The World I Live In (Crazy Hetalia Fanfic)

Fifty-Four

I always thought I had had a happy childhood, but I just didn’t like my life, so I left.

          That’s not the case.

          I can remember everything now.

          I remember when I was little, my mother teaching me so much on the piano, but not nicely. I learned jazz, rock, pop, classical, and contemporary, but by force. I remember that she would yell and call me ‘stupid’ or ‘influent’ when I denied playing or played wrong. I remember that I can sing, and that I know guitar, and a little ukulele. I remember how my mother had killed herself, cutting her eyes out with scissors. I remember that, although she was a cruel woman, I had loved her, and I had wished her the best in the afterlife.

          I remember going to live with my older sister, Melody, and her  boyfriend, Chuck. I remember how I would find hospital needles and smoking pipes in the bathroom, and how I would also find blood drops on floors, walls, even on furniture. I remember how after they got completely wasted and high on their drugs, they would either forget about me or, if worse came to worse, hurt me and call me names. My sister would yell and scream and give me punishments for no reason, while my brother-in-law would hit, cut, kick, and burn me with his cigarettes. I remember not having any true, real friends, and hating the way I looked, all skinny and bruised and scabbed and scarred.

          I remember being thirteen, and stealing enough money to run away. I remember before then, listening to my teacher talk about the world, which caused me to remember that I flew to England, using my sister’s credit card. I bought a bunch of stuff that I might need, including a large backpack, and got a job at a bar as a musician. My scars and scabs and bruises healed, and I finally had a decent-ish life. My boss was a nice man who kept me company and gave me money for essentials after I clipped the credit card so I wouldn’t get caught. I remember calling him Uncle Oliver. I remember having a donated – By Uncle Oliver, of course - child’s bed, with ragged quilts and a pillow, and the bathing necessities I would need. When we were asked, my boss and I said we were related. I never explained why I left my sister to him, just that I did and had no intention of ever returning. He understood, although I don’t know why, for he never told me. I told him of my plan to keep moving and exploring, so I wouldn’t be caught, and he nodded, and gave me more money, sending me on my way. I miss him, come to think of it. He was truly family.

          I remember visiting France afterwards. I remember working at a café in a small city. My coworker, Francis, let me live with him for the small time I was there. He was kind and sweet, and I grew a small crush on him, the first crush I had ever had on anyone. He returned it, but the night I found out about it, I left.

          I remember moving from crappy apartments, to stingy motels, to unlocked basements, to abandoned barns. I remember my clothes growing gross and stale and too small, so I would use whatever money I could get through dirty jobs and handouts to buy food and clothes. Talking to others was very difficult, because I did not know their native languages most of the time. It was troubling.

          I remember being fourteen and stuck on the streets of Russia, with no food or jacket of any sort. I remember that cold, dark, winter night when I was gang-raped in a back alley by a group of college boys. I remember Ivan being one of the six men. I remember not telling anyone about how soiled my clothes got after that, or how I started bleeding from down there a few days later, for the  first time. I remember learning it was natural, and part of growing up, when I was in Europe once again.

          I remember being sixteen, and being in Canada, when I was found. They all said how amazed they were at my hiding for so long, and that my family had been worried sick. Bullshit. I remember escaping them, and stealing a boat from a dock in Mexico, fleeing towards Australia. I remember finding the boat to be a cargo boat, full of pills of some sort. I remember taking a lot of them, hoping it would help me get away, once and for all.

          I remember waking up on the Island.

          I guess the pills worked, huh?

          I need to wake up.

          I can’t move, my body is made of cement. I don’t even know if I have a body. I can’t see anything. My eyes are closed, if I have any. I don’t want to open them, for that means going forward in this life, explaining all of what I  remembered to everyone, seeing their expressions. Their pained expressions.

          I’ll sleep more.

          Maybe I’ll forget again.