Trust Me

By LiLin

“I learnt that every time someone says ‘trust me’, I must never trust them.” – Unknown

“It’s essay day today, class, and the topic is free for you to plan. You can write anything you want. Begin now,” the tall slim teacher with gleaming golden hair curling over her shoulders and attractive gray eyes handed down a stack of writing paper. “I want it handed in by 10am.”

Myria gazed up at the teacher as she walked past her table. The teacher was pretty, still blessed with the delicate features of a young child. Her straight nose and pouty lips curling into a warm smile melted ice off anyone’s heart. But Myria knew better than that. Adults can never be trusted. Everything they said, and everything they did contrasted greatly.

Myria ran a chubby hand through her curly locks. She was not pretty, that was for sure. Her eyes were big and brown, but they had lost the spark years ago. Her face was covered in a smattering of pale brown freckles a shade darker than her own tanned skin – caused by many hours of romping in the sun. She traced fingertips with nails bitten to the quick over her arm, wincing in pain at the still fresh bruise, a poignant reminder of how she tried to struggle against his fierce grip last night. Only ten, and she was already so troubled.

Should she write about how her father abused her? How he came home drunk nightly, beating the crap out of her mother, sisters and her? She bit her lower lip gently. He had warned all of them never to mention of those happenings to anyone. If anyone asked how she got her many bruises, she laid the blame on her ‘clumsiness’. But her father had said that they were not to tell anyone what happened to them. She could easily use another name in replacement of her own.

A sheet of blank writing paper appeared before her. Should she? Hesitantly, she placed the pen tip onto the paper. As she watched the ink stain the paper, the words came flowing out, every one of them bearing her hurt, embarrassment and anger. She didn’t look up form her paper, her hand flying furiously over the surface of the paper, marring its flawlessness with her story. A story which she had kept to herself for so long and of which she was ashamed of.

The timer on the whiteboard beeped. She looked down at her paper. Words scrawled messily in black ink filled up not one, two but three pages. The teacher went around collecting their papers, praising Alice, the one with the type-writer like handwriting for neat work. Myria grimaced when the teacher reached her table. As the teacher walked to the front of the class, she thought she saw a flicker of disgust cross her delicate face when she scanned through Myria’s work. Smiling her dazzling smile at her young charges, the teacher dismissed them, hardly noticing the silent girl packing her bag in a corner of the near-empty room.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Seraphine stamped a neat ‘Good Work!’ on Alice’s essay. The adorable little thing had once again filled two pages of writing paper with her neat handwriting. Alright, maybe it was another cliché story about how a prince saved yet another beautiful princes but anything had got to be better than the next piece of work she had to mark. ‘Myria Lydia Pilland’ was scrawled at the top of the first piece of the paper.

Myria… Seraphine racked her brains for a moment, bringing to mind the image of the girl who sat at one corner of the room. Her uniform was always crumpled, her blouse grass and dirt-stained, untucked and simply untidy. Her curly hair was clearly over her collar but she hadn’t bothered to cut it. Glancing at her own carefully manicured and painted nails, she thought of Myria’s bitten ones and rolled her eyes in disdain.

Her essay this time seemed long as compared to the less-than-half-pages she usually scribbled on essay days. She had been scribbling away with her pen non-stop earlier, not even bothering to spare a glance when a pretty butterfly flew through the window, causing the other students to coo in delight. The first few words were written, cancelled out, and rewritten again.

‘May was a happy girl. She is having an happy family.’

Seraphine tutted and changed the obvious mistakes.

‘One day, Mark die. Mark is her broder. Her fadder becamed very sad. He is angry.’

Seraphine’s red pen flew across the page, furiously correcting mistakes, shaking her head and tutting at the girl’s obviously lack of grammar education. Her story told of how May’s father hit and abused the girl and her mother. Later on, the girl grew older and he father raped her. Only that Myria had described in graphic details what the man did. May’s mother had watched on but did not make any moves to stop her husband form doing his evil act at all.

All the while, Seraphine’s lips curled in disgust, appalled at not what the father did, but at how a ten-year-old girl could come up with such things. Finally, she came to the conclusion that Myria spent her time learning sick stuff from the older children in the school. Scanning through the rest of the story, Seraphine placed it aside and decided on what to do with her the next day. Something so cruel and humiliating to a kid. Seraphine smiled to herself.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Myria walked past the tea shop where most of her classmates were with their parents. The shop lady was bustling around, tending to the customers. Her neat white bun had tendrils of hair escaping from it. Auntie Marge was the kindest, sweetest old lady in town. But even she could not be trusted. For she was the one who betrayed Myria’s trust.

Myria ran out the door, hugging her dress to herself, trying to cover her half naked body in vain. Tears of embarrassment and hurt ran down her face. She could not believe that her father had just done what he did to her. His huge rough hands pressing and prodding her fragile body; his brown, cruel eyes so identical to hers, yet so different; his flabby skin hanging off in folds… they flashed through her mind in agonizing detail, traumatizing her all the more. She ran faster and faster.

Her mother. The curly rust colored hair she was so famous for hung limp against her back as she slumped against the wall. Her mother was so like a porcelain doll, her skin as smooth as glass. An angry red palm mark marred her pretty features. Her blue eyes were blank, staring blindly ahead as her husband raped her youngest daughter. He leant back and picked her frail body up, tossing her to one side before advancing towards her mother. Picking herself up with a sob and with one hand grabbing for her dress, she lunged towards the door, dashing out in a frenzy. She stumbled over one of the many beer bottles littering the ground, escaping into the streets. She had no idea were she was headed, as long as she could be somewhere faraway and safe from him.

It was only when she ran past the tea shop that she slowed to a stop, trying to catch her breath. Auntie Marge, then wiping down a table, spotted her and with a horrified shriek, bundled her into the shop. Quickly, she flipped the ‘Open’ sign on the door over and hustled Myria into the back of the shop where she helped her put on the dress. After making her a cup of hot chocolate with a few extra marshmallows, Auntie Marge seated Myria down and made Myria tell her everything. Myria’s eyes brimmed with tears. No one had ever been so kind to her.

With all thought of her father’s threats and warnings gone, Myria spilled everything out to Auntie Marge, glad to get it all off her shoulders. The kindly old lady listened in horror and it was only when she burst into indignant protests that Myria realized what she had done. Hastily, she made Auntie Marge promise not to breathe a single word to anyone, especially not her father. Reluctantly, she promised.

Relieved, Myria returned home despite the old lady’s protests, carefully avoiding the bedroom her parents were in. She could hear pitiful screams and grunts, and the threatening creaks of the rusty bed springs. Making her way up to her own room, she shut the door and delved under the covers of her bed. Little did she know that she had misplaced her trust. Aunt Marge had no plans at all to keep that truthful confession to herself.

Myria continued walking past the shops, remembering how Auntie Marge had barged into her house the very next morning, confronting her father with a rolling pin. In fact, that scene would have been amusing, had she not been so scared out of her wits. Of course, he denied everything, claiming that Myria had run away when his wife was trying to give a bath. But one look at his wife’s bruises and Myria’s pale, frightened face and Auntie Marge knew he was lying.

All at once, Myria found herself being bundled to Aunt Marge’s cozy cottage. She promised Myria so many wonderful things. She promised her that she would protect her from her father. She promised her that she would look after her and feed her well. Myria believed her and decided to trust her once more. She shouldn’t have. In less than a couple of months, she was bundled back to her own home, suffering once again.

And she trusted her.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

“Good work, Amanda. Brush up on your spelling, Esmond. Lucinda, great plot and…” Seraphine trailed off as she picked up a familiar piece of work. “Myria… I’d like to see you at the back of the class please.” The girl gulped as she dragged her feet to the back of the class. The teacher gripped the papers between her seashell-pink nails, almost sneering as she approached her.

“Come here, Myria.” Seraphine placed slender fingers on her shoulder. “Now look at the papers and tell me what you see.” Myria looked. Her head swam in confusion. Red ink blended with her blank words, turning it all into a mess of black and red ink. Turning to the class, Seraphine smirked. Being the curious ten-year-olds they were, they had turned their heads to ogle at the unfolding scene.

“Archie! Let me ask you, do you say ‘I am’ or ‘I is’?”

“I am, Miss Rivers.”

“Good. Celestine, how do you spell tea?”

“T-E-A.”

“Very good. Hmmm... Daphne? Spell father, please.”

“F-A-T-H-E-R.”

Myria’s world seemed to freeze around her. Somehow, her brain had bungled up all her spelling. She was pretty sure she spelled tea as ‘ti’ and father as ‘fadder’. She turned her faze from the whitewashed walls to face the teacher. Seraphine half-smirked at her.

“You are a useless little girl, Myria,” she scoffed, her voice scornful and dripping with venom. “For five years, you have been studying in this school and yet you have learnt nothing. Nothing! I expect you to write me another essay and hand it up tomorrow, Myria. As for this? It’s nothing more than a piece of crap.”

Myria watched in silence as the teacher tore the papers methodically into shreds. She tossed them out the window, where they would land on the grass to be trodden on underfoot. She blinked back tears of embarrassment and disappointment, an explanation on her quivering lips. The other children giggled at this for it was simply entertainment to them. Before Seraphine could say another word to spite her student, Myria swallowed her protest and ran out the door as fast as her little legs could carry her. Hot tears trickled down her cheeks, blurring her vision. She ran up the school building, all the way up to the sixth floor. The door to the roof was swinging open dangerously. She bolted through it, crouching on the concrete ground to sob her heart out.

Maybe it was embarrassment, maybe it was anger, or maybe it was pure stupidity that she actually trusted her teacher to see her silent plea for help through her words. Either way, it led Myria to draw her feet closer to the edge of the roof, tears mingling with her perspiration. She tipping forwards, and then she was falling.

Falling, falling, falling…

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

A/N: This is just something I wrote ages ago and I kinda found it tucked between the pages of an old notebook so I decided to type it out. Tell me what you think, yea?