Ivory Manor

9.

I pull around the side of the stone fountain that sits central in the unkempt driveway.

The once vibrant, luscious flowers and bushes are long dead. The flower beds sit disused with overgrown weeds that have strangled the other foliage instead.

I peer at the manor, unable to take my eyes away from the tall structure.

Time has hardly changed the outside appearance other than that there is more green, white edged leafs climbing up the front and sides.
The windows are all dark, the cream curtains are closed in every room that us front facing.

I bite in to my bottom lip as I begin to shake and tremble, tears lining my eyes as I scan the area as if an axe weilding man would appear at any moment.

My breathing turns laboured and my vision turnels as I white knuckle the steering wheel. Willing my mind and body to calm the fuck down. It doesn't listen.

Deep breaths, one, two... three. As jf thats going to help! I grow angry. Angered at myself, this house, him, his mum, the will and most of all I suddenly feel overwhelmingly pissed off with the question that is as old as time, why me?

Wetness runs down my cheeks, lips and nose as I messy cry.

Uncontrollable fear plunges me back inside of that cell. The darkness, hunger and being covered in my own waste including vomit. It make my skin feel itchy and dirty.

I scrub at my eyes with the back of my hands as I blurry blink my way to locating my bag and the tissue packet stashed inside.

Pull it together! He is dead! There is nothing in this house that I could discover that the FIB couldn't. I console myself as I keep eighty percent of my attention trained on my surroundings and the other twenty on
scrubbing at my face until I feel friction burn from the tissues, that makes me stop.

I bet he is watching me from his grave right now and enjoying watching me break. Something that he didn't manage to do to me no matter how hard he had tried.

It was when I got away that everything I had been through and did finally settled over my neck like a tightening noose.

I almost lost my fight and gave up, especially when it came to interrogations, hospital visits, therapy and everyone being overly cautious around me, as if they needed to wrap me in bubble wrap.

I mean they knew what I had been through. It's not as if I needed anyone to hold my hand. The fact that they treated me as if I were porcelain was more than what I could cope with after everything I had experienced. I think if they had been more straightforward and told me what to expect from the process then it wouldn't of been so bad.

But they hadn't and I was left reeling from such a dramatic change in every way.

All of a sudden I had two people that wanted to care for me. Who respected my boundaries, melt downs, and nevr once did they push me to share anything I didn't want.

Then there was the therapist I was assigned to, Alanna. She helped to explain a lot of what happened to me and how I was perceiving that within my mind. How the dark thoughts in my head, the confusion, the disconnect from my surroundings as if I were watching life from the outside. How my emotions seem switched off, that I couldn't feel most emotions.

More like my brain knew correct responces so I had to act that way. Such as Maya being excited or happy about something and I knew I should be to, so I would fake it.

Now my life is small but full of the people I care about. Slowly theu have brought me back from the verge.

But. Sitting here now with the ominous manor looming beside me like an undeniable torment, I have thoughts if just putting it up as is at auction. Get what I can and leave it at that.