I'll Sing For Me

15

When I came too, I found myself alone and very sore. My face felt swollen and I had difficulty opening my eyes.

I felt around the room, looking for pants to slip on. I was cold and very tender and sore.

When I emerged from my room, mum was in the kitchen, holding a metal spoon over the gas stovetop flame.

"Hey. You look different." She mumbled to me, not even bothering to bat an eyelid. It was like tonight never happened. She acted like it was a usual thing for her to wake on the floor. I saw the slight mark on the side of her face and shook my head, ready to explode.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I tried to scream but my throat hurt, my voice was raspy. I couldn't deal. I didn't want to deal.

I went to the front door and walked out, slamming the door behind me. Even my own mother doesn't see the bruises on me. That's how fucked up she is.

The sky was black and I started staggering down the street. The street lights were dim when they worked, not giving out enough light to make out someone under them as I dragged my feet.

I felt safer right now than I did earlier. My head was pounding, I had difficulty breathing, I couldn't see properly and I just wanted to collapse.

I could still feel the drugs in my system, but I perservered through till I found the familiar street I wanted.

Groaning, I stepped forward up the slight hill. One step at a time. It felt like I took forever to get to the front door and when I did, I knocked.

I didn't collapse till after it opened, a shrill scream welcomed me as I started to bawl my eyes out.

The rest of that night was a blur. Everything happened so fast yet it felt like slow motion.

Ally got the police and ambulance out, I heard her on the phone. Steph sobbed upon seeing me, later finding out she has been out all night with Tommy, looking for me in one car, Dean in another, till Tommy had to return home.

There were people everywhere around me and I was so scared. Lights flashed before me, white, red, blue. People spoke to me and I tried to answer their questions, but I felt so overwhelmed. Steph held my hand the whole time and I could hear her crying next to me.

The hours ticked by and slowly but eventually, I told them everything I knew. I wasn't keep count of time, or people around me. Sometimes I saw Dean and or Ally in the same room as me, sometimes I didn't. I told them what happened last Wednesday, every gruesome second that I remembered. How my mother is a drug addict. My father is an alcoholic.

The conditions that I lived in, the starvation I endured. The abuse and I eventually got to Zeek.

I stated how I had been staying with Steph, sharing her room and how Ally looked after me.

Then I continued with today, or yesterday. I don't know what the time is. I told them how I was being bullied and what was said to me to push me to becoming suicidal. I stated that I wanted to leave, end it all, because it will keep happening, over and over. I heard more sobs from Steph as she squeezed my hand. I couldn't look at her, I felt so ashamed. The only place I could look was down, my feet on the floor.

After a minute of calming myself thanks to Steph's contagious crying, I continued, telling them that I was going to overdose myself then decided not to, how my mothers drug dealer came and knocked my mother out. I even mentioned his name and address because I'm sick of being the victim. I hate being the victim. Then I repeated in words what Isaac did to me, drugging me up, having his way with me, hitting me.

I don't know who heard my story, but it had to go. I had to take it off my chest and release it. I can't live knowing this secret.

We moved from Ally's house to the hospital. There was Ally and Steph with me, I no longer knew where Dean went. I had a nurse that wasn't Ally with me, a doctor and a couple police officers with me. Plus, child services. They offered a place for me to stay for a while, about two hours drive east from us but I declined, not wanting to leave Steph.