Bad for You

One

TEN YEARS OLD

“ Y ou’re stupid and ugly! Ugly! Ugly! Ugllllyyyyy!” chant a group of kids as I crouch into a small ball in the middle of the circle they form around me.

I don’t know why they pick on me. I keep to myself and don’t cause any trouble, but it doesn’t make a difference. This happens every lunchtime behind the playground. And just like the many times before this, I don’t fight back.

I want to.

But I don’t, and that’s because I’m an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, and this is my punishment. That’s what the sisters tell me anyway. They don’t lie because they’re the chosen ones. They are here to do God’s work, and they’ve told me I need the most work here in the orphanage.

The other kids’ souls are salvageable, but mine was tarnished from the day I was born. I must repent every single day for my sins in hopes that the Lord will show mercy on me. But it’s hard to believe in His presence when someone throws a rock at my head.

I feel the familiar trickle of blood down my temple. I’ve lost count of how many cuts and bruises I have. I guess they all just form one big wound that never heals.

My brown hair is pulled. My cheek slapped. I don’t know who does what because my eyes are squeezed shut. I hope that if I can’t see what they’re doing to me, then maybe it isn’t happening. But when I’m kicked in the stomach, there’s no escaping this reality of my life.

“Children, that is enough!”

The voice belongs to Father Merry.

I instantly wish I was knocked out cold because that punishment is far kinder than what is coming my way.

“What’s going on here?”

I feel Father Merry’s hands on me as he helps me stand. But I still don’t open my eyes. I’m scared.

“She took the Lord’s name in vain,” says Hugo, a boy two years older than me.

Hugo has hated me since the day he arrived at the orphanage. I don’t know why he does. But they all do. And when I ask why, they say because my mother turned her back on God and fell in love with a bad man, and as a result, I was born.

They call me a monster.

Maybe I am? Why else would I be punished this way?

“Is that true, Valentina?”

I dare not open my eyes. I can’t because the moment I see his face, I will remember all the things he’s done.

I remain mute, which only irritates Father Merry.

“Come with me.” I don’t have a choice in the matter as he latches onto my arm and drags me from the playground.

I dig in my heels, which only infuriates him further. He picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.

My eyes are still closed, but I don’t need to see where we’re headed. I’ve been here before. I know it’ll hurt. It always does. But my pain brings him pleasure. The more I resist, the harder he punishes me.

I push down my tears because they don’t do me any good.

When the door opens and I smell frankincense, I instantly want to vomit. I associate the scent with the memory of when Father Merry first punished me. I was bent over a pew, where he used a large wooden crucifix to smack my bare bottom.

He smacked me so hard, I couldn’t sit for a week. He left a crucifix imprint behind to remind me that I am nothing but a sinner.

“You’re just like your mother,” he spits, closing the door to his office. “She is a coward like you. She left you on the doorstep, knowing you would bring her nothing but suffering. So you can thank your mother, Sister Margarette, for every lick of my belt.”

He places me on my feet and slaps my cheek. “Open your eyes!”

I still don’t.

I hear his belt being yanked through his pants loops before he roughly turns me and positions me over his desk. He yanks up the hem of my white dress and tears off my Minnie Mouse underwear. They were my favorite.

“Recite the Lord’s Prayer,” he orders like he does every time.

I bite my lip in defiance.

For my disobedience, he slaps me on the bottom with his belt.

“Our Father…” he begins, hoping to coax me.

But I remain silent.

Whack!

This strike is harder than the first, but I still don’t budge.

“Who art in heaven…”

Smack!

I grip the edge of the desk, my tiny fingers holding on tightly as he continues hitting me while reciting a prayer that is supposed to denote love and devotion.

The entire time, I don’t speak. I don’t cry. I simply detach myself from my body and look down at the small, skinny girl who is being abused by someone who is supposed to protect her.

I hate my mother. She’s the reason I’m here, and she’s the reason the sisters and Father Merry despise me. They once were her family, a family she turned her back on when she had me.

I don’t know where she is, but I need to find her. There has to be a reason she abandoned me when I was only hours old. What sins could I have committed so young for her to hate me that much?

What did I do to deserve this?

“Amen,” Father Merry pants as he drops the belt to the floor.

But I know this isn’t over. This is just the beginning.

He rubs over my raw bottom, tracing over the bloody welts with his finger. “For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.”

I hold back my tears.

His zipper is lowered, the rubbing of skin makes me gag, and then—then I hear him hum a nursery rhyme which indicates what’s ahead.

Ring around the rosie…

This is the moment I squeeze my eyes shut harder than before and force myself to disassociate with what is about to happen. Because the moment I feel the familiar burn between my legs, I know Father Merry is leaving a piece of himself inside me and robbing me of my soul.

I lay on my tattered blankets, peering out the barred window in my room in the attic. The mice that share my stale bread are my only friends. They keep me warm at night.

I don’t share a bedroom with the other children. But I don’t mind. I prefer to be alone.

My body aches all over. I’m caked in dry blood from what happened today in Father Merry’s office.

“You are a vessel for God’s spirit,” he groaned before I felt something warm and sticky trickle down my thighs. “And I’m doing His work.”

When he was done, he told me to leave. He wouldn’t punish me further for my sins, sins I never committed because Hugo was lying, as long as I kept what we did private.

Tears I’ve kept away creep to the surface, and I begin to cry. I only allow myself this comfort when alone because crying is a sign of weakness. I learned that from my only friend in this place—Margot Henson. She was the only person who showed me any kindness.

She was four years older than me, and she too was Father Merry’s favorite. evening, we were dragged from our beds and brought to the basement where four men waited for us. Father Merry was one of them. They smelled of cigars and wine.

We took turns being their favorites all night, but when Margot began to cry, it seemed that she was then the favored one. I tried to help her when two men took turns making her cry the loudest. When she did, they silenced her cries with their fingers or…other things.

When Father Merry finished with me, I jumped up and kicked one of the men in the shin. It was hopeless, however, because I was knocked out cold for my rebellion. When I came to, I was back in my bed, but Margot was not.

For weeks, I didn’t see her, but when I finally did and saw the swelling in her belly, I realized no matter how many tears are shed, cruelty will always prevail.

I haven’t shed a single tear in company since.

The moon is full, allowing the shadows to dance across the lawn. This place is like a castle the wicked witch in any Disney movie would live in. But it’s the only home I know.

I’ve not been allowed to watch TV in a little while, but when I did, I was fascinated by the movies with families laughing and smiling, where things were always light and never black, which is what my world is. I live in the shadows because I want to blend into the darkness.

I want to disappear.

Does that world really exist? If He is good, why does nothing but bad happen to me?

Something shiny catches my eye from outside, interrupting my thoughts.

Quickly sitting up, I wipe away my tears so I can get a better look at who is in the gardens in the middle of the night.

It’s a boy I’ve not seen before.

He looks tall, and his hair is brown. But apart from that, I can’t make out much else.

I watch in interest as he crouches low and slowly begins moving toward a large hedge. I don’t know why, but his movements leave me breathless. I feel like I’m watching a predator stalk his prey.

It seems impossible, but the closer he gets, the darkness seems to wrap him further into the shadows, where I almost can’t see him. I want to be like that because he isn’t afraid of the dark; it bends to his will. Even nature seems to be under his spell.

He stops as if measuring the right moment, and when he lunges forward and produces a tiny ball of white fluff in his hand, I realize that he truly is a hunter.

The white fluffball is a kitten. It’s tiny, and I wonder where its mother is. Was it also abandoned?

I get onto my knees and interlock my fingers through the bars, needing to get a closer view of the mystery boy. He pats the kitten before slipping him into the pocket of his sweater. I don’t know why, but the gesture touches me.

To be cared for that way must be nice.

He peers from left to right before walking back toward the orphanage. He isn’t in any hurry, not bothered that he is outside unsupervised. I wonder how he got out. I also wonder why he isn’t running away. But where would he go? Where would any of us go?

We don’t have any family, which is why we’re here.

He is almost out of sight but suddenly stops. A breath catches in my throat when he lifts his chin slowly, and our eyes lock. Even from this distance away, I know he can see me. He caught me spying.

I quickly retreat, embarrassed I’ve been caught.

But then I do something bold. I slowly reemerge, only to see him standing in the same spot, peering up at the window.

Under the starless sky, we simply stare at one another.

His long hair falls over one eye, but there is no question that he is striking. He is also brave.

He lifts a hand, and it’s a gesture that I reciprocate because no one has waved at me before. No one has cared enough about me to say hello.

And then he disappears into the shadows like he never really existed at all.

The only proof that he was real is the thumping of my heart.