18
Farlen
I wake up in the soft bed again, with the soft pillows. I don’t remember how I got here. I just remember Connor picking me up and talking to me. I remember how his heart sounded with my ear pressed against him. That’s it. It is again dark in this room, and I don’t know if it is dark outside or not.
Deciding it doesn’t really matter, I get up from the bed. The clothes I am wearing are getting itchy. I don’t want to keep them on anymore. I head to the restroom and use the toilet. I would like to take another shower, feeling the warm water all over my body was nice. Almost as nice as it was to feel Connor pressed up against me. He is so much warmer and bigger than me. I don’t know how to use the big bowl, and Agnes made sure I knew the water in the toilet was only to be used for getting rid of our waste when we use it, nothing else. I wonder if Connor can tell me where I can take a shower.
I head out of the restroom and through the room I woke up in. I open the door to the big room with the big chairs slowly. No light blinds me as the door opens, so it must be dark outside. The last time I came out of the room, Connor was in here at the big table. I go that way looking for him. I don’t see him anywhere. My heart rate picks up. Where is he? Why isn’t he here? I see more doors around the big room and a door on the other side of the big table. I go through the door behind the table first.
There is a sink kind of like the one in the restroom, but this has two bowls on it, and they are much bigger. There is a big metal-looking rectangle. Next to it is a smaller but still large square that has four circles on the top of it. There is no Connor in this strange restroom. I go back to the room with the big table and keep searching for him.
I didn’t find Connor, but I found a room near the one I woke up in with some clothes in it. They remind me of Connor. Is this where he sleeps? I look in his restroom, but he’s not in there either. His restroom has a shower in it. He isn’t in here either, or any of the other sleeping rooms I found. I look at his shower. It looks a lot like the one from the hospital. There are bottles in there. They kind of remind me of the ones I used at the hospital. I really want to take a shower and get out of these itchy clothes. He said he would never hurt me and he hasn’t done anything bad to me.
I don’t know why, but something inside of me is telling me to trust him. I turn on the water and get it, so the water is hot like Agnes showed me. I quickly get out of the itchy clothes. It feels nice to have the air on my skin again. I don’t like how the clothes feel on me, the way they rub on my scars makes me itchy. I haven’t seen anyone without clothes on, so I think I am going to have to get used to wearing them. I jump under the water, and the warmth surrounds me. I close my eyes and just enjoy the warm water.
I wash my hair and scrub my body with the bottles he has. I turn off the water and get out of the shower. I see a towel hanging up on a metal pole and dry myself off, next drying my hair like Agnes showed me how to do. I put the towel on the floor with my other clothes. I see a toothbrush near the sink and grab it to brush my teeth.
Feeling much better, especially because I am not in itchy clothes, I decide I should go back to my sleep room and put on some clothes Connor got me. I walk out of Connor’s room and turn to head to my sleep room. As I take a step towards my door, I hear something break behind me. I turned around really fast to see what the noise was. Usually, that noise was because he threw a glass at me and it broke on the wall behind me. Sometimes the glass would end up in my skin.
My heart beating fast. I look around and all I see is Connor. He is standing there with his mouth open, just looking at me. There’s a pile of glass at his feet, his hand open like he had something in it. I don’t know what to do. Is he mad at me? Did he throw the glass that was in his hand at his feet?
He rushes over to me and touches me on the face.
“Sweet girl, I am not mad at you, but I am very distracted right now. Why don’t you put on some clothes in your room? I came home and heard you in my shower, so I figured I would heat up some food for when you came out. I wasn’t expecting you to walk out of my room naked, and I dropped the plate I was holding. Why were you in my shower, by the way? Do you not like the bathtub in your room?”
“W-whats bathtub?” That was easier to say than anything I have said before. It only took my mouth two tries to form the words.
“I am sorry sweetheart, why don’t you go get some clothes on and come out when you have clothes on and I will show you what the bathtub is, and where your toothbrush and things are? I should have done that sooner.”
“I used the one in your restroom.”
“Used what one?”
“Toofbrush?”
He chuckles. “You used my toothbrush? That is fine, but I will show you where your own is. Please, sweet girl, go get dressed. You are killing me right now.”
I don’t want him to die, so I hurry into my room to put on the itchy clothes. He wasn’t mad at me. Connor laughed. He didn’t yell at all. I find the bags on the floor with the clothes still in them and find the clothes that the Hollie girl said were for nighttime activities. I don’t know what that means, but it’s dark, so it’s nighttime. I put them on and walk back outside my room. Connor groans and then puts his head on the wall.
“While those are indeed clothes, Farlen, that is not helping. Why don’t you see if you have any shorts in there, they are like short pants, which is what you were wearing earlier? And maybe a shirt that isn’t see-through. Oh, while we are home and not expecting company, you don’t have to wear bras. I understand they are very uncomfortable for you. Please, sweetheart, go get something else on, and just knock on your door when you’re dressed. I will come in and show you the bathtub and help you put away your clothes.”
I look down at what I am wearing. I don’t understand why he is saying what he is saying. He still hasn’t gotten mad at me, so I go back in and put on different clothes. I found a pair of short pants and a soft shirt that wasn’t too itchy. I don’t know what knocking is, so I open the door to my room and look at him.
He walks over to me and makes a fist. I flinch back as his arm raises in the air. I did something wrong. He’s going to hurt me now.
“FUCK! Farlen, I’m sorry, I was going to show you what knocking was. Open your eyes please, I am not going to hurt you. I want you to watch.”
I look up at him. He doesn’t sound angry; he sounds sad. I look at him and he smiles. He slowly raises his hand in the air and makes a fist again. My entire body starts to shake. He moves his hand past my head and punches the door softly with it.
“This is knocking. You do it when you want to go somewhere that isn’t in the house. I will do it anytime I want to come into your room, okay?”
He didn’t hurt me! I tried what he did and punched the door with my fist. It makes a funny noise and I do it again.
“Good girl, you’ve got the hang of knocking. Now let me show you how to use your bathtub and I will explain it to you, okay?”
Every time he says good girl, it makes the muscles in my stomach tight. I don’t understand what the feeling is. I move back from the door and he walks into my sleep room. He reaches over, grabs my hand and gives it a hand hug. I like it when he does that so I hug his hand back. We walk to the restroom and he walks over to the big bowl.
“This is a bathtub. You fill it up with water and then lie down in it. It allows you to be surrounded by the hot water all the way and not just have it run over you like a shower. You can even put things in there that make bubbles. It has hot and cold water just like the shower, but it comes out of the faucet right here to fill up the tub. You want to stop the water before it gets too close to the top or else it will spill over and there will be a big mess to clean up.”
“Ookay.”
He walks over to the sink and moves the glass that is there that lets me see myself.
“In here are your toothbrush and toothpaste. There is also some deodorant for you to use. You take the top off like this and twist this little knob on the bottom until the white part comes up. Then you rub the white part in your armpit. It helps make it so when you get sweaty, you don’t smell. Why don’t you try it right now, so I can help you if you can’t figure it out?”
He hands the strange thing to me. I do what he says, and he stops me after the first time I rub it in.
“You don’t have to push so hard, sweetness. Here, let me see it. Hold your arm up.”
I didn’t think I was pushing hard. I couldn’t feel it at all. I hand it to him and hold my arm up like he is doing. He walks over and brushes it over my skin. I watch what he is doing but can’t feel it at all. He makes a motion for me to lift the other arm and I do. Again, he brushes it against me, but I can’t feel it.
“How much can you actually feel, Farlen? I know you are thinking about not being able to feel this. Are you able to feel it when I hold your hand?”
I can feel it when he gives my hand a hug, and the warmth from it, but not feeling his hand on my own. I don’t think I can say all that, so I try to think it at him. He puts a hand on my face.
“Can you feel this? Feel my hand brushing across your cheek?”
I shake my head at him. I stopped feeling anything except fear a long time ago. The pain HE gave me stopped hurting a long, long time ago.
“Alright sweetheart, I hope that once you’re fully healed, you will feel this. Now, how about we get some food in you, then I have something for you, and I want to play a game with you.”
We go back out to the room with the big table, and Connor tells me to sit down while he goes to the strange restroom. Why is there food in the restroom? I hear Connor laugh from the other side of the door.
“This room is called the kitchen, Farlen. It’s the room you prepare food in for eating. Or where you can find snacks and things like that to eat. It’s not a restroom.”
I sit there in the dark while he gets food for me. I am learning so many new things from him. Kit-chen a room for food. Connor comes out with two plates with so much food on them that it looks like the food might fall off at any time. He sets them down in front of me.
“Eat what you want. I will eat whatever is left.”
Again he tells me everything I eat, and gets out more paper and writes down things on it that he notices I like, and don’t like. I can eat more than I have before. He notices I’ve stopped eating, takes one plate and starts eating. There is still so much food left on the plate. Is he going to really eat all of that? After he finishes a mouth of food, he sets his fork down.
“So I got you a cell phone so I can keep in touch with you while you are in class. It will also allow you to get a hold of me if you need help with something. Why don’t you come sit over here and I can show you how it works?”
I walk around the big table and sit in the chair next to him. He holds up a rectangle that I saw some nurses at the hospital using.
“Cell fone?”
“Yes, this is a cell phone. Here, let me show you how to use it.”
We spend a while at the table, Connor eating and showing me how to use it. He shows me how to call him. He also shows me how to text him. Connor gets his own out and presses the letter buttons on it. Then mine starts to move weirdly on the table. He has me open it and then touch the picture of him. Once I do, a strange voice comes from it. The voice says “Hi sweetheart.” Connor calls me sweetheart. Did the picture of him cause it to talk? But it doesn’t sound like him.
“I set up your phone so that whenever you get a text message, it reads them out to you, so you can see the words that are written down, and can hear them being spoken too. It will help you with reading. I, uh, also put my mother’s phone number on your phone, which is the other person on your contact list. Sharron is her name. She looks a lot like me, but she has red, curly hair. Here, this is her. She wanted to talk to you. I told her you weren’t big on talking yet, but she could text you.”
“Until we find your other matches, if you ever need help, text me or my Mom okay, and we will help you. Though as a warning she may send one of my dads to come help too, depending on what is wrong. They can be a little over the top, so hopefully she holds off on that for a while. So now when you want to send a message, press this button and then say what you want to say. It will convert whatever you say to words. When you have said what you need to press this button and it will send the message.”
He hands it to me. I remember the ladies from the big house, where there were a lot of kids like me always saying that if someone does something nice for you, you say thank you to them. I do what Connor told me to do. I press on his picture and click the little button like he said. I hold it up to my face and speak the words, then press the button. His phone rumbles on the table. He smiles at me.
“Once you learn to read, we can turn off text to speech, so that way everyone doesn’t hear your messages. Now let me take care of these plates and then onto the game I want to play with you.”
He stands up and grabs the empty plates. Where did all the food go? It would have taken me a lot of days to eat all of that. Did Connor eat it all? He comes back in from the kitchen and sits down next to me with a lot of stuff. He hands me one thing, and it is big and really heavy. My arms struggle to hold it, and I put it down on the table.
“The enormous book I just handed you is a dictionary. Every day we are going to open that up to a random page, and have you point at a word. That is going to be your word of the day. I want you to try to use it that day when you talk to me. I will read the word and what it means to you. Hopefully, soon you’ll be able to read them to me. Open it up somewhere. It doesn’t matter where you open the book. Once you have it open point at one word on the page, it’s okay if you don’t understand what it means or what it says.”
I open the book and look at all the words on the page. I have no clue what any of them mean and point at one like he said to do.
“Alright, your word for, well, I guess tomorrow is gravitate. It is a verb, which is an action word. It says that it means to move or tend to move under the influence of a gravitational force, or to tend toward the lowest level; sink; or fall, it can also mean to have a natural tendency or to be strongly attracted (usually followed by to or toward). As an example of it being used in a sentence for you; As soon as I saw you, my entire being began to gravitate toward you.”
Again, he points to each word as he speaks them. I try out the word in my head, gravitate. It is a little hard for me to get the hang of it in my head, but once I do, I try to say it.
“Gravytate.”
It doesn’t sound like what he said. I try repeatedly, and each time I get it wrong, Connor says it again for me until I can say it right.
“So now I want you to think about something you feel drawn to, something that feels like it just keeps pulling you back to it, no matter how far you go away from it. And then I want you to tell me about it later today. Make sure you use your new word when you tell me about it. Now, for the other part of the night, I’m not sure if you know your letters, so we are going to practice writing them. This is the letter F. Follow the arrows on the paper with this pencil. It will show you how to write the letter.”
I don’t know how long we sit here trying to write the letters like the papers show. I am starting to get tired again. My eyes feel very heavy.
“We can stop really soon sweetheart, you’ve almost got the N down. You can do it. Follow the arrows on the paper. Almost done, there we go. Look, if we combine all the letters, F-a-r-l-e-n it spells your name. You wrote your name.”
The sky is getting brighter behind him and the light coming through the window seems to surround Connor. It makes him seem like he is shining. Connor stands up, grabs my hand, and leads me to my sleep room. He waits with me while I get comfortable, then pulls my blankets on top of me. He bends down near the top of my head and I feel his hot breath on my head.
“Sweet dreams, sweet girl. If you need me, you know where my room is. No need to knock. Just come get me if you need anything.”