Anti-Academy

Sweet 16

I wake today the same way I have everyday for the last three years.

Sweat dripping from my pores as if someone turned on my inner faucet.

My bed is soaked with sweat and pain. Cringing I slowly rise out of my bed careful to keep quiet. Moving around slowly I finally manage to rid my bed of the soaked sheets. Opening a window I grab the drenched sheets and head down the back stairs.

I pause and listen for any rustling throughout the house. Hearing none I move quietly to the back window and look towards the garage. I sigh quietly when I see Dad's car gone.

Working quickly I put the sheets in the washer on the quickest cycle before turning to head back up to my room.

Too late.

Mother stands in the door way with the same sinister smile on her face that she's had for the last three years.

I don't even have it in me to flinch anymore. I just quietly meet her gaze. I learned long ago that regardless of my pleading, crying, screaming, stalling or fighting back...well it only intensifies these sessions.

"Come, Sang. It's time to begin." She says laughingly. She enjoys the pain she inflicts on me.

When it first started I actually believed some of the vile things she said about me. But with time came clarity. There isn't anything I did to deserve this. There is nothing I did to cause them or can do to stop them. I am not a bad girl, a slut, whore...I am not what she says I am. I will never be who she says I am. I may be an unwanted person in her family but she isn't the only one who gets a vote.

Max and Marie may not get a lot of time to visit me anymore. But I know they love me. If they knew what was happening to me...they would help and do anything to free me. But I know the cost would be too great. They would never see it and forever deny it but I would be a burden they couldn't afford.

Max has became a fantastic Engineer. When he graduated early with his degree he was in high demand because of his GPA, work ethic and dedication to his work. Not to mention he is quite the inventive engineer most companies are looking for now.

Marie works for a private sector for some agency. Her investigative skills did not go unnoticed and she has done a lot of work to crack some very difficult cases for the FBI, CIA, and some company with a big 'A' logo. She wouldn't talk about it with me but from what little she said on her last visit her and Max both work for the big 'A' company sometimes.

I'm glad they still have each other.
They call when they can but text almost daily. I have an app on my phone called the Kindle and They make sure I have all the best novels. But I use it to do my learning instead. That's how I've kept up my education the last three years. Mom pulled me from public school once the twins graduated. She said she could teach me everything I needed to know.

I now know six languages. English being my main one obviously but I now know how to fluently speak Greek, Japanese, Spanish, Russian and French. I know how to do advanced and complex Mathematics and understand most of the advanced Scientific texts. I have read various how to books. I have a wide knowledge base on how to cook, play instruments (piano, guitar and violin), read sheet music, change the oil, a tire and other various things for a vehicle. Although I haven't ever actually put any of my learning to use. So to actually apply it could possibly be a complete failure but I do know the steps.

It's all a part of my dream. I have it all written in my journal up stairs. Eventually I will live in a cozy place. A cottage maybe surrounded by winter lands. I want a place she will never find me. I want to live a life filled with things I have yet to find that I love. I don't know what all the rest of my life will be like but I do know...

I want to live.

Mother has done her best to use every session she has with me to teach me social morals, etiquette, responsibility and her favorite "life skills".

"Sang!" Her piercing voice jerks me from my daydreaming. 

I look up to meet her very angry gaze.

"Looks like you need another lesson on punctuality. When I say move you don't hesitate!!" She screeches as she grabs my arm in her tight fist. She pushes me down the basement stairs. I manage to catch myself half way down and climb slowly to my feet. Looking up I meet her disappointed gaze as she motions for me to continue.

When I reach the floor of the basement I gaze upon the familiar torture setting. There's a metal chair that is attached to a mechanical base that allows it to raise, lower, tilt and spin. The arms of the chairs hold leather wrist bands while the legs are metal bands that connect to the locking mechanisms. On the wall behind the chair there are rows and rows of torture instruments, stacks of towels (some still bloodied from yesterday) and last but not least beside the chair... The thing that always attracts my attention last is the one thing that destroys any hope for my day. The battery attached to the wires that connect to power the sharpened electric probes.

Sometimes it is hanging on the torture wall and isn't used. But on days when it sits in the place it does today, I know for sure that my pain will be the most difficult to endure.

I close my eyes and move forward. Even knowing the pain I will face everyday I can never find it in me to tell Max or Marie about any of this.

On the really bad days I sometimes wonder if it's out of a deep ingrained guilt, shame, self-loathing...Why tell them and let them suffer with me?

But on the good days I know that it is out of love. We may not have ever had a great life when they were home. But knowing about this would shatter everything they know and believe. I want them to always hold goodness in their hearts. I want them to live their life as best as they can. Having me with them, depending on them, needing them...that's not the way I want them to live their life. 

I will not be their burden. I will not be the thing that derails their life of following their dreams. I will not be what Mother says that I am.

Never.

That is why I always willingly walk to this room, to this chair and sit down. The smile she wears as she straps my arms and legs almost makes me flinch. Instead I just close my eyes and try to center myself. My eyes open when she steps in front of me. She is holding a scalpel she probably stole from a doctors office. Finding my center. I look right through her as she makes the first cut. I don't even have to see her angry gaze as she keeps cutting. I know it's there because I won't make a sound.

She can't break me. I won't let her.

I don't even know that a smile is on my face. I only know the joy I feel at the realization... that I wasn't at all disappointed when she didn't acknowledge my birthday today.