How Do I Love? [abused Hinata Shoyo]

two

—

"Standing alone is better than standing with people who hurt you."

T minus 4 years to present time

Shoyo's perspective

I was brought into a room. The stranger sent me in and closed the door behind me. Once again,

I was alone.

I looked around. The walls were a dirty gray, old paint already cracking off. I saw a bed by the corner. It was bigger than the one I used to use. I wanted to go down and lie in it, but I didn't know if it was a good idea. I looked up. The light of a single lamp stabbed my pupils with a blinding white light, which made me hiss and look at the floor. A pair of bare feet in dusty grey slippers laid before my eyes. The cold air pierced the bare skin, causing them to tingle. Only then did I realise that they were my feet.

I took a step forward. Silence. The whole room seemed to be engulfed in some sort of mesmerising silence. Peaceful. I liked it. It made me feel safe. I took another step forward. The bed was still peeking out through the corner of my eye. I hesitated. I wondered whether I would be allowed to get an hour or two of sleep, and whether or not someone would come barging in the moment I closed my eyes to rest.

I blinked. I read somewhere that blinking is an unconscious action. That is, until you bring your attention to it. Then it becomes somewhat conscious. I blinked again. I kept my eyes closed for longer this time. My eyelids did not want to open. I guessed I must be tired.

I took some more steps forward. Now the bed was directly to my left. I looked at it. The mattress laid on a plain frame, the legs barely peeking through the wrinkled white sheets. On the foot of the bed was a blanket, nicely folded so that the corners of the blanket and the mattress aligned almost perfectly.

I blinked. My eyelids really didn't want to open, but they had to. I had to stay awake. It wasn't time to go to bed yet. If I fell asleep now, he would punish me.

But

Was he even here?

I thought back to what had happened earlier. I ignored the person. That should have cost me at least a glass bottle to my head on a good day.

But nothing happened.

Would something happen if I disobeyed his rules again?

I felt a yawn creeping out, but I stifled it before it could make headway. It was another thing on his list of rules. No sounds, only words. But if I had let it out, would I have been punished for it? Or would it be like the incident just now? I brought my hand up to my neck and scratched again. Was he even here? Where would he go? He had left before, but only ever for up to a week, and even then he would leave me in the dwelling. But I wasn't there anymore. Neither was he. I had no idea where I was. Did he?

I figured I wouldn't be able to sleep like this, not tonight. It would mean I'd be tired in the morning, but I could deal with it. I have before. It wasn't safe enough to go to sleep. I paced around the room. The white light above my head shone viciously, and even after I looked down it didn't go away. I could block it out by closing my eyes, but that would be too risky. It wasn't worth it.

—

The light flashed relentlessly, but I paced around even more so. I had little concept of time at this point, being stuck in the little enclosure I was in. My feet were feeling quite numb, even after I began wriggling my toes around to encourage blood flow. My head was still looking down. I focused my vision on my toes. They were pale, a brief faint pink colour filling them whenever I moved my toes. The back of my neck hurt, I think it was strained. Likely from hanging my head down for as long as I think I did. But I couldn't look up. Not with the vicious spawn of migraines and blindness that would follow. Keeping my neck down was a far less painful decision, so I kept it at that.

Back at home I had no control over the lights. He said I wasn't allowed. He said it was a privilege reserved for grown-ups. He said so, and so I obeyed. It was that simple. But now I was starting to have doubts that anyone would come back here, to switch off the lights and grant me permission to climb onto the bed. Perhaps they just forgot about me, like he sometimes did.