Tainted laws

05

"A smile does not portray happiness" - unknown.

ALEXA

How many hours has passed? I don't know, how many times had he crossed my mind? countless. Even though he wasn't here I could feel the burning in my chest, it was only a matter of time before he found me.

After taking an abnormal amount of cabs, busses and trains for short distances to ensure he can't keep a scent on my trail, I ended up in Leeds.

I hope I have some breathing room.

I checked into a cheap hotel because my money was running low, cabs are expensive, everything is expensive. I think I have about £250 left.

For the first time in a long time I felt an emotion that I thought I could no longer feel. Fear. It's very easy for life to just flip on you, turn all you have so desperately worked for upside down. All off your efforts are just thrown away.

Sometimes I wish I was normal, just a girl, who grew up with a loving mother, caring father and a sibling she can argue with over the dumbest things. I wish I could cry over boys, play with barbie dolls, have sleepovers where I can gossip.

I missed out. A lot

I grew up with countless beatings, merciless training, starvation, I was an operation, I was a woman, when I should have been just a girl. I learnt the art of seduction, I was meant to be something invincible, a weapon of sorts. It was all preparation.

Preparation for operation Shadow.

I knew my normal until I was 16. They thought I was brainwashed enough to know that TV shows, movies and books based on real life experiences were fake. They never let me watch them, but sometimes I'd sneak away from the piss covered basement and read. It showed me what it was like to be a girl. A young woman, an actual person.

That was the moment I knew I would have to escape. It pained me. A child still feels love for their abusive parents, even though their parents never had a maternal or paternal instinct in their bodies.

Something broke, no I'm not trying to be different or "quirky" I just don't feel love, I will never feel it. The walls I have built are impossibly tall and ridiculously thick, it's a defence mechanism, I know if I open my heart it'll just get torn apart. I barely stitched it together last time, it's fragile still, the glue I moulded
it so tediously with hasn't set.

The wound is still fresh, still bleeds, still there. It's not a scar yet, not something I can cherish and think that I have grown from it. Some people say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. What didn't kill me, made me weak. If I was strong I would be able to communicate, not intimidate. I would be able to not have to look over my shoulder because I'm scared. I would be able to have friends, hold them dear, have parents I can look after when they grow old. I could have feelings for them.

But I do not.

I'm aware that I am still just a little girl hence why, my exterior needs to be so strong. I couldn't completely find all the pieces to my heart, it could snap and break because of all those crevices I have missed. My smile, my words, just me, is that impenetrable wall I have created in order to survive. Deep down I know I am just a default version of what I could have been.

I lay down on the bed and feel some sort of relief. It would be short lived, I know that. I strip down out of the clothes and step into the shower, my first shower in days, even weeks maybe? I let the cold water cascade down my back, burning the injuries that were inflicted on me. Scrubbing all parts of my body, removing all of their painful touches, all of his touches from my body.