Months passed and Daysha slowly found her way back into routine. She woke up every morning for school, got dressed, had breakfast, walked through the park to school and came home the same way. For the most part she was back to normal, finished grieving like everyone does eventually. At least that's what everyone else saw. Noone saw her go to her room every night and cry herself to sleep. Noone noticed the white scars that now covered her arms. Noone noticed the rope in her bottom draw which she had thought about ending it all with. Noone knew that she had never really gotten over her brothers death, and that was exactly how she wanted it to stay.
Daysha had always been the perfect daughter and she couldn't bear the thought of hurting her parents with that knowledge. Still it got harder and harder to hide her scars and more than once she'd had to tell her parents that she'd stubbed her toe to explain the crying. Every day she wore long sleeved shirts or sweaters to hide the marks on her arms and she started wearing makeup to cover her puffy eyes from the crying.
Still even with all her covering she couldn't keep it a secret forever. Her friends began to notice something was wrong. Her boyfriend left her because they had 'drifted apart' and she had barely even flinched. She started getting depressed from the smallest of thing, like when her friend Cindy ran into her and Daysha practically begged her for forgiveness. She wasn't like this they said. Something had changed. They made the connection to her brothers death pretty quickly and approached her about it. She shouted them down before they were half a sentence in. It was the first time she had yelled since the funeral and it filled her with adrenaline. How dare they talk about her brother, they knew nothing! The next complication came when her parents finally saw her arms.
It was the middle of the night and she had snuck downstairs to get a glass of milk. She gazed out of her bedroom door into the dark passage and decided that there would be no one awake and didn't bother to put on anything over her pajamas. She felt her way down the dark passage, her fingers keeping contact with the wall so she had some sense of direction. She didn't want to turn the light on and wake her parents. She found her way to the stairs and slowly started to descend, feeling each step with her foot before stepping lower. She felt each of the steps give out slightly beneath her and let out their individual groans with each new step. She gained confidence and started taking the steps faster, just wanting to get back to her warm bed as soon as possible. She took another step and moments too late felt that she had overstepped.
She tumbled to the ground floor and lay there groaning. Almost immediatley she heard her parents getting to their feet and heard the click of a light switch. 'Damn it' she thought 'the last thing I wanted was to wake them up'. She heard footsteps coming down the hall and tried to sit up. She tried to lift her self with her abdominal muscles and a sharp pain ran the length of her left side. 'Ok so that fucking HURTS'. She tried to get her arms under her and heard the footsteps reach the top of the stairs.
"Daysha! Don't move!" Her father's voice boomed, " stay exactly where you are, you might have fractured something."
She let out a small groan in agreement and stayed where she was. Her father rushed down the stairs and she found herself looking into his brown eyes.
"Where does it hurt honey?"
She pointed to her side.
"Here" she said in a hoarse whisper, her voice not sounding like her own. Her father lifter up her Pearl Jam shirt that she liked to sleep in and inspected her side. She tilted her head down and saw a purple bruise already forming.
"Looks like you've hit it pretty hard Daysha, here let me help you up"
He wrapped his big arms around her and lifted her to the couch, the way a groom might carry his bride over the threshold of a new house. She felt like a little girl again, being carried by her dad.
It was over too soon though, he placed her on the couch and went to the phone sitting in its holster on the wall.
"Honey, I'm going to call the hospital, we need to get you checked ou-" his face went slack as she followed his gaze to her scarred arms. She realized where his shock same from and gasped. She covered her arms, drawing them into her shirt and starting to cry.
" Daysha! Your arms!"
Tears started to flow down her cheeks, her shame overwhelming her. Her father crossed the room to her side and embraced her.
"Oh honey, oh my poor baby" he rocked gently back and forth with her in his arms, tears on his cheeks as well. Daysha let herself rock, the movement truly making her feel like a little girl again. Making her feel safe in her father's arms. But she knew that her life was about to be turned upside down. She would need counciling. She would be monitored more closely. But she also felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from her. They knew.
