Clothed in our grief

Chapter Thirteen

a/n: This chapter contains references to sexual harassment and pedophelia. (No rape is in this story, and I will never write rape into this story.) But I want to say now, that from this point on things are going to be a little more graphic and the issues that the (reader) has are going to become more important to the story, and who her father is. I am putting a W A R N I N G on this chapter, for obvious reason as stated above.

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You remember walking into the Bookstore all those years ago covered in blood from head to toe. You remember Lea at your side with you trying to help you get up the stairs while Mason is trying to wake your mom up in the apart above the Bookstore.

You remember it being night, which was what made it so easy for a twelve year old to come out of an alley during the middle of the night with a blood slathered monkey wrench in your hand. Dim eyes, and tousled hair as if it's been pulled in every direction from below. As if someone was gripping you by your hair, directly to your scalp, and attempting to pull you off by force.

You remembered being so unable to look at Lea, the blood running down her leg and all the tears in her dress from her attacker. The attacker that would never do anything to another little girl again. Would never hurt your friend again.

You remember not being able to smile for a while after that, you remember being unable to show any form of emotion other than irritation. You remember Lea fainting due to blood loss from the large gash in her thigh from the stab wound she had gotten. Just centimeters away from the femoral artery, which is what kept her alive. The fact that her attacker didn't stab her in any artery.

You remember your mother grabbing you by the shoulders while Mason is trying to call the police. you remember hearing him yelling out of fear as he's choking back sobs while telling the operator on the end of the line that his friend's just been stabbed, and he thinks she might be dead because she isn't waking up. He's a kid, so of course out of shock and fear he had assumed she died before checking her pulse or looking to see her chest rising and falling.

You remember being unable to move, while your mother shakes your body back and forth. Desperately trying to get your attention. To make those eyes of yours seem less like a haze and more of the color that actually resemble your eyes. Make you feel like this is all real, yank you back into reality. Pull you out of the trance you're stuck in.

And she knows this is the worst it's gotten so far. Because after minutes, minutes of trying to get you to snap out of this trance? She's calling your father, demanding that he comes back because she blames him for this. Blames him for what happens to you.

Because he took you away from her for an entire year, and to where? Some remote island, and when you come back? A year later? You don't remember anything, but you're suddenly able to defend yourself and then some. Even more so, to rub salt into the wound that's just the rift between a mother separated from her daughter, you know how to use a sword and hurt someone with it. Without even intending to.

And what was she suppose to do? Call the police?

Police wouldn't be able to track your father down, let alone where you were. And she knew where you were. She didn't know the woman that was taking you under her care for a year straight. She didn't know what was being taught to you, and she didn't know where all those scars on your back and legs and stomach came from.

All of a sudden, her innocent baby girl who didn't even know how to raise her voice without crying was suddenly changed into something else. That little girl, you, was too afraid to wear tank tops for the longest time. So afraid to go out in a dress that even showed an inch of the skin on your back. Though, as the older you got, the better the scars would fade.