Chapter 43
Mireya
Past
Play - Dagger by Slowdive
Close your eyes
The music from the living room is scary, because mom likes it a lot. The voice is thin and sad, it sounds like someone is crying really hard inside the room. It makes my chest squeeze like it wants to jump out of my body and maybe if I focus on the words it will make my head stop spinning a little.
I repeat my numbers in my head, the ones Miss Edna said to do when I feel too much, my special code.
My name as numbers: 13 9 18 5 25 1, 13 9 18 5 25 1, 13 9 18 5 25 1.
Over and over, and I tap my fingers on the carpet to keep track.
Mom is crying. I can hear her cry, she screamed stop so many times before stopping and she kept crying. I don’t know why she feels sad. Dad’s friend is with her and I think he’s hurting her. The door in her room slams and it makes me jump so hard I almost drop my pillow I was hiding behind.
I hear footsteps in my room and I can’t see anything because it is too dark and my knees are pressed to my chest and my hands are still over my ears.
I repeat my numbers again and again and I whisper “it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay” even though it doesn’t feel okay, it just makes me feel a tiny little bit like maybe I can breathe.
He’s here.
I press my hands over my ears, counting faster. The numbers make sense, the numbers are safe.
“Hey, little one,” he says.
I peek through my fingers. The man is there. I don’t see his face, just dark shapes, and the smell of his after shave.
He kneels in front of me and touches my hair, “You have beautiful, beautiful hair, do you know that?”
I nod, but I don’t feel safe, so I just repeat the numbers, a bit loudly,
“Don’t be scared, your eyes are too pretty for you to cry, I’m here to play with you.”
“Why was my mom crying?” I ask, but he’s just laughing.
“She wasn’t crying, she was happy. We were playing a game.”
“Which one?”
His hand hovers near my shoulder and I flinch but he forces it there, “Do you want to play the same game?”
“Is it a fun one?”
His fingers start moving to my neck and he replies, “The best one, but it hurts sometimes. That’s how grown ups play.”
“I want to be a grown up too!”
He stands up this time and offers me his hand before saying, “Let’s play then.”
I nod and follow him to my bed. I don’t understand what game it is, but he asks me to lay on the bed with my arms up and he says I need to keep counting like before until it’s over, and if I cry at the end, it means I won.
“Close your eyes, little one, and start counting.”
“13 9 18 5 25 1, 13 9 18 5 25 1,13 9 18 5 25 1.”
I feel something warm between my legs, it’s burning, and I can’t breathe, but I want to win this game. He starts moving and it hurts more, I hear something ripping, and it’s my pants. “13 9 18 5 25 1,13 9 18 5 25 1,13 9 18 5 25 1.”
I feel sad, I love these pjs, they’re my favorite. It hurts too much now, and the man is making noises. I want to stop the game, it’s hurting too much, “I– It hurts…”
“It doesn’t hurt. You’re imagining it, you’re just tired,” he whispers, moving on top of me.
My body felt wrong, but he said it wasn’t, so I tried to believe him. I can’t breathe like before, and my eyes are starting to sting. “I don’t like this game…”
He never answers, but I really don’t like it.
“Dad!” I shout, “Dad, please, help me,” I scream louder, hoping he’ll hear me from the window. I saw him smoking in front of the house.
“Your dad won’t help you, little one.”
“Dad!”
This time I can taste my own tears in my mouth, they’re salty and when the man sees that I’m crying he laughs, leaving his hand on my cheek, “Good, you did good, Mireya.”
“Is it over?”
He leaves the bed and when he opens the door he says, “You won, I’ll come back soon to play with you again.”
When he’s gone, I crawl into the hallway and I feel sticky and cold and my pajamas are ripped and I don’t know if I am bleeding or just wet from crying or something else.
I just know it hurts and it is all over my legs and I don’t know how to make it stop. Mom opens the door of her room and sees me and her face changes all at once.
Her eyes go wide and wet, and her hands fly to me. “No! No, my baby!” she cries.
Her voice is like broken glass. She kneels down and pulls me to her chest, wrapping her arms around me tight. I press my face into her shirt. She is so small in some ways, but so strong in others, and I don’t understand how someone so small can hold me this way.
“It hurts,” I whisper, “It’s hurting.”
“I know,” she says softly, her hands stroking my hair, her fingers sticky. “I know, baby. I know it hurts.”
I peek up at her. Her eyes are red and tired. Her hair is messy and falling over her face, and there’s a scar just above her collarbone that I remember from when I was little.
Mom has her own marks, I have some too, just like her. I think she knows how it feels to be scared like this. “I—” I start, but the words get stuck. I don’t know how to tell her what happened without it sounding like I did something wrong.
She whispers my name, and it’s soft, “Shh. It’s not your fault, baby. Not yours.”
I press closer to her and notice how she’s trembling, I can feel it through her arms. I want to tell her everything, but my throat is tight, my hands still sticky, and my pajamas torn.
“I just wanted to play like you…”
She cries harder as she screams my dad’s name. But he never came.
“Why… why didn’t he—” I don’t finish the question. I don’t know if I want the answer.
She tugs me closer again, rocking slightly. “Some people… some people can’t stop it,” she says. “Focus on my voice, Reya, focus on my voice.”
“I don’t want it to hurt anymore,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says. “It won’t always. It will stop hurting so much. I promise.”
I press my cheek to hers. Her heart is racing fast, but it sounds like a song, and it’s calming me from shaking more.
And I repeat my numbers again, “13 9 18 5 25 1, 13 9 18 5 25 1…”