Lead Me Out of the Dark

Meltdown

“I fucking hate this!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Usually, I was calm, quiet, and reserved. Today I felt like I wanted to hit someone in the face. Hard. We’d been filling out a worksheet where they had written down emotions, and you were supposed to draw something that reminded you of that emotion. Under scared I’d drawn red. The person in charge of group had asked me why I had drawn that, and she wouldn’t stop pestering me about that. As if that hadn’t been bad enough, then she made us watch a hypnosis video. It was supposed to be fun, but as we watched the video, I began seeing my mother. I saw her stabbing my father. The knife with going into his skin like butter. In and out, in and out.

I bolted out of the room, fully intending to run back to my own room. This group had been separated by gender so that we could talk about any girl or guy problems we had. The guy’s group was already finished, and they were all hanging out in the lounge. The nurse in charge of group ran out, gripping my arm so tightly I gasped. It felt like she was trying to cut the circulation off.

“You have to return to group.” She hissed. I only sobbed louder. My dad was dropping to the floor, and I was just standing here. Why the Hell was I just standing here!? Oh, right, because this woman was holding me in place. She was the reason my dad was dead. It was all her fault.

“Get the Hell off of me! Don’t fucking touch me!” I snarled, pulling myself out of her grip. I pulled backwards so hard I landed on the floor. Everything hurt and everything was numb at the same time. I liked this place so much better when I was a naive fourteen year old. I had been a lot more messed up then, but everything was much simpler. There was only coke and not coke. There were the days I was sober enough to think and then there were the days I didn’t remember. It was a piece of cake. Now my mother was laughing. She was laughing as she stabbed him. Then the knife clattered to the ground and my dad was falling. As I sunk to his side, I remembered all the times he’d brought me on a ‘trip’ with him. I remembered all of the times he’d laughed sadistically while I helped him carry the bodies. I remembered all of the times he had hit me when I’d done the job wrong. I remembered how the bruises and the cuts he’d left would fade as I snorted. I remembered the disgustingly awful crash I got after each snort.

                “Skye!” My dad was yelling at me now. I winced and retreated, shoving my back against the wall. I covered my face with my hands. The face was the worst. Everyone asked me where I got the bruises when they were on my face. I could take them anywhere else. The kids at school still thought I was a gymnast. That had been the lie my dad had made me tell them. I was training hard and I fell a lot. You’ll tell them you suck at gymnastics like you suck at life, he’d hissed to me.

                “Don’t hit me! Please don’t hit me!” I begged. I knew I was making it worse. My dad hated it when I cried. Still, I couldn’t help it. Each blow was agonizing. I had to sit there while he shoved dirty socks into my mouth. They never could keep me quiet for too long. That would just make him angrier.

                “Skye, you’re at the hospital. No one’s going to hit you,” a voice cooed. Someone reached down and I wailed, shoving my arms and legs, kicking blindly. I wouldn’t let him touch me. I couldn’t let him hurt me anymore. My foot connected and someone went “OOMF!” but I wasn’t listening anymore. I was shoved up in a ball, my left side pressed against the wall. I wondered which side my appendices were on. My dad would probably hit that side and make me tell my teachers that I had had appendicitis. He came up with lies so easily.

                “She HIT me!”

                “Get the sedatives!”

                “No! We aren’t sedating her unless it’s a last resort.”

                “Then what the Hell are we going to do!? She’s having an attack!” I heard the voices as if I were at the end of a tunnel. My mother was probably on the phone with my grandmother again. She was trying to pretend that she couldn’t hear my dad throwing me around the room like a ragdoll, just like she pretended I didn’t need stitches. Just like she pretended not to see me snort coke like it was air.