."

Well that's an abnormally vague answer coming from her. "How long have I been here?"

Nikki takes a look around but her eyes quickly focus on me again. "Four days."

"Really?" Four days? That's a long time. I don't think I've ever stayed in a hospital longer than a day.

Nikki nods but otherwise remains silent. I'm not used to her being this quiet. Something big must have happened.

"Do me a favor Nik," I try moving my arms but find out how tight the straps really are. "Just tell me what's going on."

She looks down and settles her gaze on the bed. I'd look over to see what she's looking at but my motion is limited at the moment.

"Do you remember coming to my apartment?"

And that's all she needs to ask for the fog to disappear.

I don't remember doing it, but somehow I had managed to slice my hands open with a razor before Sara decided to kick open the door to Nikki's bathroom.

Sara got a couple of towels and wrapped them around my hands. Catherine pulled out her cell phone and called an ambulance. Neither of them panicked at all. They knew exactly what to do and worked together in perfect synchronization. I remember noticing that as they tended to each of my hands.

It didn't take long for the ambulance to arrive. The paramedics rewrapped my hands and took me to the hospital. They also stuck an IV into my arm.

I'm pretty sure I passed out on the way to the hospital. The cuts on my hands were deep. They needed more than stitches. I think I remember someone telling me that I had to go to surgery.

I woke up in the ICU. That's what I remember the most. I didn't know where I was and I didn't know what was going on. I tore out my IV and ripped at my bandages. I opened the wounds on my hands.

That's when they strapped me to the bed and put my IV back in so that they could give me more drugs. I've been on heavy drugs ever since.

"So where are Catherine and Sara?" I experimentally flex my hands in the straps and wish I hadn't tried to move them at all. A searing pain runs through them both and I know that whatever I did to my hands must have been really bad.

Nikki focuses back on me. "They went to go speak with the doctors and to get some food for us."

"I'm surprised at least one of them didn't stay." I take a deep breath and release it very slowly. "They must trust you somewhat."

Nikki shrugs. "We've gotten to know each other."

I turn away from her and look up at the ceiling. "Should I be worried about that?"

A slight smile makes an appearance on her face. "Maybe."

"Did you tell them about--?" I haven't forgotten about that. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget about that again.

Nikki licks her lips and bites on her bottom lip for a while. I already know her answer. "I had to, Melinda. After what you did to yourself, I had to tell them. They just wanted to understand. It killed them to not know why you…"

I give a slight nod. "I know." I swallow whatever emotion wants to escape me at the moment and ask, "So what are they going to do?" They are kinda like police, right? I mean, isn't it kind of their responsibility to make sure the truth comes to light and all that stuff?

Nikki reaches out and brushes my hair back. "I don't think they're going to do anything."

"But they know what happened?"

She leans forward and places her lips close to my left ear, "They told the doctors you cut yourself because of your past. They were really vague about the whole thing."

"That doesn't mean much."

Nikki pulls away from me. "You don't really believe that."

"Why shouldn't I?" My voice sounds a lot harsher than I meant it to, but I'm not worried about offending Nikki. I'm never worried about offending her; I'm more concerned with how she'll respond.

Her eyes narrow and she leans in towards me again. "You know they love you, Melinda. You might want to run from it but damn it they love you and you can't turn your back on that. They won't let you run from it." Her hand moves to my shoulder. "You've finally gotten something neither of us thought we'd ever have. Don't screw it up."

The door slides open softly, but still I hear it. I turn my head expecting to see Catherine or Sara finally returning and am thrown off by Jenny's face. She shouldn't have come here.

Nikki looks over and she doesn't seem too happy to see Jenny at the moment. I'm not too happy to see her now either. I'm not exactly looking my best these days. I would have preferred her to have not seen me strapped to a hospital bed with bandages covering my hands-bandages that are there because I tortured my own flesh.

"I told you that you should wait," Nikki tells Jenny softly.

"I thought Mel should decide that," Jenny replies looking directly at me. She doesn't seem too comfortable with what she sees. She couldn't hold my gaze.

Nikki looks at me. She's going to let me decide.

"You should leave," It's all I want her to do. I don't want her here. She doesn't know me. She shouldn't see this.

"Is that what you want or is that what she wants?" Jenny nods her head towards Nikki.

"Get the fuck out," I say slowly. "I don't want you here." At least not while I'm tied up like this.

Jenny looks at me like I've slapped her. Maybe a part of me has. She should have left me alone. I don't even know how she found out about this. No one would call her, I don't think. Why would anyone tell her about me?

I open my mouth to say something else but Nikki puts her hand on my hip and shakes her head. I look back at her and tell her to get rid of Jenny. She nods then walks towards Jenny and guides her out of the room. Finally I'm left alone and I'm not sure that's for the best.

Left alone I can only concentrate on myself. I don't think I should be concentrating on myself at the moment. Concentrating on me doesn't seem like a good idea at all. There's so much now that I can't control what's going on in my head. It's like it all broke loose and now there's no controlling any of it.

There's nothing now that I don't remember and every single memory is acting out in my head. I remember getting hit by a belt and the feel of a knife slicing through my arm and how it felt to make contact with Laura's head. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. I remember how it felt when she first told me I was worthless, that I was less than, that I was stupid.

My head hurts. My body hurts. Everything about me hurts.

I hear the door open again but don't bother to look to see who it is. It doesn't matter now. I've been alone. Everything has started up again. Someone being with me now can't stop it.

"You're awake," It's Catherine's voice. "The doctors said you probably wouldn't wake up today."

Doctors don't know all that much.

"Melinda?" That's Sara's voice. They must have come in together. "Can you hear me?"

Of course I can hear her, but I'm afraid to speak. I don't know what to say. Maybe if they think I'm lost in another fit then they'll ignore me. Maybe they'll not make me face them now. Maybe I won't have to listen to them telling me how disappointed they are in me. I won't have to listen to how I constantly fall short to everyone's expectations, including theirs.

Maybe, for a moment, I can silently lay here and make-believe that I'm not evil and that they don't know I'm evil.

But why avoid it now? I lose them now or lose them later. I'm surprised they stuck around this long.

"I'm sorry I ran away," They should know that before they start yelling. "I'm really sorry that I hurt you Catherine. I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have done a lot of things. I'm sorry-"

"Stop," Catherine covers my lips with a finger. "Stop apologizing."

I can understand not wanting to hear apologies. They're probably too angry to hear any from me. I get that.

"We can talk about that later." She's smiling but I'm sure she doesn't mean to.

Sara moves over and puts her hands on the rail of the hospital bed. "How are you feeling? Are you in a lot of pain?"

I do the best kind of shrug I can do.

"We should take these off," Sara starts working at the straps. "You don't need them anymore." She's not looking at me. I don't think she's looked at me yet at all.

The strap on my right arm falls free and I feel the brush of gentle fingers over the scar there. Sara moves to the left. I just now notice that my cast is gone. I don't think the bone had a chance to heal, but I'm sure there's a reason they took it off. Maybe I tried killing someone with the cast.

It's hard to say it's not possible, isn't it?

"Maybe you should put the straps back on." It's for the best. I don't feel up to it really, but I might end up hurting someone again.

"You don't need them," Sara says forcefully but still doesn't look at me. I can tell that her hands are shaking though.

"Who says?"

Now she looks at me. "I do, okay?"

My breathing picks up and I'm finding it hard to keep a lid on whatever is aching to come out. "I'm a murderer. Don't they strap murderers to beds?"

"You're not a murderer," Both Catherine and Sara respond rather forcefully.

"I killed her." Those are the magic words. That's what wanted to come out that I was trying to force down. It's always been there, just touching the surface clawing its way into my memory and into the light.

"You were defending yourself," Catherine fills in the lingering silence after my outburst.

"But I killed her." It comes down to that doesn't it? The end result will never change.

"And if you hadn't then I would have." Sara releases the final strap.

I look at Catherine expecting her to refute Sara's words but she doesn't. "I would have too." She blinks a few times and wipes at her eyes. "If I had seen this," she reaches out and grabs my right arm. "I don't think-"

"It wouldn't have been in self-defense." Sara looks away from me.

"But I killed her. That changes everything."

"Not for us," Catherine squeezes my arm. "Never for us."

"So what now?" What happens when I have to get back to the real world? What happens when I get out of this bed? What happens now that I remember?

"You get well," Sara tells me. "That's all you have to do."

The door opens and Nikki enters. She greets Sara and Catherine then makes her way into my view. "I should have thought of taking the straps off earlier." That's the first thing she says to me. "I shouldn't have left them on." She sounds truly regretful. "Jenny said she'd try coming again later. She's worried about you."

I'm starting to feel drowsy again, but I think it's because of the medication. I don't feel like going to sleep again, but I don't think I'll be able to help it.

Sara, I think picks up on my tiredness and tells me to sleep. I want to protest. There's so much that I need to know, but I can't fight the sleep. The last thing I hear is Catherine saying I might need the straps when I sleep because of my nightmares. I guess my dreams are violent. I guess they're just like me.



Chapter 35

It took me forever to talk them into it, but they finally let me out of the hospital bed. I don't know why they were keeping me there for so long in the first place. I always have an escort with me so it's not like I'm going to sneak off and throw myself down some stairs or anything. Dying by stairwell doesn't seem like a good way to die. Anyway, I seem to be the sharp object type anyway. Apparently I know a lot about cutting into the body.

Maybe I learned that from my grandmother.

So right now I'm sitting on some balcony type thing and Nikki is standing next to me. We're looking over the edge watching all the little people running around below. The balcony faces a parking lot and there's nothing beyond that so there's really not that much to look at, but it's better than staring at the wall in my hospital room.

"Have you ever realized how much violence we surround ourselves with?" I'm feeling a little philosophical at the moment.

"Not really," Nikki keeps her focus on the parking lot. "It's hard to notice when it's the only thing that surrounds you."

I make a grunting sound that lets Nikki know I understand where she's coming from. It makes perfect sense really. It's like how would I know if I were in an oppressed state if all I knew was oppression. It's hard to tell what's normal since my norm was so out of the norm. I had to learn that I came from one of those special families. My life was all about the after school specials.

"But have you stopped to listen what everyone surrounds themselves with? I mean, Nik, when you step outside the world sounds so mad. Everything sounds angry. You hear cars honking, screeching tires, jet engines, sirens and all that. The sounds we hear are mad."

Nikki turns to me and bends down. She puts her arms on the left armrest of my wheelchair. "You've got a point somewhere, I know it."

I'm sure I do have a point somewhere. I look down at my heavily bandaged arms and I know that the point is floating somewhere in there, but I can't see it. "It's a mad world, Nik."

She shrugs and pulls away from me. "Can be."

I look back over the balcony and watch as an ambulance pulls into the emergency room with its sirens blaring. "So where's the peace?" I say almost entirely under my breath and I think I've found my point. I want to know what the point is to me being where I am right now. I want to know why I was chosen to go through this. What put me on this road?

I'm not the type to look into higher meaning about things. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in anything. I don't even believe in myself.

"When I find it," Nikki releases a long sigh, "I'll let you know."

"It needs to show up soon." I might die if it doesn't. I'm under constant suicide watch and get checked on every night by nurses and doctors and either Nikki, Sara, Catherine or all of them are with me. Everything has been put on hold for me or at least it's been put on hold until something big happens. It will only move on when I die or they decide that I'm not going to do anything to myself.

When does it end?

I always thought I was a fighter. I thought I was going to survive no matter what. I fought back in the end, didn't I? Sara took me into her life and I knew that I'd survive that too. There was this myth surrounding me that I believed-nothing could touch me.

It all fell apart. I didn't survive because I started breaking down. It's ironic because I got easy street handed to me on a silver platter and I couldn't deal with it. When I walked into Las Vegas I got two parents and a sister. I got instant friends and the whole American Dream life.

My life continued in suburbia. People told me they loved me and they even acted like they gave a damn. With all that surrounding me, I fell apart anyway. Everything was the way it was supposed to be and it ended. The glass that was barely holding me up shattered and I'm left with arms and hands that are fucked up, a head that's even more fucked up, and not a clue as to where to go.

I've thought about running away, but I don't think that would work out too well. Sara would come looking for me. I'm mostly convinced that she wouldn't stop until she found me. Despite how suicidal I've acted, none of it was me doing any of the damage. It was the memories. Probably no one in the world could understand this, but I never tried to kill myself. Everything-my arms, my fixation with knives-it all comes from somewhere else.

When I know who I am and where I am, I have no desire to die. It's when I get lost in what happened before that stuff starts happening. When I fall into the past, that's when it's like I don't know who I am anymore. Then again, I don't think I ever knew who I was. I have no clue who I am now.

I get up from the wheelchair and step to the barriers on the balcony. It's only these bars that hold me back from a fall to the ground. Nikki's eyes are searing into my skin. She's watching me, her muscles ready to react to whatever it is I'm going to do. She's not going to let me jump. She doesn't want me to die.

There are more sirens from below. "It's mad out there." I'm looking past the parking lot. "But that has to be better than how it is in here." I tap the side of my head.

Nikki doesn't say anything. She continues to watch me. If I drop over, I'm convinced she might possibly come with me. If she can't stop me, then she'll jump after me. That's how Nikki is. She doesn't give up until it's absolutely over.

I turn to her, reach out grab the front of her shirt and pull her closer to me. "It's time to leave."

A big smile crosses her face and she wraps an arm around me. "You were starting to worry me."

I nod. "Let's go back inside. It's about time I get checked out of here. This place is a real downer."

We go back inside and leave the wheelchair on the balcony. I've been wallowing lately and I don't think I've ever wallowed before. It doesn't have a lot of high points. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, really.

When we get back to my room Sara is sitting next to the hospital bed on the phone. She looks up and smiles at us then tells whoever is on the other end that she needs to go. Her life has stopped because of me. That's not right.

"It's time for me to go," I tell her. "I don't know if wallowing is genetic but I can't do it anymore. I'm broken, beat up, mentally and physically exhausted, I don't know which way is up or which way is down, but I do know that it's time for me to go back into the world. Don't fight me on this, just fill out the necessary paperwork and we'll start life back up again. I may be dying but I'm not taking the rest of you with me, and if it takes me to get up and fight again so that everyone who cares for me survives too then so be it." I talk quickly hoping not to give Sara a chance to interrupt.

I'm fucked up. I'll most likely always be fucked up but I have to decide to move somewhere. Ultimately, I just have to get over it. Sounds pretty harsh, I think. It's almost like just sucking it up on the court. Get up and move on. It's hard. It's harder than anything, but if I don't get up then I'm going to die. I've discovered that I really don't want to die.

I don't.

Sara stands up and walks over to me. She looks closely at me, searching for something that looks the slightest bit out of place. "Are you sure about this?"

"I just have to get up." It's that simple. I have to move. I have to get to a point when my flashbacks don't cripple me.

My mother understands this. I can tell by looking at her. She's gone away and once again is remembering something from her own past. I seriously think that I'm a reflection of her sometimes. Now if she could share her past with me. She has to have an answer to something here. She's still walking around and seems to be in decent shape.

When I get out of here and we get back to whichever home she's taking me to, I'm going to step out. I'm going to ask her everything that I never bothered to ask before. I've remembered my worst secret, I want to know hers.

I want to know my real mother and I want her to know her daughter. When we're done we can see if we want to keep each other.

Sara nods slightly, "I'll get everything taken care of."

For as long as I can possibly try and bother to remember, I've always been fighting to get rid of the emotion inside of me. I've willed myself to feel nothing. It's about time I start fighting to unbury everything I've pushed down. I need to fight for who I am so that I can survive because it's a mad world out there and I need to find my truth to live in it.



Continued…