𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝟖 (𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐂)

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟑 | 𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐤 |

JANURARY 20, 2002
ORLA LYNCH

8 days.

8 days I haven't been able to sleep in my bed.
8 days I haven't been able to look in my mirror without seeing him.
8 days my mouth has been clamped shut.
8 days my brain hasn't worked the same.

8 fucking days.

I find it harder to live in my own skin nowadays. Harder to live in my body, with my mind.

And every time I've tried to even utter a word about it I feel the vomit creep up in the back of my throat, until the words die on my tongue and I walk away full of secrets and shame.

I don't know if people have noticed my changing.

Mam hasn't.

I think Shannon might have.

Joey definitely does.

Why else would he have asked me earlier today if something was wrong. I wanted to tell him, wanted the words to fall out of my mouth instead of dying on my tongue and engaging vomit up my throat. But I couldn't.

Because I was scared.

I was scared of what would happen If I had told him. I know my brother, I also know about his addiction.

I wasn't stupid enough to not notice the way his eyes were always rimmed with redness, as if he were crying. And the way his pupils would be dilated so much I couldn't even see the green anymore.

At first I didn't know what it meant. Shannon did. Shannon told me what she knew, the rest I had learned on my own.

Curiosity would kill a cat. I was still alive though.

I didn't know what Joey would do if I had told him, how he would act. Would he kill da and get arrested? Or would he get himself killed trying too?

Would he go and drown himself in drugs because the truth was too heavy for him to carry and do nothing. Because it was heavy for me.

My lingering questions had stopped the words from confessing out of my mouth.

But the truth still weighed on my shoulders, hung off the tip of my tongue, begging to be released into the public. But my shame and fear had stopped them. I needed my older brother. Not just because he was our protector, but because he was my brother. And I loved him more than anything.

I knew that my truth would be so hard for him to take. I knew that he would think he failed as my older brother, that he would think he couldn't protect me like he couldn't protect her. I knew that it would destroy him. And I didn't want to destroy my already damaged brother.

I just needed to find a way to cope. I needed to act normal and completely fine around others so they wouldn't worry about me. And I needed to be stronger than her, I needed to not be her.

I ignored the distant yelling echoing through the closed door, pretending they were something else, something better and imaginary. I looked at the girl in my mirror and I despised her, I despised how weak she looked.

I was weak.

Weak weak weak.

And I hated it.

I knew it, He knew it. And he had taken advantage of it.

I had hid in here as soon as I saw the front door opening and heard the familiar thud of his heavy boots against the floor. Because I was afraid and weak.

I'm never going to be weak again. Even if it's fake, nobody will think of me as some weak girl they can take advantage of.

I was never going to see this girl again when I looked in the mirror.

I was going to be strong.

Like Joey.

____________
SEPTEMBER 1, 2003

A lot was changed when I looked in the mirror at the girl looking back at me. I still hated her, but she was different. Not clean, not untainted, not perfect, but different.

Bags remained under her eyes, but she was taller. Her hair was dark and longer, her body was different: She had curves now, somewhat breasts, faded bruises and scars littered her body, but she looked different. More feminine, older, more mature. She wasn't new but she was different.

Tugging on my uniform every six seconds as I walked alongside Joey and Shannon heading to my first day of secondary school at BCS, as my nerves had every hair on my body sticking up with anticipation.

I wore the required uniform, styled my long brown hair down, strategically covered my bruises. I looked fine in the mirror this morning, I looked like a normal girl. Now I just need to act like one.

"I don't want to go, Joe." Shannon mumbled. "Please. It'll be the same this year."

"No, it wont." He tells her. "You're in second year now, It'll be better."

I highly doubted that. Shannon was bullied at school. No, tormented is the correct word for her situation. I don't know why people looked at Shannon and thought that she was out to get them so they needed to get her first. But for some reason people did.

And she let them.

She let them claim her as an easy target, and she took the hits, took the foul words they lashed out at her, and she never once retaliated.

Shannon was different from me. While she strayed away from confrontation I craved it more than anything. She was smaller than me, far more undeveloped as well. That was because her way of coping was starving herself half to death.

My sister was malnourished.
Small.
Weary.
And an easy target for people.

People might take her as the runt in the family. But she was far from that. If anything she was one of the strongest people in it. She was titanium for being able to take half the shit she does and not retaliate with violence. She was strong in ways nobody will ever be able to be.

Titanium.

Quickening my pace, I threw my arm around Shannon, ignoring the icky feeling of her skin on mine gave me. "Joe's right Shan, This year will be different." I chimed in. "Because you'll have me, and unlike Joe here, I can hit girls."

Shannon gave me a weary side-ways glance as Joey snickered. "You shouldn't have to fight with people because of me.." She says then, voice small.

I take my arm back and shrug. "I was going to fight them regardless they fucked with you or not."

"Orla, Don't go getting yourself suspended please." Joe sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose: A authoritative tone latching to his voice.

My eyes focused on the fresh bruises he was sporting on his face from my dads latest whiskey tantrum. The thought made my skin crawl and my stomach boil with rage.

I swallowed my anger. "Like you?" I offered.

"Yeah, don't be anything like me."

"Nothing's wrong with you." Shannon and I chorused in unison. Joey has always been so fixated on something being wrong with him, but in reality, something is wrong with all of us.

"Except for the ink in your skin." Shannon offers, reaching to touch the black ink covering his forearm. "It's so permanent."

Shrugging, he says. "Not a fan?"

______________

Sorry this one is short.

hope you enjoyed.

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