The Darkness Within Us

Chapter 3

The next 3 months passed in a blur. Hospital visits, police interviews, therapy sessions all seemed to blend together. I remember picking up the newspaper and reading about it. 'Woman, 20, kills notorious criminal in self-defence.' My anonymity was something at least. I got enough pitting looks from my family, friends and therapist to last me a life time. I did not need more from the rest of the world. Nor did I want anyone to know what I'd done, what I'd now become. I don't feel guilty about killing the man who I subsequently learned was called Bruno Rossi. It was kill or be killed, and I did not deserve to die. But that doesn't change the facts. I killed someone and therefore I am a killer. I wasn't too keen of having those particular facts aired to anyone outside of my inner circle.

My family had been amazing, for the first two weeks my little sister climbed into my bed every night and held me while I cried. Mum made all my favourite food and drove me to every therapy appointment. Dad didn't really know what to do, so to a certain extent pretended that it hadn't happened, which I actually really appreciated. To have normalcy in all this stress was comforting.

I had decided that I wasn't going to let the act of a very bad man throw my life away. I continued with my degree despite my tutors telling me that it would be ok to take the semester off. In fact, I worked twice as hard to catch up on everything I missed during the three weeks that Mum made me take off. I still worked at the Burger Bar but now Mike insists on driving me to and from work every shift. It feels a bit silly because I only live 5 minutes away but I'm secretly glad.

Whenever I'm outside the shop on my own I start to shake. Logically, I know I'm safe but something in my body just reacts in a way I can't control. It takes me back to the moment I'm sitting there, with bloody hands staring at his body.

I joined the local gym. I don't enjoy exercise. In fact I hate it with a passion, but I just can't get it out of my brain that if I hadn't have the knife in my pocket that night, I would have died. I want to be able to protect myself as best I can. So I work hard to get faster and stronger. I attend self-defence classes and combat classes so I would know how to ward someone off if they were to attack me.

I suppose that it was my coping mechanism. To be prepared if anything like that every happened again. It was the only thing that made me feel safe enough to climb out from under my covers each morning.

Now, I was about to go into the next stage of my life, a fresh start. I had gathered my savings scraping together, all the tips that I had earned from working at Mike's, until I had enough to move out. It wasn't much, a modest studio flat above a shop. It was small, had some issues with mould and hardly any floor space with all the furniture, but it was mine.

Mum wasn't too pleased. She wanted me at home where she could keep me safe, where she could keep an eye on me. She pleaded for me to stay but I told her that this was what was best for me. As much as I love my family, living at home with my parents, sharing a small box room with my sister and sleeping on a creaky single bed wasn't exactly my idea of an ideal living situation at 20 years old.

I needed my own space and I was so glad to have it.

A knock at the door snapped me out of my thoughts and back into reality. It took me 5 steps to get from where I was sitting at the stool in the kitchen to the door.

I opened it to see the beaming face of Corey. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. He towered over me at 6 ft tall, he had gorgeous mahogany skin, sparkling brown eyes and a smile that could make you weak at the knees. I smiled and pulled him into a hug. "Hey, thanks for coming!" I led him into my flat giving him a tour of my hallway, bathroom, bedroom and kitchen which took all of 30 seconds.