Chapter 126
Mireya
Past
Play - Je te laisserai des mots by Patrick Watson
Disappearing to feel alive
Last day of high school. We went to the beach to celebrate it.
Hayzel and Ethan are swimming and I sat there watching them.
My hand moves across the fresh page of my sketchbook. It’s ugly, and scary somehow. I don’t even know what it is yet, I’m just letting my thoughts run and wait to see where they take me.
I think I’ll write beside it, until the drawing starts making sense.
My mother died, and my father is a monster.
I dream of her often whenever the pain she had to endure is mine to feel.
I still see her in any of my scars, in my brother's eyes, in my father's anger.
I see her in my sorrow, in the way the waves crash against the cliff, in the way the sky cries at her birthday when everyone celebrates Christmas.
She's in everything I keep secret, and everything that hurts, scattered into anything I touch and everything I look at.
Losing her keeps happening every time I need her, and some days I feel like I'm becoming the version of herself she never got to escape. Because, love, when it came from her, felt like something she had to return to in the middle of giving it.
I keep hurting myself and talking to the blood flowing on my skin. She's a part of it, so she probably can hear me. "Mom, dad never got better.”
“Mom, the man you loved even if he hurt you, is the same man I have to love all my life even if he hurts me too.”
“Mom, it still hurts when it’s him. My body keeps repeating with other hands, other men, but it still hurts.”
“Mom, I don’t know his face and I hate that my body still recognizes him.”
But she never replies. Dad does, with violent hands and violent words. And I carry them as I hug Milo to make sure he doesn’t end up like we both did.
I let the abuse memorize my name so it would forget his.
I’m trying to be a good sister, even if I can’t even be a good person.
I let the ink dry for a moment, finishing up the sketch before closing it. I tuck the sketchbook away, letting the words beside the drawing keep it company and get up.
My legs move toward the water, following Hayzel and Ethan’s voice.
Mom, I wish I could be as brave as you were.