Sweet Collateral

I don’t want to feel that level of betrayal. I don’t want to remember all those men, their hands on me, their cold eyes as they fucked me. I’ve been a slave all my life, fulfilling men’s sick desires, but there was something awful about the cold detachment of those Russian soldiers. I squeeze my eyes shut as the memories try to rise, but that darkness is right there, offering me it’s embrace. So, I step into it, allowing the numbness to creep over me until there’s nothing but this existence.

The door clicks open, and Rafael walks in. Shadows linger beneath his eyes, and he’s lost weight. The stubble on his jaw has grown out to a full beard. He’s giving up. I can see it in his eyes.

My chest aches and I frown at the sensation. I close my eyes, and for a second I can almost recall what it felt like to be kissed by him, to be loved. The memories are muddied and blurred, like a dream that you can’t quite remember. I think I want them though.

“I want to leave,” I say.

His gaze snaps to mine as if he’s surprised I’ve spoken to him. Have I become so bad?

“And go where?”

“The garden.” I want to remember what the outside feels like. I need…something.

I get off the bed, and he holds the door open for me. We walk silently through the house and once outside, the sun bathes me in its red-hot rays. I close my eyes and turn my face towards it, submitting to its power. The dry grass brushes my bare feet and everything feels…more. A warm breeze skitters over my skin, bringing the scent of eucalyptus with it. I keep walking into the eucalyptus grove until I reach the spot where it all started. I can hear Rafael right behind me, but he hangs back when I stop and stare at a spot on the ground.

It was here that I was dragged away from Lucas. He was bleeding in the grass. He was dying. That feeling in my chest intensifies, and again I retreat away from it. I’m scared to feel it, scared I can’t survive it.

“Lucas?” I ask quietly.

“Alive.”

I nod. “I want to walk alone.”

I can practically feel the sting of rejection in his heavy breath before he turns and walks away from me.

I walk through the garden for a while, battling with myself. It’s not that I don’t want to feel these emotions. I do. I just can’t. Rafael’s saved me. Twice. He doesn’t deserve this. I want to be able to ease his pain. And it’s this solitary fact that makes me desperate.

I go back to the house and quietly move along the hallways. Voices drift around a corner, and I duck into the kitchen as they approach.

“She’s getting better. She left that room.” I think that’s Carlos.

“I’ve lost her, Carlos. I was too late.” Rafael. He sounds so broken, and I realize just how much he must have been holding it together in front of me.

“What are you going to do?”

“Protect her, like I said I would.”

“Rafe…maybe you shouldn’t do this to yourself.”

“She’s mine.” He sounds angry. “Even if she no longer knows that.”

Their voices drift away, and I press a hand over my chest. Leaning against the worktop, I close my eyes, feeling the hurt, trying to embrace it. He’s giving up, and I’m not so broken that I don’t know I need him. Opening my eyes, I turn around, and spot the knife block. I need to feel. Something. Anything. Snatching a knife from the block, I hurry out of the kitchen and up the stairs before shutting myself in his room.

The sun catches on the metal as I turn it in my hand. On a deep breath, I go into the bathroom and stand in front of the vanity. I look at the reflection, meeting my own lifeless eyes in the mirror. Gone is the strong, beautiful girl that once stood before Rafael in a powder-blue dress. That girl was brave. She hurt. She was broken, and at times weak, but she had courage. That girl felt it all, and she loved. Fiercely. Now I see that the person looking back at me is the lie, something I’ve become to survive, but I don’t want to survive. I want to live.

Holding my arm over the sink, I take the blade and press it to the flesh below my elbow. Inhaling deeply, I drag it over my skin in a burning trail. It hurts, and the pain radiates up my arm, but I feel it. Like a bolt of electricity to my dormant soul. Moving the blade, I draw another line, next to the first. Blood wells, running over my skin and pouring down the drain, and as it does, it takes my numbness with it. As the pain radiates through my mind, it releases everything else; the shame and disgust, hatred and loathing. I remember the feel of their hands on my body, the bile that would rise in my throat. I feel the blinding sting of my sister’s betrayal, the utter desolation of watching her—my last hope, walk away from me. Again and again I rake the blade over my arm until I’m buckling under the weight of all my pent-up emotions. The ache in my chest becomes so intense that it feels as though I’m being torn apart from the inside.