nineteen #3
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. How could someone do that to their son? So that’s how you ended up in the shelter. You were fourteen. Jesus, you must have been so scared.” Callisto’s words only echo in my ear, memories from that fateful day taking up every available space in my brain like a fog.
Callisto’s kind expression disappears, replaced by my dad screaming at me while beating me.
I hadn’t cried, not even begging him to stop.
It never made much of a difference when my dad was angry.
I laid there and took it, waiting for him to run out of steam.
It took a while this time, but eventually the punches and kicks finally stopped, leaving me curled up and bleeding on the floor.
Then my dad literally threw me out of the house with nothing but the residual bruises and clothes on my back, telling me that I was no longer welcome in the only home I’d ever known.
I will never forget my mom crying silently, but not helping me, even when I begged her to.
She’s dead, from what De Luca said, and I have to blink back tears.
I try to suppress the memories and the tears, to forget her, but I can’t.
“Sin mar a tá sé,” I say, my voice hollow, feeling as though I'm not even in the room with Callisto. My body is present, but my brain is locked in a memory. Well, a conglomeration of memories.
Happier ones featuring my childhood, my beautiful mom teaching me about the world.
To be strong. Those are replaced easily by the feeling of abandonment when she didn’t help me.
I know she was scared. She probably felt like she was doing what was best for Violet, but what about what was best for me?
Then my brain lands somewhere with De Luca.
He could have been lying to make me angry, but for some reason the words rang true to me.
My mom is dead. I have another little sister.
I don't know how to process it. The last memory I will ever have of my mom is the tears in her eyes when she abandoned me.
When she mouthed ‘goodbye’ while my father shut the door in my face.
When I pounded on the door, begging them to let me back inside.
Promising to be a better son. A better role model for Violet. Promising to be straight.
The white door stayed firmly shut, my salty tears trailing down its surface.
They raced each other down the wood while I whispered a promise to myself: the door would open before they reached the bottom, and I would never have to know the winner.
The one on the right won the race. Then the one on the left, then the one on the right again.
Eventually I ran out of tears to race, and I left with my head bowed and my heart shattered.
That was the last time I had ever cried.
“My Gaelic is a bit rusty but that means ‘that is how it is’, right? Your tattoo?”
Callisto’s translation snaps me out of the memory of my tear trail on the door.
The kitchen is spinning, my world moving under my feet as if I was snapped back into reality too fast to get my balance.
Of course, he knows Gaelic. He probably knows like ten languages.
I shrug in answer because they are words I live by.
I say it so often, I got the Gaelic phrase tattooed on my chest.
There to remind me every time I look in the mirror that the world, my world, sin mar a tá sé.
Some things I can’t change. Some events will never be reversed, and I have to live with them.
My eyes start to sting with unshed tears as I bite my lip, trying to keep them in.
“Leo, are- are you okay?” Callisto’s voice is muffled as it seeps into my conscious mind. I nod, but it’s a lie. Nausea rises, hot and demanding, until I’m on the verge of throwing up. My entire body begins to shake.
I resist the urge to scratch my skin, to hurt myself because my entire body is hurting.
I cannot handle this right now. I can’t handle Callisto’s sad eyes, his accusations.
I can’t handle Pandora's box of repressed memories from my teenage years.
I can’t handle what happened with De Luca, the new information he gave me with his last words.
I certainly cannot even bear to think about what happened in the in between, on the phone to Peadar, when he ordered me to kill my sister.
“I- I think I need to take a shower.” Before Callisto can object, I push my chair out, legs scraping loudly across the floor. I turn from him and make a beeline for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
I feel dirty from the events that have occurred today, the tar like blood that is still dried on me in some places.
The only thing that could possibly cleanse me is fire, fire from deep in the pits of Hell where people like De Luca and maybe even myself, belong.
I’m going to have to settle for hot water and scrub my skin raw like usual.
I go into my ensuite, slamming the door behind me, my breaths coming out ragged as if I’d just ran a marathon.
My eyes land on the clothes that I had discarded earlier in the bathtub, stiff with dried blood.
I grab them, taking them back into my bedroom and putting them in a trash bag to be burned later.
I then return to my bathroom, turning the shower on as hot as it will go, while I peel the clothes from my raw skin, refusing to look in the mirror.
As soon as the water is scalding hot, I get in. My entire body shakes, my skin is numb even though the water feels like fire. After a few seconds, I yell out my anger and frustration, punching the tiled bathroom wall. I shake out my hand, doing it again, the tile fracturing around me.
Sorry is the only thing left, a deep stab wound in my chest bleeding out with each pump of my wretched heart.
There is no blood in the water around me, even though it feels as though there should be.
That’s the interesting thing about blood, it can be both a sign of life and a sign of death.
I don't think I fit into either category, though.
I don't feel like I’m living, but I certainly know I haven't greeted the relief that comes with death.
The water cascades down around me, burning my skin, but it does not distract me from the memories dancing in front of my eyes, the steam from the shower forming the ghosts of my forgotten past.