In The Dark

Number Nine. Brains

The hot water is burning my skin and it seers me, though somewhere in the back of my head I keep say it isn't enough.

The water doesn't hurt enough, and I need to hurt, want to hurt maybe? I can't though, every time I try and close my eyes all I am granted with is a new broken memory, someone dying, even Johnny sometimes. It's a hazy memory but I can't remember it, him touching me is as clear as day.

It's strange now, this kind of numbness, I am not too sure how to describe it because it feels like nothing and everything all at once.

Everything my brain had hidden from, every truth I have ever ignored, every bit of grief and pain I denied. The trauma that I pretended wasn't there. Then at the same time it's nothing, the pain has blended into itself and I know it hurts, I feel the pressure in my chest, but I can't rationalise it.

My head is empty, void of any reasonable explanation and with every small movement I make, I am pushed closer to exhaustion once again. I sleep and live the nightmares again and again and again; I watch Carter shoot my Mother on repeat.

It's strange how much the treehouse gang feels like a family, they all feel horrible, Brady keeps pacing back and forth outside my room when I wake up crying. I want to tell him that it isn't his fault, that I don't blame him, maybe I don't think it is his fault. It would be easier.

This pain is more than Johnny raping me, it's something that he could have never anticipated and that should never have happened. I had first hoped that he would send me back to Carter forgetting about the ring and fleeing for his life. It's been four days and now I am beginning to wish that Brady and the other's would scoop me up and take me far away from Carter.

I had pushed everything so far away that I forgot who he was, a monster sure, but I have always known that, but he killed my Mother. She told him what she knew, and he shot her, then dragged me away to live as his locked away princess.

Hate. All I feel for him is hate, whatever co-dependence that I have developed has broken with the image of my families dead bodies. The brain is a curious thing, when things get too traumatic it blocks everything out, kind of like a self-saving mechanism. Trying to save my wellbeing and ensure that I won't self-destruct.

It doesn't seem fair when I think on it like that, though what part of my life indicates I am ever given things with fairness in mind. If it wasn't me then it would be some other girl, and even though it's cruel I can't stop from wishing the swap was real.

"Want to come on a walk?" Robert asks, coming back into my room with an apprehensive look on his face.

He has been with me since it happened, he sits next to my bed and holds me when I breakdown, like an older brother that I desperately needed.

"What's the catch?" I ask quietly, eyes focused on the dark detailing around the door.

"No catch, but we will be tied together" He replies softly. Grabbing my shoes from the end of the bed, I take them from him and slide them on, my movements feel slow even to me, but I can't control it.

He wraps me up in my jacket, gives me his gloves and a beanie before we head downstairs, it's the first time I have gone down since Johnny and my hand clutches Robert's wrist tightly.

"I'm glad you decided to go outside" Brady tells me, putting down his mug of coffee and walking towards me, squeezing my shoulder comfortingly and holding up the rope he grabbed.

"It's okay" I nod, my senses hyperaware as I battle of panic attack, even though the rope was long gone by the time Johnny got to me.

"Don't get lost Robert and be back in an hour" He calls to us as we leave through the front door, heading back around the house to a path that leads in the opposite direction.