If You Fall

Thirty Three

The guys were all gone Saturday, getting what Don would only refer to as a Christmas present for the house. Bella was at her house, which was technically my house, and that left Arianna and me painting the third bedroom. The first two were Ariel and Peter Pan, and this one was her pick; Beauty and the Beast.

It was dark, and she was somewhat faded. "So Reed told me I was like, hitting on you or whatever that one night we got back. Sorry about that." Her back was to me and her voice was low but the music was too and I heard every word.

I was silent, if only because I had nothing to say.

"I don't remember," she said flippantly, her voice stronger now. "That was the Vixen you had the pleasure of meeting." She turned to dip her brush and gave me a sarcastic look, though it wasn't directed at me. "Intou told you I dissociate? Have actual personalities and all. Like that one, I call her the Vixen, I don't remember why." She turned back and began painting again, the bottom of Belle's gown. "I made her up for the old perverts who wanted a sexy ten year old."

"Jesus," I said, hurting for her, with the injustice of a world full of men who would so easily break children.

Her shoulders shrugged. "Yeah. There are five of them. The personalities? Including me. Five of us, rather." She laughed a little. "I developed hella young, you know? Like got my period when I was nine. And boobs! I was the only chick in fifth grade that had any boobs at all, and they were practically b cups. I remember the last day of school, this girl Alison, she came up and put her hands under them like shelves and lifted them, she said, 'I just had to see what they felt like'." She had stopped painting, and was sitting back with her arms resting on her knees. "I was nine with the body of a teenager, and a lot of good it did me when we went on vacation to gay Paris the next month."

I wanted to hug her but I couldn't. I didn't think she would let me.

"Am I talking too much? You probably don't care, huh? Not like all emo, wahhh, you don't care. Just, too much info?" She was looking at me, her hair in a long braid again, but makeup on this time. I had the feeling she wanted to go on.

I could take it, even if my heart vehemently protested this fact. "No, I'm listening." I went back to painting Lumiere, not wanting to break her talking spell by looking at her.

"I mean you know I was a child prostitute, like Intou." She idly made a ring with her thumb and forefinger and looked at me through it for a moment, the blank look taking over her eyes. "Only for fourteen months, but fuck were those some long months, days, seconds. I really learned everything I needed to know about human nature when they did what they did, you know? How person after person is just okay with it, how hundreds of people just have no conscience whatsoever. I used to wonder how they slept at night, how they ate, how they looked at themselves in the mirror. But now I know, it's because they didn't care. I was just a thing, a toy. They didn't care how I got there, they were happy to use me. I got used to that. My body wasn't my own, but the worst was my life wasn't my own. They wouldn't let me die, you know? I tried every chance I got, but they wouldn't let me. I was too valuable. I mean, shit, I understood instructions in French and English."

Fuuuck. I was reeling.

"For a long time I blamed it on being a girl. I used to lie there and think if I'd just been a boy, it never would have happened. But later I saw it was maybe even worse for the boys."

"How did you . . . ?" I asked, knowing she knew what I meant.

She moved so she was laying on her stomach, a few inches from the wall, and took up the painting. "How did I survive it? I'm a survivor," she said mockingly. "And like I said, they wouldn't let me die. Almost killed me over and over, but refused to allow me to die. And if you mean my mind, well, back to the personalities thing. It's almost worse when your mind bends instead of breaking, you know? Maybe if it had just broken like a normal brain, they would have let me die."