The Girl with Cat's Eyes

C H A P T E R 11

I get up every morning

Go to sleep

At night

My head is always spinning

My chest is always tight

I carry on each day

Carry on with my life

Can’t stop routine

Can’t be real, but that’s alright

C H A P T E R 11

**

'Rosie, talk to me, please. I won’t judge, Rose. Please, I know. I know you must do that to yourself. You always feel to seem so dirty after one of them appears. Please, let me help you, tell me why you do it!' It was Levi. He knew. About the cuts. But he didn't seem to care, didn't see me any differently. I didn't care though. I didn't like him knowing. And I didn't want him knowing why I did it.

'Please, Rose, I can help...'

'Why do you care so damn much?'

‘I just do, okay.’

‘Yeah, well, you’re being nosy. I don’t need you, and you don’t need me.’

‘I do.’

‘Why? My life is shit. I’m a burden, nothing more.’

‘Yes, you are. You don’t see your self clearly. You’re amazing.’

‘No, no one would think that… I’m… I’m ugly, broken… You don’t know what you want… Not really…’

‘Yes I do!’

‘You have no reason act like you care! Why pretend you do?’

'Because I love you! I do care, Rosie, I do.'

That shut me up for a few seconds. Then I said quietly, a small smile on my face. ‘They do say that love is blind...’ I looked down at my hands, and said even quieter, so he could barely hear. ‘I love you too, you know.’

And so I told him. Everything there ever was to know about me. I told him about Her. I told him about the beatings.

About how, in the beginning my mum had died... she killed herself... because of me. She was a young mother, seventeen when she had me, and had post natal depression. For three years she went on like that until one day she couldn't take it anymore. Because of me. I kept her up all hours of the night, made her life a misery. I killed her.

Then I told him about how my father had transformed into an abusive parent. I told him about, after she had died, the day after her funeral, when he had hit me first.

I told him about how my father had stopped me drawing and writing for fear of social services getting involved. It happened once, I remember in year five. We had to draw a picture of our family. I drew father hitting me. I was good at drawing even then. I remember, I thought it was normal, what Dads did. He told me he did it for my own good, that he was just punishing me to make me a better person on the inside. Social services visited but Dad made them think I was lying, and I went along with it, too scared to say anything. I got a sound beating after that incident.

I told him about how he was an alcoholic, how he had been since year seven.

I told him about how my own father so often thought I was my mother.

I told him about who I was.

I told him that I was a slut.

A bitch.

That he shouldn't have been near me.

But he stayed, all the same, and held me tight as tears streamed down my face.

He stayed.

He was silent throughout my story except for the occasional squeeze of sympathy.

He didn't care about who my father was.

He didn’t care my mother was suicidal.

He didn’t care about my past.

He didn't care that I cut.

He cared only about me.

And so he stayed.