Ego's Trap | ✔

42 | Listen

☆☆☆ Chapter 42 ☆☆☆

Listen

Teresa and I were sitting outside on a plastic loveseat by the grass, looking up at the stars above us. We breathed in the smell of freshly cut grass and damp earth once again, letting it take us over, letting it block out anything else that was on our minds. Didn't last forever, but that little piece of peace was worth the whole world to me. I'm sure Teresa felt the same.

A car or three passed by on the road, reminding us of reality with their purring engines. The sobs oozing out from the windows of the small, cozy old home reminded us of what we had just done moments before. No longer did we hear the radio gush over a home run or cry over a strike-out. Crickets chirped. Frogs croaked. The fan whirred. Mom and Dad sobbed.

We talked. We let them know of everything.

Nothing felt the same. Everything felt off, weird. Talking about what had happened when I was sixteen for the second time was not easier than the first, especially 'cuz it wasn't to Daniel this time. It was to my parents; the ones who raised me and Teresa, the ones who have loved us to the moon and back since the day we were born, the ones who rushed to the hospital and got a speeding ticket for it when they were suddenly called to pick us up from there. We were missing for a couple of days before that, locked up like animals in the home of a monster I foolishly thought to have loved. Yes, I told my parents. Told them of how it was solely by pure luck that I was able to escape with a half-conscious Teresa from the clutches of him and his friends.

I'll never forget their pained, scrunched-up faces as Teresa described just how terrifying it was to hear me scream for help as someone injected her neck and arms with things that left her paralyzed for hours on end, or of Dad's grimacing and squirming when I easily recalled how I got each and every bite, cut, scar. Or of when I gave them the answer they've always asked of me: that yes, I vented out on my wrists, but not all of them were self-inflicted. Many were from him. He loved slitting them before getting it on with me. That my face was scarred from his interest in burning wounds. Deep wounds. That yes, it was that one boyfriend I refused to introduce to them, the one whose face they only saw once and could hardly remember, except for one thing.

"Oh, oh. It's the one with that creepy smile isn't it?"

" <*&@!> . Yes, yes. Him. That was him."

"I knew he was trouble. I fuckin' knew it Imani, but you shrugged me off, claimed that it was just me being paranoid── Teresa, why? Why, what happened? Did you not trust us? Why didn't you tell us 'bout this bastard, why the hell did you keep this from us, why didn't you tell us before he── ! Ugh. Sorry, I... I don't want to point fingers. I... I mean no harm, it just hurts. I... I can't. It hurts. I... I can't believe this. My girls, my baby girls. How... how can I live with myself? Akos... Akosua, please tell me I'm not going mad, please tell me this isn't real. Please tell me our babies are fine. Please."

"They ain't fine, Bruno. Fo' years they been hurt. We know why now."

To think that I need to not just talk for the third time, but to also talk about my feelings on it with Dr. Connor, brings shivers down my spine. It spooks me. I've said his name more times within the past couple of hours than the entirety of my life as a shut-in. For every time I have said it, it has failed to get easier, as expected.

<)*&@!> . <%?(|_)(> . <!@(--!$!-?> . " <\$^+> ."

The name came out of my lips before I could recognize it, and once I did, it stabbed me right in the heart.