A/N:

Looking back over this, it's pretty short, but definitely complete. I poured my soul into this and lost myself in writing it. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

Herself

Forward

She, from what all the world could tell, was unsocial, dorky, and repelling. She had a pretty body, face, physical form; but, when matched with bleeding and twisted perception of one’s self and personality, body isn’t so noticeable. Raised differently than all her sisters—all beautiful, like her—she didn’t have the, almost arrogant, self-confidence they possessed. At her awkward age, she was nothing like her family, and felt perhaps, nothing like herself. She couldn’t define “I” anymore, and she wondered, Had she ever?

And so, she tried to do just what it was she feared would escape her. Sign, horoscope, habits, hand-writing, personality—she attempted to create herself, but lost happiness in her task quickly. Could she never just truly be . . . herself? If one did not know one’s self, could they act it?

No, they can’t.

Yes, they can.

No, no they can’t.

Yes, dear, yes they can.

You’re idiotic! Of course they can’t!

This is not false hope! YES, they can.

I don’t believe you.

And so, it isn’t.

“What the mind perceives, it believes, and receives.” Until she “found herself,” or let her mind recall what she was outside of flesh and body, she would be unhappy and unsure. But she needed to believe that she was someone, that personality—so purely her own—lurked in her consciousness, so that she could find herself. She would stumble into graceful realization, maybe—but she needed acceptance from within.

Neither like her sisters, nor mother. Like no other.

She was herself, and so the path to identity, lurked there, in that understanding. A demon would have to be killed.

-- -- --

Notice, she’s hurting.

She had locked herself in her room. Grandmother had become nasty again. Refuge and safety were all in the mind’s perception, and she had become skilled in the art of pretending.

Pretending her grandmother wasn’t just outside her bedroom door. Pretending these four walls of her cold, drafty bedroom closed her off from the rest of the world that had been the site of so much pain already.

She could pretend all she liked—but she knew the real trouble was ready to be unleashed in her mind. It had been growing for a while, fed and taunted by her deceptive, damn terrifying, grandmother.

--

She was at school, in the bathroom. The ball had smacked her straight in the face, made her feel pain that wasn’t purely physical. Like the surge of tears after a wound when your mother walked into the room—but different, because she wasn’t crying because of the promise of comfort, but rather the lack of it.

Her teacher was worried. He told her to come out and, ashamed, she refused. Even sadder, more confused, but strangely guilty was she when he came into the girls’ bathroom himself.

Was this what she had wanted?

Yes.

Seeking attention, was she?

Definitely.

She was guilty because of that, and she did her best to reject his comfort because of it. She caught herself seeking attention more often after that.

--

A conversation with her mother went as follows: What am I like? (Because I don’t know anymore.) What does my sign mean, Mother? I love you mommy. No, it’s ok that you didn’t show up to pick me up. (It hurts, and I cried, but now I can hear your voice . . . Talk to me forever, Mommy?) I love you. (Am I like you? Please tell me I am.)

She was smart, beautiful, Mommy’s little girl, Mommy said. She was Sagittarius, and that meant she was adventurous, intelligent, an archer (Half man half horse, too, Mommy?), and red—intense. Mommy loves her, too, Baby Angel.

Mommy doesn’t notice that she’s hurting, Baby Angel. Is that mommy’s fault?

No! No, it isn’t, Mommy! She says. She’s always so happy for contact, that all is always forgiven.

I love you, Mommy. Don’t hang up, Mommy. Are you there? Take me away, Mommy . . . I was to be a Sagittarius—adventurous, half-man, half-horse.

Please, Mommy.

--

She’s looking at him. She thinks that maybe liking him would be normal. Does she like him like a girl would?

No.

How come? You don’t know that.

She doesn’t like boys.

She tries to like him. She thinks she should like him. Girls aren’t supposed to like girls, she thinks, because indirectly, that’s what she’s been told.

Mommy would pretend to like her, anyways. She knows. Guilty again, she tries to bury it.

She likes him, she decides, and she tells another girl. She could like him if she pretended. She was good at that.

--

Grandmother is screaming in the shower again. She can’t sleep.

He told her to hang herself yesterday. She wonders why she only wondered how she was supposed to react. She remembers how grandmother had reacted when she’d mumbled that she liked “Aaron” and grandmother had heard “Sharon.”

Grandmother wailed in the shower again, and something lodged in her throat. Painfully, not just physically again.

There’s nothing wrong with Grandma, they say. It’s all in Grandma’s head.

Is it all in her head, too? She wonders.

--

Pretending, she stumbles into social interaction. Tentatively, she tries to join a game with the other kids. She almost doesn’t want to. She wonders why she wants to.

She withdraws and enters the game, skimming a side, as uncertainty makes a frequent stop of her.

Are you playing or not, --------? He knows her name. She’s stunned, and nervous, and guilty again. Her need lowers and she retreats. He only stares at her for a moment. Could he be thinking something besides mean things?

She will learn later that he doesn’t have such a good home life either. Not for a long while and a great breakdown later, however.

She tried to pretend she could play the game. She doesn’t fit in at all.

--

What the mind perceives, it believes, and receives.

Grandma told her she was worthless. She felt it in her gut. It hurt more than physically, again.

Germs scared her. She felt trapped. She couldn’t touch anything.

Why?

Because it’s going to hurt her!

How?

There are germs all over. Grandma took her outside and showed her The Angel—the mushroom in their front yard. Grandma told her it would take her to heaven.

She wants to stay here.

She can’t cross the yard anymore. It’ll get on her shoes—and crawl up her legs when her too-big pants get under them. She’ll step in it barefoot in the shower. It’ll follow her into bed.

She can’t touch anything. She cries as she tries to sleep.

She can’t control what she pretends anymore, but she’s still the best at it.

--

There are chemicals in that thing her teacher wants them to touch. She can’t touch it. It won’t come off when she washes her hands. It hurts to wash her hands now.

She doesn’t touch it. She sits, stands, and cries as quietly as she can to herself. They tell her later that she was mumbling to herself. But she can’t find herself. She can’t remember saying anything.

She scratches the skin on her hand and she bleeds again. She’s so scared all the time now. She wants to lock herself in her room. She wants Daddy to come home early today. Daddy loves her, and she loves Daddy so much. Daddy will hide with her in her room.

It’s what Daddy would think if he knew that scares her the most.

--

She was lonely. She was so lonely. She doesn’t want to go back to Mommy’s house because it happened there—she doesn’t want to do it again. Does she?

Yes.

No! No, no, she doesn’t. She can’t. It’s wrong. It’s so bad. Daddy would . . . Daddy would . . . What would Daddy do?

She cries and curls in he infested bed. She’s home alone, and she’s so scared of herself.

--

She bangs her head against the couch, squeezing the phone in her hand. Is it working? It won’t call Mommy! She needs to tell Mommy! Mommy!

Mommy, Jen did things to me—and I liked it, Mommy! It hurts so much! I did it so much—am I bad? Do you still love me? Mommy! Pick up the phone!

There isn’t even a dial tone on the other end. She can’t hear anything. She can’t tell anyone. She clutches the phone. She hugs the phone, just like she did when Mommy stayed on the line so that she could get to sleep, and cried. Because Mommy hadn’t been on the line then, either.

--

She forgot what ate her up inside.

Her teacher, and her Daddy, got her into counseling. And she was happy. She wasn’t so lonely. They played a board game after every session, and she liked to laugh when she talked to her pretty councilor. Her councilor listened to her, even when she was taking but wasn’t really saying anything. She wondered what they thought of her.

But she was happy, she wasn’t so lonely, and she forgot about anything else. No one would ever know.

--

Looking back on it, she remembers what she had to forget.

Daddy tells her, thinking it’s all dead and gone, that they’d thought it was his fault at first. He says he was scared that they were going to take her away from him. They talk about how getting rid of Grandma helped her. He mentions her muttering to herself in the classroom because she couldn’t touch anything.

She thinks for the first time, that she really was crazy back then. She withdraws from the conversation as she starts to remember. She curls up and makes him leave her bedroom light on before he goes to bed.

She starts to doubt her sanity again.

Maybe someone needs to know.

She starts to write it all out.