Knowing 12 - Boys of Tommen

1.

sara

I gripped the sink, holding on to my sanity with both hands. I couldn't look. Every time I looked in the mirror I saw them. Every time I was alone, I was reminded that they knew. Trying, with all my might, to wipe their faces from my head I finally lifted my eyes to the girl staring back at me.

"Block it out" I choked, a coldness that didn't sound like me laced through my voice.

I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand my own fucking reflection. Because when I looked at me I was reminded of them and when I thought of them it tore me apart from the inside out. It ricocheted through me until all I could feel was disgust.

Who was she? How could I become so weak?

I closed my eyes so tight that it hurt. I tried to forget as hard as I could. When I looked back at myself I took in the reflection, no matter how undone I felt, I could never show it.

In the mirror stood a girl in a new uniform, navy jumper with the Tommen College crest on the breast with a white shirt and a red tie. I smoothed down the fabric and tried to imagine the future. What the next few weeks and months would look like. I would outrun them. So far away, even his handprints would be a distant memory.

I urged the tears to stop before they could begin to fall. This was no way to start this new chapter. This was supposed to be my new beginning, I could forget everything that happened at BCS and finally move on. Finally, be someone else. The old me, the old girl who everyone knew and loved.

I was going to be with my friends. Claire and Lizzie, while also leaving two behind, Shannon and Katie. I was one year ahead of Claire and Lizzie, but just knowing they were walking the same halls as me was comforting.

Leaving Katie and Shannon behind was hard. Even though I didn't see Shannon much throughout the day, due to her being a year below me, I knew she felt truly alone now. And Katie, all of those mean girls would focus their energy towards her. It made me sick to my stomach to think about that school. For these last few years it had been almost unbearable. Once the final straw broke I couldn't imagine ever walking back into that building. I wouldn't. I couldn't.

I begged my parents to never make me go back. I refused to leave the house. They argued with me until they finally made me spit out what had been happening. A group of older girls despised me and Katie, while Shannon was undergoing her own torture. Hers was no doubt much more harsh, due to her being smaller than average and the perfect punching bag for people who hated themselves so much that they had to take it out on others. These older girls never let me and Katie go a day without doing or saying something horrible. Katie used to be the smartest in our class until this all started. Now she was on the same level as me, failing half of her classes and barely passing the others. When I first came to BCS after leaving behind my best friends I thought it would be so hard to fit in with anyone else. For the most part, it was. But meeting Katie, who also sat in the back and avoided eye contact with the teachers, felt like a miracle. I had never seen her in Primary School and she didn't like to talk about it very much. I got the feeling that she didn't have many friends but I couldn't fathom why.

She was the sweetest girl I had ever met. She was gentle and caring, fiercely loyal. Her auburn hair was beautifully long and even though I knew she was insecure about it, her freckles were a reminder of all the times she made me feel less alone. Together we were able to make it through, I just hoped that she didn't feel abandoned now. Casey Lordan, who always took a liking to Katie, was still there at BCS. She never let those girls give us shit when she was around. At least Katie had her.

Tommen would be a big change, a right change for me. I wouldn't let anything mess it up. The only problem was I couldn't run from my head. I couldn't escape my thoughts.

Being with those girls again, the girls I grew up with, encouraged me to be the girl that they knew. But I was scared they would all see right through me, right down to the cuts that had never stopped bleeding.

Liz was never the same after her sister's death and maybe that's when I first saw it too. Saw how cruel the world could be, that sometimes it felt like there was no point to all of the mess around us. But now I not only understand that, I understood her. Caoimhe.

Life could be so heavy that it weighed us down. Moving through each day felt like a chore. No one understood and no one saw. Soon enough the ordeal felt too painful to even imagine a future for yourself. Then everything you feel and think becomes numb. Because your brain is telling you that it's done and your body is tired of pretending. I know why she did it. I know why she felt like there was no other way out, no other choice. I was just too much of a coward to actually do it. So I was stuck in a cycle, trying to stay alive, trying to keep breathing even when it was the last thing I felt like doing.

Lizzie Young used to be my best friend. Caoimhe used to take us to the park and drive us around town, singing songs while hanging our heads out of the window. I still long for that feeling. Before it happened and the world got dark and truthful. Before I saw things for what they really were. When there was still a glare over my eyes, a childish naïveté. Sometimes I think being naive is a good thing. I sure as hell would pay good money for it come back. Maybe then I wouldn't understand Caoimhe. Maybe then I could go through a full day without thinking about it.

I wanted it to stop.
I wanted their hands to stop.
I wanted the memory erased from my head.
Why wouldn't it just stop?

When I felt the tears falling and I realized there was nothing I could do to stop it, I sat down on the bathroom floor and cried. Cried for me. Cried for who I used to be. And cried for when the time would come when I just couldn't go another day.

I wiped the tears from my cheeks. Gripped the sink again and began brushing my teeth. The tears didn't stop. It seeped into my skin. God, why was I like this?

My skin was red and my eyes were rimmed with evidence of what I truly felt, what I couldn't hide.

I would never be the girl they used to know.

I could never turn back the time.

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