Becca
Chapter 22
Becca
31 Days Dead
Days easily melt into each other as I relive the nightmare that was the last few months of my life. Our bodies remember even when we don’t want to. Even when we put up our shields and lock the memories behind a steel door, we can’t erase the violence that’s reshaped our bones or the trauma that’s scarred our skin. The best defenses come unraveled with the slightest touch in just the right spot. All that hard work has gone to waste. All the mental fortitude, a failed effort. When the gates fall the onslaught of memories come charging in, a legion of horrors from the greatest depths of my soul. With every foot they gain in their breach, I remember.
My entire life I’d been praised for my intelligence, deemed by everyone a ‘smart girl’. Turns out I was a fool. A fool for throwing that party. A fool for withdrawing from the people who loved me—of whom there were many. A fool for ending my own life too early.
They say hindsight is twenty-twenty and they’re right. At that time, all I could see was the deep-seated shame that burned away my self-respect and will to live. Instead of doing the right thing, instead of seeing that there was an entire life left to live, all I saw was the comments every time I closed my eyes. Slut. Whore. Why would you even bother posting this? Nobody fucking cares about you .
All I heard were Nate’s grunted threats punctuated by the harsh slapping of skin. “If you tell anyone, you’re going down with me. I’ll make sure of that. I wonder if your family would come to visit you if they knew their perfect daughter helped hide a body. I wonder if they could look you in the face if they saw that video. When they saw you taking—”
“No. No. No. No,” I chant as I chase away the things I’ve worked so hard to forget. Just like now, it was coming from every direction. It was too much to endure. With each passing day that I had to live with the guilt, logic frayed and fell apart in my hands.
It could only last so long. False. These men had spent their whole lives making everyone else’s miserable.
They’d get bored of me. False. My silence was the only thing that promised their freedom.
It wasn’t so much what they said, it was that it never ended. I never got a break from the cruelty. Even simple joys like posting my breakfast on my story were met with comments like ‘Should you really be eating that?’ or ‘Of course you’re eating alone again’. Even worse than the public warfare were the whispers that caught me off guard while walking to class. You can cover up as much as you want, I still know what that ass looks like naked.
They stripped away any semblance of peace I had. They flayed the parts of my identity that I treasured most, leaving me stripped and raw, unable to protect the most vulnerable pieces of myself.
And with the jarring shock of Stasi’s body on mine, those memories were unlocked.
The unanswered cries were swallowed by the bass of the music and too many voices speaking in too small a space. I remember.
The tension in my knees, my hips, my thighs as I tried to fight back that first time. I remember.
The weight that kept me still, kept me down, kept me helpless. I remember.
The putrid smell of harsh chemicals and salty sweat that coated my own strawberry-scented skin. I remember.
I remember. I remember. I remember.
I remember and there’s no going back. There’s no fixing me. The doors hang off the hinges, my security gone. The fragments of my sense of self shatter like broken windows and cracked mirrors. My confidence was torn and tattered, drapes and fine silks cut through with a swift blade. I was forced into the mud, made into their whore.
Down there in the dirt, beneath his boot, becoming his to use, I lost sight of myself. Maybe Stasi was right. Hadn’t I had a choice? I didn’t have to let her get swallowed up in the dirt of it with me.
When I think of her now, I don’t see that sexy, commanding woman who pushes me to the brink of my sanity. I see her lifeless body that I can still feel beneath my fingertips. Platinum locks dark with wet soil. A pretty smile with lips gone blue. Her lush body once so full of life lying limp and vulnerable.
I let that happen to her. I let her sink down below so that I could keep my precarious place just above ground.
Jokes on me; we’re two drowned girls, she and I. Stasi’s anger is understandable, warranted, even. But I’m entitled to my grief. Aren’t I? We’re both victims of the same man, of the same world . The one that constantly seeks to destroy women who find a path for themselves and follow it. Some of us make sacrifices and bury the things that hurt the most just to ease the suffering a bit. It never goes away though, it’s the beating heart beneath the floorboards that drives us to madness—with the guilt of it, with the injustice of it, with the cruelty of it all.
Victims are forced into silence. But we pay the ultimate price for it. The silence is never the peace or safety it should be; it’s a quiet destruction that eats away at us minute by minute or year by year. Infecting. Eroding. Eating us alive. Secrets kept against our will are parasites that become predators. And if you’re like me, one day they become too much to bear. The slow consumption is so excruciating that it’s better to get it over with in one fell swoop. Ripping the Band-Aid off. Or, in my case, slitting your wrists.
Somehow my ghostly form is unmarred by the final decision I made, but even though the scars are missing, I can still see it in all its gore. I hate what I’ve done to myself.
I need to exorcise all of this pent-up agony.
I crush my face into my pillow letting out a guttural scream that tears me up from the inside out. I keep screaming, and all those words I should have told Nate, purge themselves into the soft fabric.
It’s not enough.
My fists pound into the feathers. An ounce of tension leaves me. I repeat the motion again. Over and over, I punch, beat, and pound my hands until my lungs ache from the screaming that accompanies them.
I slip my arms under and bring the pillow tightly against my face; I scream some more. My teeth clamp down on the pillowcase, I bite down until my jaw hurts. The urge to rip it to shreds is there. I’d hate to make a mess, but then again, everything is already a mess. I’m a mess. My life is a mess. My heart is a mess. What’s a bit more? Indulging myself, I bite into it again and this time I thrash my head from side to side as I pull at each side with all the strength I can muster.
Rrriiipppp.
The sound cuts through the air and I freeze. A wave of guilt and panic rushes through me, but as the feathers dance around me and descend through the air, a laugh escapes me. A genuine laugh that sounds like someone else. Where has she been?
Like a kid watching fireworks, my gaze is fixed upward, taking in the wonder above me. It’s absurd, it’s juvenile, it’s mesmerizing. White and brown feathers drift around me, landing in my hair, across my lap, and all over the floor. It’s everywhere except for where it belongs.
I laugh and I laugh, there’s no stopping now that I’ve started. A small spark of joy has erupted into all-out hysterics. Again, I indulge it. Gathering up some of the feathers, I throw them up in the air. They rain down on me, but the novelty has worn off.
My laughter catches on the sharp edges of my brokenness and shatters into a dozen wracking sobs that layer one over the other. The loss of Aiden, the loss of my family, the loss of my future, the loss of my friends, the loss of my dignity, the loss of myself. Back to back to back to back, grief after grief with no time to recover in between.
And now I’ve pushed her away. I don’t want to count her with them because that would mean she’s come to mean something, which means she’s something that can be taken away. And if she’s that, then I’m further in over my head than I had even realized. Between the insults and taunting, when had she had time to slip in between my defenses? She’s found an opening in the chain-link fence around my heart and created room for herself when I wasn’t looking. I thought she was background noise that helped drown out the screams of my internal torment, but maybe it’s more than that, or she could be if I just let her in.
Instead, I’ve chosen to be pathetic and weak, standing alone on a precipice staring out at the vastness of a life lived in fear. What makes it unbearable is that I’m letting it rule me just as much in death.
It’s like the admonishment triggers my mom’s instincts. Peeking into the room, she slowly enters, strangling the door handle like she might fall over without the support. Her eyes widen as she surveys the mess I’ve made.
“Chris,” she squeaks as she takes another step into the room. “Chris!” There’s volume to the command now.
“What’s wrong?” My dad runs into the room, gripping her shoulders protectively. It’s rhetorical as both their gazes rove over the floor taking inventory of the countless feathers that blanket the fluffy rug.
“The feathers, do you see them, too?”
“Yes.” My dad’s voice is shallow with disbelief.
“Do you think—”
“Don’t.”
“Chris,” my mom pleads with him. “What if it’s her?”
“Don’t do this, Erin.” He sucks in a ragged breath. “Don’t go chasing ghosts. I can’t afford to lose you too.” My dad grabs her wrists and pulls her against his chest. My mom’s sobs are as unbearable as nails on a chalkboard even though they’re muffled in his shirt.
“It could be,” she insists, growing more adamant. “It could be her. Who else would have done it?” She pulls away from him. “Aiden isn’t here, and it wasn’t me. So was it you? Did you come in here on a whim and destroy our daughter’s pillows? Hmm?” She turns back to the scene of the crime. “It’s her. I know it. I can feel it, Chris. I can feel her. ” My mom’s hands find his shoulders as they stare intensely at one another. “I’m sure this time.”
“I miss her just as much as you do, but I can’t do this. I can’t bear it. Please don’t let yourself go down this path. There has to be a reasonable—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. You can’t deny it this time,” she says through cracking control. “Don’t make me feel like I’m blowing this out of proportion.”
“There has to be some other explanation. Maybe a neighbor came in and—”
“Oh, don’t give me that. We’ve lived here for years, and we’ve never had a break-in. No one would do something so cruel.”
“I just have a hard time believing she’s trying to communicate with you through littered feathers and torn bedding.” He attempts to embrace her, but she pulls away. “Sweetheart, let’s go to the other room. I’ll come clean this up later.”
“No. No. I’ll clean it up now.” She shakes her head definitively. “I want to be alone.” They stand there motionlessly waiting for her to change her mind. But she doesn’t. So my dad finally gives in and leaves her to it.
Relief leaves me in a long exhale as the tension follows him out.
When the door shuts behind him, she sinks to the floor. Despite the heaviness of her sorrow, there’s something soothing about having her nearby. I can finally take a deep breath. The silence is unsteady with her tears, but having her attention, even in this indirect way is reassuring.
For a while, I just cry with her.
“Mom,” I say shakily, “I’m so glad you’re here. I need you,” I confess as she starts to collect the feathers one by one. “I messed up, again. So many times. But you already know that.” A small laugh escapes me. “This is a big one though—a decade-long mistake.” Admitting that is a massive weight off my shoulders, so I continue. “I think I’ve been lying to myself—to everyone, actually—and I don’t know what possessed me to do it.” She’s crawling around gathering stray feathers, but I pretend she’s listening because she’s still here and that’s good enough.
“Well, maybe it wasn’t lying, more like confusion. Yeah, I was confused. It’s just, I didn’t understand why I was feeling what I was feeling or why it was bad. So, I just buried it, I guess.” Just like her . “But I buried it too far away, too deep, and at some point, along the way, I forgot it existed. It became a bad dream. Something that happened to some other version of me that was long gone.” I pull my knees to my chest, wanting to disappear from my own embarrassment. “But that part of me wasn’t gone at all, she was being suffocated.”
She drops the last of the feathers in the trash can under my desk and stands. Well, this is it. Now or never. “Mom, I don’t think I’m straight. I never have been. I met someone, on my birthday, and I’ve messed it all up. I ruined it in the most permanent way. I did something really bad. Unforgivable. I’m not your perfect girl anymore.” My words rush out faster and faster. “I’m so glad you can’t see me now. You’d be so disappointed.” Those last words sneak out in a whisper.
Absentmindedly, her hand passes over my duvet as she heads for the door, flattening the wrinkles I’d caused earlier. Her brow furrows, her hand moving more thoughtfully over the area as she surveys the room again. She pauses, then takes a seat on the edge of my bed.
“Becca.” She clears her throat. “Becca, honey, are you here with me?”
“Yes, mom. It’s me. I’m right here,” I say excitedly as I crowd the space in front of her.
“Honey?” This time her voice is weaker.
“Yes, mom. I’m here. I’m right here.” I wave my hands in front of her face. When that gets me nowhere, I lunge forward and wrap my arms around her. But, instead of the warm embrace I’ve always felt safe in, she shudders and shrinks inward. It’s heartbreaking. It’s understandable. It’s human.
Despite her body’s instinctual reaction. She doesn’t say anything else. She simply curls up on her side in resignation. One by one, I watch her tears fall into my pillow, staining the same fabric that’s absorbed my own so many times over the last year.
I hate seeing my mom broken. I hate more that I did this to her. To them. Another mess I’ve made. But there’s nothing I can do to fix it. The only thing I can do is stay out of their way and let them heal. It’s what I should do. What I will do. But for right now, I choose selfishness because I still need my mom.
Walking around to the other side of the bed, I lay down as gently as I possibly can so as not to disturb her, then curl up behind her. I don’t wrap my body around hers, but I pretend that the few inches between us aren’t there and that she’s holding me close.
As if she can sense me, she grabs the remote and puts on Pride and Prejudice. And for the first time in months, we fall into our old bad-day routine. For one hundred and twenty-seven minutes, I try my hardest to let myself enjoy this rare comfort, but there’s one thing that remains constant on my mind: Stasi. I can’t help but draw the parallels between our constant head-butting and Elizabeth and Darcy. Maybe if I’m willing to admit that I was wrong and she can let go of her grudge, things could be different.
I know I dragged her down with me, damned her to this deep well. At the bottom looking up, surrounded by darkness on all sides, we’ve been trying to find our own way out, but maybe we can find our way back to the surface together. Could we find freedom in each other? There has to be some kind of peace to be found. I have to try, don’t I?