Overjoyed

Chapter 12 - Memories will taunt you

I woke up to the late afternoon sun streaming in through my window. Beside me was a lovely sleeping Dan, fully dressed in his trademark hoodie and dirty Converse sneakers. I stretched and his eyes fluttered open. “Hi there” he said, “I came in here to put you to bed and must’ve fallen asleep myself. I hope you don’t mind?” I smiled at him and whispered, “Not at all.” He grinned, looking undeniably gorgeous in the dying afternoon light. “Do you want to talk about what upset you so earlier?” Dan asked, his expression changing to one of concern. I nodded. I trusted this man, more than I ever had anyone, although I’d only known him for a few days. I sat up, cross-legged on the bed, facing Dan who was lying down looking up at me and began to tell him the things I had never told anyone before.

We had a pretty good life. Both of my parents had steady jobs and made decent money, so we lived comfortably. My older brother Michael and I got along really well despite our seven year age gap. I was a happy, oblivious little kid. That all changed when I was four and Michael was eleven. My dad had been coming home from a business conference one evening when a truck in front of him toppled, spilling its load - gasoline. My dad swerved to miss it but lost control of the car resulting in it crashing into a railing and flipping over, setting it on fire. Mixed with the gasoline lying in the road, it was fatal. My dad was killed, burnt beyond recognition. I was too young to understand it; I didn’t know where my dad was, and why my mom never came out of her room anymore. She just stopped going to work, stopped doing anything really. Michael had to do everything for me. Cooked, took me to day-care, everything. I had this hazy memory of one night, I was in bed already and I could hear Michael’s sobs, he was begging my mom to come out of her room but she just stayed silent.

One day, about a year later, I came home from somewhere, I think just roaming about, since there was no one to register me at a school, and I found my mom up and in the kitchen with two large guys. There were packets of white powder on the table and my mom had this odd grin plastered on her face. “My baby!” she cried when she saw me, holding her arms open for me to run into, which I did willingly. I was only five, and I had missed my mom. One of the men said something to my mom that I couldn’t quite hear and she hastily put me down. She told me to go and play and then went into the bedroom with one of the guys.

After that day, there always seemed to be a steady stream of men in our house, some who looked at me like I was something to eat. The white powder changed to syringes and my mom was constantly in a daze. Until one day, she just took off. She just left and didn’t come back. That evening a huge foreign looking man came into our house, kicking down the door when Michael wouldn’t open. “Where’s your mommy?” he asked Michael in an accent I can’t quite place. Michael explained that he didn’t know and the man looked infuriated, until he caught a glimpse of me, cowering behind Michael. “I’ll take you then” he said, pointing at me, a perverted grin on his face. “No!” shouted Michael and lunged at him, hitting him square in the chest. “You little shit!” exclaimed the man and wrapped his hands around Michael’s little neck, lifting him off the ground. Michael's eyes bugged out and his legs and arms were flailing in the air as he struggled. “Go!” he managed to say to me, and I ran.