The Perfect Sin (Camren)

Ch 18- The Pain In Satisfaction

It started out small. 

Something as simple as staying under the water in the bathtub too long and just thinking, what if I don't come up for air? 

See you don't just wake up one day and decide you want to hurt yourself. You don't suddenly decide to end your life it creeps up slowly, and simply. 

As simple as not looking both ways before crossing the street. 

You become careless with yourself, it sort of begins with not being afraid of death. Kind of like something you won't go do on purpose but if it just so happens you wouldn't necessarily mind it. 

Simple. 

As simple as looking away from the road while driving. 

At the time I didn't think much of it, not because I didn't know what I was doing, but because I didn't want to admit it. 

I want to die, but I can't even kill myself right. 

Those were my thoughts.

It was the truth. 

Growing up, I was never the popular kid in school. I was quiet and reserved just as I was taught to be in church. 

Then, I would get to come home and see my uncle.

Everyday. 

I don't remember the reason he was living with us when I was in middle school or high school. There was always a different one. 

But I remember those days and wondered how I survived, or when I even began to get better. Though, I remember the pain, the discomfort, and the exhaustion clear as day.

Because I would go to school and get bullied for all kinds of reasons or for no reason at all. 

Too Hispanic for the white kids, too white for the Hispanic kids. 

Too bad for the church people, too good for the non-religious. 

Too quiet for the popular kids, too opinionated for the introverts. 

I was nothing, belonged nowhere.

The majority of my adolescence was spent believing I was a nuisance. 

Looking back, I'm not sure I realized what was happening because that's just the way life was. 

You go to school and get teased or ignored. (I preferred being ignored) 

Then I'd go home, and be face to face with my abuser having to treat him like nothing was wrong. 

At night I would lock my door, knowing fully well that it wouldn't work, and be too afraid to fall asleep. 

To think, at the time, I had no clue that life was not supposed to be that way. 

"You don't have to be here," mom said definitively. 

"Of course she does" dad cut in

My family would wonder why I spent hours in the bathroom with my music blasting. Just me and my show tunes. 

"Micheal" mom scolded "Don't you think it's unnecessary?" 

Truthfully, it was because the bathroom was the only place where I was safe. In the bathroom, there were no bullies calling me a wetback or a spik. There was nothing being done to me against my will there was just me, and twenty songs that told me the story of someone else's life because I certainly didn't want to be living my own. In the bathroom, there were razors, and that was important because that was how I learned to cope.