The Delinquent's Haven

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

          "We aren't talking about me, Haven.  You've told me things I've never even heard or understood before.  Tell me your eight reasons to who you are and why you are the person that's sitting in front of me," he said, ready to beg to know the answers to his question. 

          "The first one is the drugs and alcohol.  They make the smallest impact on me, but they changed me.  They made me do and say things and hurt people . . .  I would never have done some of the things I did if I had been sober and clean," she admitted.

          "That includes cigarettes, too . . . "  She added on. 

          "The second is the impact of suicide, self-harm and my scars from what I've done.  The most important thing when I look at myself are my scars," she muttered the last part, but it caught Officer Marcus's attention the most. 

          "Why is that?"

          "They're all flaws I caused; each and every one of them are flaws that I've given myself because of the nature of my past.  They reflect who I am and tell a story that no one else has experienced.  It shows my anger and depression; it shows my fear and the Hell I went through.  It's something only I can understand and only you can look at and see," she muttered, feeling exposed as she explained, for the first time, her reason behind getting the roman numeral tattooed on her side.

          "That's actually . . . quite interesting," he said slowly. 

          "The third reason is the people I've met.  The lives that ended because of pain I could understand, but could do nothing about.  Their happiness was there for the taking, and others took advantage of that.  It's almost like they didn't have a chance from day one . . .  It's almost like they've been quitting and giving up since they were born . . . "  She paused to take a steadying breathe, "Everyone fed off of them . . . like they feed off of me." 

          "My ability to feel . . . and how intense these feelings can get have made such a difference.  I can't do something without my conscious or my heart or my gut telling me it's wrong or right or that it really won't make a difference in the end," she looked up at him, now, and stared straight into his eyes.

          "Do you know what that feels like, Officer Marcus?"  She asked, her eyes seemingly growing wider in her sockets, but staying the same slit they were forced into when she looked up and into his own brown orbs.  

          "Yes, I do . . . "  He admitted. 

          "That's half of them . . . "  She muttered, causing him to nod, "That's half of my eight reasons behind who I am."

          The thing was, she wasn't saying it to tell him that.  She was saying it because she didn't even think she could say one of those reasons out loud.  She never thought she would explain her tattoo to anyone . . .  She didn't think it was physically, mentally or emotionally possible for her to do.  

          Yet, here she was.  Explaining a piece of her to a stranger that probably wouldn't even be affected by her life.  It didn't much matter, but it did mean one thing to her . . . and that was that she wasn't important at all, to anyone. 

          Nonetheless, she continued explaining. 

          "My fifth reason is the beauty of the lies and ugliness of the truth.  If you ever hear someone . . . I mean genuinely hear them . . . and look them dead in the eyes at the same time, you can tell if they're lying and what they're feeling.  You can see what hurts them . . . what heals them . . . "  She whispered, her arm suddenly stinging from her earlier cut, thanks to the fence she was body slammed into.