Cancer (Their Story.)

Retrieval

    Knock, knock!

    There was a knock at the door and it made Wynn sick to her stomach. Her mother wasn't home; she was out at book club with some neighbors and most likely getting tipsy from too much rosé wine and crying about her "dying child" to the other house moms with nothing to do on a Saturday morning. Wynn opened the door a crack to see Miss Weeks standing there, a grim smile on her face as she saw Wynn's eyes through the crack of the door.

    "Hello?" Wynn croaked, her throat hoarse from screaming in pain from a recent punishment. She cleared her throat, blinking her eyes at the brightness of the world outside. Miss Weeks slowly opened the door to look in the house. Wynn stepped back, nervous and not knowing what to do. She's never had a visitor, normally they were her mother's guests who were invited to see Wynn at home, laying in bed, weakened from another day without food or sleep.

    "Good evening, Wynn." She smiled, shaking her ebony locks out of her, looking around the messy living room and taking in the wine bottles littered around the carpet. "How are you doing with your treatment?" Wynn looked down at her socked feet, the clean whiteness of them contrasting against the stained carpet now an off-white color from never being cleaned before. Her mother was too lazy to clean and Wynn didn't care anymore. It didn't even matter to her. She didn't mind living in filth, her mother did remind her all the time that she was garbage, anyway. "Caenum!"  (kay-nuum) She would cry in latin, her long fingers easily wrapping around Wynn's throat. This was three punishments ago, and Wynn still had bruises on her neck the shape and length of her mother's fingers.

    "Not very well, I guess." Wynn was too tired to lie that well right now, she shrugged her shoulders and Miss Week's smile became strained as she noticed the bright violet bruises on Wynn's bony shoulders and upper arms, She reached out to inspect it, but Wynn jolted back like she had been electrocuted by her teacher's calloused fingers, Wynn still was a wee bit frightened of contact, because the only form of contact she would get were pain and punishment. It hadn't occurred to Wynn that not all contact was bad and that people would ever care for garbage.

    "Wynn. Is your mother not here? Where is she?" She sounded rushed, her stoic grey eyes scanning around nervously as she looked around the gloomy, filthy apartment, "I want to take you away from this place. I'm a foster mom, I know that you're scared to leave, But this is child abuse and I need to take you away from this place." Wynn was surprised by her assumption. Abuse? No, abuse only happened in crappy after school specials, this wasn't child abuse, this was her life. It wasn't normal, but it was Wynn's normal. It's been like this for most of her thirteen years.

   "S-She's at... Bookclub." Wynn stammered timidly, "Will be home in-" She checked her plastic Micky-mouse watch some kid had given to her years ago, "Ten minutes." She kept staring at the watch, watching the hands slowly inch forward to Wynn's certain doom. Her mother would come back and be drunk on rosé wine like the other zombie mom's trying to pretend birthing a kid didn't ruin their lives or any chance of them having a life outside housework and parenting. Wynn trembled at the thought of her mother drunk; the punishments were worse when she was intoxicated. She shuddered in horror, remembering the creatively awful punishments she came up with. Last time she was locked in her pitch-black bedroom for almost two days. Wynn had felt like she was going insane from the darkness and began to become hysterical, clawing at the walls until a small hole began to form and she tried to escape that way. Her mother had beaten her for this, and Wynn's fingernails were bloody and ripped off her fingers by the end of this torturous game.

    Weeks sighed and closed the front door behind her, her voice quivering, but she remained strong as she tried to get through to the mousy girl. "Wynn. I need you to trust me, okay? Your mother is mentally unstable, and I'm frightened that if you stay here, you'll end up like her. please let me help you." Wynn didn't look up from the watch. "I've helped many other kids before, I know what you're going through. Wynn! Look! Look at me!" She gently tipped her chin up and Wynn jolted back like a fearful animal, her breathing picking up as she desperately tried to fill her lungs with oxygen.

   "I can't!" She snapped, her head throbbing as her heart beat against her ribs like the wings of a panicked dove trying to escape the cruel metal bars of a birdcage. "I can't! I can't! I just-Get away! Don't touch me!" She shook her head, her hands clapping over her ears as she childishly blocked out Week's words. 

   "Wynn, Wynn!" Weeks snapped, losing her patience as she tried to rescue Wynn as quickly as she could. She realized this behavior would only frighten Wynn even more and took a deep breath, "Look. These are bruises." Miss Weeks pulled Wynn's scrawny arms up for her to see. They were covered in a mixture of old and new bruises and cuts standing out on her waxen skin like a horrifying watercolor. Each of the lacerations was from punishment, or simply from Wynn collapsing under the stress put on her frail shoulders. "Does a good mother do this to her child!? Huh? Wynn, please. Let me take you away from this. You don't deserve to be hurt. You do not have cancer. This is a lie." Wynn knew a lot about lies, she was a lie, nothing about her was real anymore. Wynn Infirmos didn't exist anymore. Wynn was simply her mother's pawn; a chess piece in a grotesque game.

   Wynn hesitated, her mouth opening and closing. She looked at the woman's hopeful face, then back down at her arm. Wynn didn't know what to say. No one has ever tried to help her, and Wynn had gotten deep enough in the lies to actually begin to believe them. She didn't deserve help, she deserved the beatings and the starvation, the sleep deprivation, and the many illnesses she had to fake over and over. Wynn then realized that she didn't know why she deserved this. She didn't remember what she did to deserve all of this. She was a quiet child and stayed out of her mother's way, but she would be constantly told that 'it was her fault.' What was her fault? What did Wynn do to deserve this tribulation, as well as the tears in her skin and soul?

   "Please." Miss Weeks pleaded, her grip on her arm tightening slightly, effectively startling Wynn back to a hellish reality she desperately wanted to escape from, but just like a captive bird, the moment she would get out of the cage, she'd find that her wings were clipped. Wynn still didn't know what to say. She stuttered nervously before murmuring helplessly.

   "Why are you doing this? You don't have to. Why are you doing this for me?"

   "No one should go through this, Wynn. C'mon, let me bring you somewhere safe."

   Wynn began to cry, her shoulders heaving as she nodded, raising her hands to her face to cover the tears that rolled down her olive skin. Weeks wrapped her arms around her in a comforting embrace, and for once, Wynn knew that Miss Weeks wouldn't hurt her. She was taken away from that horrible place she couldn't even call a home and was brought Miss Weeks house, where a teenage girl with dyed blue hair holding a dark-skinned toddler about three years old opened the door. They looked at each other and seemed to understand what's going on.

   "9-1-1?" The teenage girl asked, looking at Wynn's bald head and bruises all over her neck and arms. Weeks nodded and the teenager scuttled away with the child. Wynn simply stared at the floor, too timid and nervous to interact with Miss Weeks or the girl. 

   "You're safe now." Weeks comforted, "Celeste is calling the police, you're going to okay. Look, you're too scrawny. Let's get you something to eat." Wynn nodded hesitantly, looking around the house. It was nicely decorated, with a grand piano in the corner. The beige walls were filled with framed pictures of children smiling with Weeks, Weeks getting married to a woman, Weeks and a blonde woman at a beach holding hands. Wynn has never felt that kind of love before. But now she realized that her mother couldn't get her anymore, she was safe. She was loved here.

   She began to cry, taking it all in. She's never felt this way before, she would never have to worry about beatings, or forcefully getting her head shaved anymore. This place was safe. Weeks noticed her standing there and smiled knowingly, she's seen this behavior in other abused children she's saved. The shock was hard to deal with and Weeks needed to get her something to eat before she collapsed.

  "What do you want to eat?" She distracted Wynn and gently led her into the kitchen by gingerly laying her hands on her back, "We have cereal, Fruit, Veggies... Ya know, my late wife really liked plain cheerios, they're disgusting, but have you tried them befor-" Wynn wrapped her arms around Weeks and buried her face into her shoulder, interrupting her.

  "Thank you, Miss Weeks."

  "Naomi. Call me Naomi."