MAYA, a girl who goes through life with an unwavering smile-around other people that is. While juggling four jobs to support her father and a side hobby of modelling, Maya is rarely at home-to her content. Even through the mental and physical turmoi...
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IT'S ME, MYSELF and a man.
I stand in a room with my nine year old self and the man my father left me with for the first time.
My father has just left us alone when the stranger begins to approach me- younger me. She stares up at the tall man in confusion. Her big, innocent doe eyes, look at him for any explanation. Instead of explaining, he puts his hand on her head, then drags it down her hair to eventually get to her cheek and cup it. "So pretty." He whispers with a hint of a smile.
She smiles at the compliment. I can hear what she's thinking, I like him. He's nice.
"You're a really beautiful girl, you know that?" He asks, this time louder. As if before he was speaking to himself, and now he's speaking to her.
"Thank you." She says, her voice so high pitched and young. Her smile only grows as she lifts her chin to examine him. "I like your hair. I wish my hair was blonde like that."
"I think your hair is perfect." The stranger observes. He releases her cheek, stepping back to look at her in full. She takes the opportunity to push some hair behind her ear.
"What's your name, sweetheart?" He doesn't look in her eyes, something little Maya is oblivious too. His eyes stay trained on her body.
"Mayella! What's your name sir?" She should've been scared. Or at least concerned. She was in an apartment alone, with someone she didn't know, who was asking her questions. We'd been taught stranger danger by our mother. But daddy brought her here. And if daddy thought it was safe, then it must have been.
"You can call me Stefan." She nods, watching as he walks towards her with a look she can't decipher. Only now can I describe it as lust.
"Do you like colours?" He asks, eyeing her unicorn, tie dye shirt.
"Of course!" She nods furiously. Nine year old me used to draw rainbows everywhere. "My favourite is pink...Or blue...Or yellow." The little girl furrows her eyebrows, trying to decide on a colour.
The man chuckles. "Well I have a painting in my room with all three of those colours. Would you like to see it?" She nods excitedly.
The next thing I know, I'm paralyzed in my spot as I watch her scream, cry and fight with everything inside her. She cries out for help, kicks as hard as she can, fights against the hand that bounds both of her wrists together and above her head, all while Stefan takes her innocence away.
With a flash of light, it's me, myself and Stefan. Only this time younger me is fourteen.
Dad had given her pain killers before she got here, he said it was to show her that he cared about her. That he needed the money but this would make it hurt less.
I watch my dad tell teenage me to go sit on the couch and wait for he and Stefan to be done there conversation by the elevator door.
What he doesn't know is that she can still hear them from the couch. You see, the man lived in a pent house, the elevator doors opened into his living room, where his couch stood only a few feet away"She won't scream this time?" The blond man asks.
