Part of Me

04

04

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"Mind your thoughts because your whole body is eavesdropping. Your thoughts determine your destiny."
-Dr. Prankaj

"FUCK," I hissed in pain.

"Dev?" In the reflection, I saw Mary walk into the bathroom, frowning when she saw my dilemma. Without a word, she walked over and took the makeup from my hands, taking over from where I left off. Somehow, she was better at makeup than I was despite me having to constantly cover up bruises and cuts for the past three years. When I asked her about it once, she just told me that her mom was super into makeup and taught her before CPS took Mary away, which is also how we got that makeup. We used as little as possible and when we ran out, well let's just say Mary has some sticky fingers in the drug store down the street.

"Thank you."

She gave me a strained smile while putting everything back in its hiding space beneath the sink. "I would be lying if I said I was mad at you for taking the beating for Beatrice, but Devyn, he's going to kill you one day."

The way she said it—so sure, her voice shaking with fear—made me want to agree. And maybe she was right, but it didn't change anything. Better me than Beatrice.

"It's better than them laying a hand on Carter or Beatrice," I replied with a sigh.

The events flashed before my mind again, just like it had been doing for the past hour in a vicious cycle. When I didn't come up to the room, Mary left the window open just in case. Beatrice told her roughly what happened, but Mary being Mary was genuinely scared Jason had given into all of his rage and killed me, so when I came stumbling in the window, she nearly had a heart attack.

I shuddered. "He, um," I cleared my throat and rubbed my hands down my arms in an effort to warm myself, "he was going to—to rape me, Mar."

"What?"

I squeezed my eyes shut for a minute to try to push back the tears, but it was a mistake. Everything flashed before me again. This time, my mind went down a rabbit hole of what ifs and possibilities if I hadn't escaped.

"Devyn," Mary whispered. Gently, she pulled me into her arms. "You don't have to be so strong all the time, you know. In a few months, you'll turn eighteen and leave, and we'll have to figure out how to survive without you protecting us."

I shook my head. "No, no I'm going to figure out a way to get you guys out of here."

She pulled back and looked me in the eye. "You have to accept that there might not be a way to get us all out of here. Carter and Beatrice might get adopted, sure, but I'm older. I won't. I just have to wait it out."

"No! Mary—"

She grabbed my hand and held it in hers. "Devyn, you can't fix everything. I can survive without you. You don't take the fall for me now, do you? No. I'll be fine. You need to start worrying about getting your ass out of here before he kills you or actually succeeds in what he was trying to do tonight." She let out a wry chuckle. "Besides. With you gone, I'll finally have the room to myself."

Rolling my eyes, I took my hand out of hers, instead running it through my hair. "I don't know what I'll do, Mar. Where I'll go. My dad had no family and my mom's family is on the other side of the world. I might want to go far, but I'm too broke to even entertain that idea. Maybe I could go to another town. Finish high school. Life would be easier with my GED. Ugh. If this wasn't so damn complicated, I would just get a place here and stay here to graduate."