I found myself standing in the middle of a meadow, the sound of laughter luring me like a siren's call. The laughter grew livelier and I followed it, suddenly appearing in a playground. A little girl sat on a swing, her bright grey eyes filled with laughter as she kicked at the dirt to push the swing to go further.
Higher and higher she went, her long auburn hair whipping about her and sweeping at the ground as she threw her head back at each kick before suddenly leaping into the air, only to fall to the ground in a heap. I rushed towards her but when she looked at me, her bright grey eyes were suddenly a dark void. Everything young about her gone.
She shoved me to the ground and stood over me. "You fucking bastard!" she yelled, kicking me repeatedly as she chanted those words over and over again.
I pushed myself up and started running, tears running down my cheeks. A seemingly endless hall appeared around me, leading to a singular open door at the other end. When I reached it, a woman was sat on a bed in the middle of the empty room. She had her arms held out towards me, tears of blood filling her silver eyes and streaming down her cheeks.
"Vivien," the woman called softly. "Vivien, my baby."
I turned back and started running again. When I looked beyond me, I see my father. When I blinked, he was in front of me, looking down at me, his eyes as dark and void as the little girl's had been. I backed away but he was on me in an instant, his hand crush my throat in his grip.
"You're just like her," he snarled before throwing me against the wall and proceeding to beat me.
It was unlike the beatings he often delivered. He was breaking me. Tearing me apart. Making a mess of the pretty face he was always so careful not to touch.
The woman and the girl watched the spectacle of my ruin, holding each other as they cried silently. Whether their tears were for me or themselves, I didn't know. I didn't care. I was hurting too much to care.
I wished I could die at every bone he broke. I wished so badly to be rid of all the pain at every merciless hit he laid on my body. I waited but the peace never came. I was still alive, and all I could do was beg and beg for him to stop.
I woke up with a start, panting and cold sweat covering my body. I looked to my bedside for my clock, finding that it was barely dawn. I screwed my eyes shut, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes as I started to remember that day.
I was just ten and I was at the school playground, waiting for Jude to finish with football practice when Father came to pick me up. He'd said he missed me and had wanted to go on an adventure with me. He was being so kind and I was so stupid, I allowed my childish delusion to overcome my reason and I willingly went with him.
Father told the driver something that I couldn't remember and we drove in silence. I tried asking him where we were going but he wouldn't say anything. When the car finally stopped, I saw the jet sitting in the hangar. At that moment, I knew I had to go back to Jude. I trashed, kicked, screamed, and ran but then Father did another thing he'd never done before that day. He hit me.
"You fucking bastard," he kept saying as he continued to hit me until I lost consciousness.
I remembered feeling so scared then, that I must have done something wrong again. I'd tried to wrack my brain but I just couldn't figure out what it was.
When I woke up, we were in the air and I only knew where he'd taken me when we were driving through the streets, and I saw the road signs written in German.
He took me to the palace where my great-grandfather had lived in after retiring up until his death a few months before. Father dragged me inside, stopping outside a room at the end of a long hallway. When we entered, there was a woman laying on a bed with contraptions around her.
Father had gone to sit at her bedside, speaking to her so gently as he pressed tender kisses on her hair. It was a sight so surreal I was sure he had damaged my brain while beating me. Father was anything but gentle nor tender.
When the woman eventually awoke, I remembered thinking she was beautiful, despite the fact that she was visibly ill. When she turned to look at me, her eyes were sad and pained. She'd beckoned me to her and I'd looked up at Father. He left her side and told me to go to her, so I did.
She had wrapped her arms around me so tightly that I could hear the frantic beating of her heart. She started smelling my hair. Kissing my hands. Squeezing my shoulders. Rubbing my arms. Tracing my face with her trembling fingers. It was as if she wanted to remember every single thing about me. I remembered being so confused. She was a stranger, and yet, she felt so familiar. Out of nowhere, she started crying, no, sobbing, uncontrollably.
"Qui ... qui êtes-vous?" She didn't seem to understand and I had to focus to find the right words through the chaos in my mind. "Who are you? Why are you crying?" I had asked in crooked English.
She sobbed even harder while cupping my face in her frail hands, looking at me in a strange way and then she whispered in my ear in such a hush voice that I almost didn't hear her through her sobs.
"I'm your mother," she had said.
"Mère?" I'd echoed in my mother tongue.
Suddenly, my father grabbed me and started screaming at her. She got up from the bed, getting on her knees and begging him not to take me away yet but my father ignored her and carried me out of the room.
"Vivien! My baby! Give me back my baby!" she had called out to me.
When we finally got back to the car, I had asked him who she was and why she had said those things. I was answered with a slap on the face. He told me to forget about her, but I couldn't. A week later, Father tucked me in at night, which was equally as surprising to me as it was to Jude and Mother. He never did such domestic things. Before he left, he said the words that changed my life forever.
"Vivien is dead. Your mother's dead."
I had cried all night then. I didn't even know who she was but I mourned her death terribly. It haunted me for days and then weeks, and now it's been years. It was like a piece of me had been ripped out and it couldn't be filled by anything so I pretended it wasn't there, that gaping hole in my chest where my identity had once been before.
Everything that I knew, everything I was before I met that woman had been a lie and I didn't know what to do so I kept pretending. Pretending to be the sister Jude adored. Pretending to be Gramps' pride and joy. Pretending to not be haunted by the memory of my birth mother.
I groaned, fisting at my hair and wanting to rip my skull open. Maybe then I could find a way to make all these memories disappear.
"Stop. Go away," I hissed, hitting myself repeatedly until I had to forcibly fight the urge to beat myself to death. Whimpering, I wrapped my arms around myself and closed my eyes. "We're okay. We're okay," I whispered to myself before heading to my bathroom.
I passed the vast mirror that expanded onto one side of the wall and I stilled, staring at the ghostly image of the girl staring back at me, the memory of the woman laying on her deathbed coming to me and angry unbidden tears followed. I had become the spitting imagine of her and I hated it. I clenched my hands into balls of fists, wanting to make her disappear but she kept staring back at me.
I went to the shower, setting it at the lowest point of temperature as I stripped off my clothes.
"We're okay," I whispered to myself, leaning my forehead against the tiled wall. "We're okay."
I put a hand on my chest, pressing my fingers into my skin until it hurt and dragging my nails down. I groaned as I raked my nails down my chest, tearing at my flesh over and over until it bled but I couldn't feel anything inside. I was numb, cold and empty, and I held back a scream because I wanted to feel it rather than empty void inside me.
I dug my nails deeper and I wanted so much to feel something but still, only the erratic beating of my heart came to me. More than ever, I wished I could rip it out of me.
I dropped on the floor, my fingers shaking as blood stained the bandages wrapped around my hands. I wanted to keep going, to reach into my chest cavity and take the damn thing out of me.
I closed my eyes, shutting down everything inside me. Just enough to let me pretend that nothing was wrong with me but my demons laughed at me, the sound of it making me want rip myself apart and I had to get out before they took me in.
I rushed out of the apartment, nearly colliding with my brother who was stretching out on the foyer for his morning run. I ignored him calling after me as I strode towards the elevator and going to the garage and hurriedly getting on my bike. I headed for Bo and Tristan's apartment, stopping by a liquor store and buying a bottle of Jack.
"Bo?" I called, knocking at his door. "Bo! Open up!"
When he eventually opened the door for me, he looked like he had just rolled out of bed. "What time is it?" he grumbled.
"Five something," I muttered, pushing my way in and going to his room, only to find a naked chick on his bed. "Who the fuck is this?"
"Uh..." He scratched his head, glancing at her. "What was your name again?"
"Excuse me?"
"What the fuck is happening?" Tristan muttered groggily as he came into the room. "Angel? What are you doing here?"
"Yeah. What are you doing here?" Bo repeated.
"Oh my god, you're Angel Lastor!"
"Told you we were friends."
"Everybody shut up!" I screamed, breathing heavily.
They stared at me in shock. I sighed, throwing my helmet aside. I was on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. I was not in the mood to deal with awkward post-coital mishaps.
"You." I pointed at the naked chick. "Get the fuck out before I rip your fucking bones out of you." She gaped at me, looking stunned. "You dumb or some shit?! Fuck off!" I screamed.
She clambered out of the bed, butt naked and scrambling to pick up her clothes. I shoved her out of the room and slammed the door at her face when she asked if she could take a picture with me.
I let out a steadying breath before turning to face Bo. "I need you to give me my fix. Now."
"It's five in the morning, Gel. Can't this-"
I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall, struggling to hold onto my control. "Look, man, I'm willing to overlook the fact that you've been exploiting our friendship to hook up with crazy chicks who have strange obsessions towards me. If you give me what I fucking need. Right fucking now."
"In my defense, your fan base consists of very vulnerable and damaged people who find solace in your music."
"I thought I told you to stop giving my music to people?" I hissed.
"You can't keep depriving the world of your art, Gel. It's sad and selfish."
I groaned, tightening my grip around his throat. "I'm way too messed up right now to have the patience for this," I said, gritting my teeth as I felt my demons crawl out of their cages. "You either give me my fix or I'm going to hurt you really, really fucking badly. And believe me, I will enjoy it."
"Gel, come on. You don't mean that," he said, chuckling uneasily.
I let out a breath, my body breaking out into chills. "I really wish I didn't. You're my friend and friends should care for each other, right?" I murmured softly, digging my nails into his skin and choking him. His eyes widened and he started pulling at my wrist. "But it's too much, you know? I can't handle all of this shit. That's why you gotta give me my fix, babe. I need to get rid of this before I hurt someone again. So I'm gonna ask you nicely, alright?" I pulled my knife out and pressed it just below his rib cage. "Will you please give me my fix, Bo?"
"Okay," he croaked out.
I smiled and let him go, taking a step back to let him breathe. "See, you didn't have to be so difficult."
He dragged out his suitcase from underneath his bed and took out a large bag of snow. He started mixing the drug while I took long swigs from my bottle as I waited for him to finish. He didn't ask questions. He never did.
He placed a square mirror over the small coffee table in the middle of the room and formed the white powder into four lines, handing me a straw. I positioned myself, bending over and happily taking the hit with one sharp inhale. I sat up, inhaling deeply as I rubbed a finger under my nose, closing my eyes briefly as I willed it to settle but it was taking too long and I took another hit, ignoring Bo's wary eyes as he watched me. I went for a third but he held my shoulder, keeping me from getting my fix.
"Take it easy. I don't want to rush you to the ER at five in the morning for god sakes," he said, holding out the whiskey bottle. "Here."
I grabbed the bottle, flexing my neck before taking a long swig, the harsh liquid forming a path of acid down my throat and settling inside my empty stomach. I sighed contentedly, finally feeling relieved that I had escaped my reality even if it was temporary.
I zoned everything out, waiting for the drug to kick in as I leaned back against the bed. Bo was quiet but I could feel his eyes on me as I took one swig after another, forcing it down my throat and ignoring how my fucked up system begged me to stop. Bo offered me a joint and I gladly accepted it, magnifying the high as it gradually entered my nervous system and took over my senses.
And there we go!
A grin slowly spread over my lips as I fluttered my eyes open, seeing Bo and Tristan watching me with a wary look on their faces but I ignored them, letting the force of euphoria take me in, feeling golden on cloud nine at the seventh heaven. Bo said something but I was too distracted to catch it, humming along the music in the room. I was acutely aware of Eminem rapping about being sorry to his Mama and never meaning to hurt her. I scoffed at the irony and took one long swig from my bottle.
* * *
"What are we doing here again?"
"I'm waiting for someone," Bo said, his eyes focused on the faternity house across the road.
"Right, and I'm here because?"
"You're my friend and friends support each other."
I groaned. "Didn't I tell you to stop dragging me into your shit?"
"Hey, you woke me up at five in the morning and went psycho bitch freak on me, you don't get to complain."
"I said I was sorry, didn't I?"
"You choked me and tried to stab me! Sorry isn't going to cut it, Gel. You owe me. Big time."
I rolled my eyes. "Fine. Whose ass am I gonna kick?"
He grinned as he looked out at the window. "There he is. Come on."
He hurriedly got out of the truck and I watched him approach the tall beefed up douchebag who was walking out of the house. I recognized him as the running back for Princeton's football team. I took a drag from my joint before getting out of the truck and jumping onto the hood, watching Bo and the guy talk for a while until they started arguing. When he shoved Bo to the ground, I rolled my eyes and put my cap over my head before going over to them.
"I want my money now, Dawson!" Bo bit out.
"Or what? You gonna go to the cops?" He scoffed. "Fuck off, man. I gotta get to practice."
He moved to walk away but I blocked him, blowing smoke at his face. He drew back, glaring at me.
"The fuck?"
I smiled. "It's very rude to leave a conversation unfinished."
He started laughing. "Are you supposed to be his back up or something?"
I shrugged. "Something like that."
He scoffed, shaking his head. "Freaks," he muttered, side-stepping me.
I blocked his way again, sighing. "Look, I owe Bo a big one. Like, life and death big. So how about you pay him before I pay him, yeah?"
"Or maybe you should fuck off before I show you who you're talking to."
My jaw ticked and I lifted my head, meeting the smug son of a bitch's gaze. When he saw my face, his eyes widened.
I smiled. "Good. You know me."
I jabbed my joint into his ear and stomped his knee in, breaking it. He lost his balance and dropped on the ground, crying out a series of curses. I started stomping the shit outta his fucking face until I blacked out and forgot that it was broad daylight and there were students coming and going. All I knew was I was angry. I could feel it at every blow I landed on him. Tearing through his flesh with my fists. It consumed me so wholly and at that moment, all I wanted was to release every bit of the blinding rage that drove me fucking crazy.
I snapped out of it when Bo was jostling me, trying to get me off the guy. I could hear myself breathing heavily. Feel my heart beating wildly against my chest. Taste the blood that was splattered all over me. All my movements stopped when I saw the badly beaten face underneath me, coated in blood. He was unconscious but I could faintly see his chest moving, taking in shallow breaths.
I swallowed hard and lifted my head for a fraction, seeing the crowd gathered around us. I immediately sprung to action and ran. Bo was right behind me and I jumped into his truck just as he drove off.
"What the fuck was that? We were only supposed to get my money, not kill him!" he screamed. "Oh god, you killed him. We're going to jail. My mom is going to kill me."
I was staring at my hands. The bandages were torn and bloodied. "I can feel it," I whispered, clenching my hands into fists and wincing as the raw wounds stretched.
"What?"
"The pain," I said, hitting the dashboard and muttering a curse as pain electrified my entire fucking arm. I looked at Bo and grinned. "I can feel."
"I'm about to lose my future here and you're being weird? Do you know what my mother would do to me if I don't give her a diploma?"
I blinked, shaking my head to bring an ounce of my sanity back. "What was his name again?"
"Dawson Kennedy."
I nodded, looking out the window. "Did anyone recognize me?"
"I don't think so."
"Good. I'll take care of it."
"Gel?" I glanced at him. "What the fuck happened there?"
I smiled, rubbing a knuckle. "I let go."
* * *
The day passed in a blink of an eye and Tristan would have to poke my arm every once in a while every time I'd space out during class. I was craving but I had already outdone myself by taking three times my normal intake per day and I couldn't indulge myself too much, not after what happened this morning.
I had called the Head of Security of the Lastor family and relayed to him what had happened to make sure it didn't get out of hand. Apparently, the video of me beating the shit out of the guy had gone viral on the university's Facebook page and a rumor was going around that Dawson's attacker was a pissed off ex who he knocked up and was refusing to acknowledge. Which was cool with me.
As I drove home, I tried to be sober enough to pass my brother's scrutinizing gaze. He had been hammering me down all day with calls and texts. I inwardly hoped no one had whispered to him about my momentary slip of sanity.
"Angel?"
I halted by the doorway as Jude emerged from the kitchen wearing an apron. I ignored him and headed to my room, trying to keep my footing steady but I was high beyond reason and it was a wonder I didn't crash my bike.
"Set the table, will you? Dinner's almost ready," he said as I was about to go up the stairs.
"Okay. I'll just shower and-"
"No," he cut in sharply. "Set the table. Now."
I cursed under my breath and dropped my things on the floor while he watched me make my way to the kitchen, taking the plates. I did the chore in a mindless trance, ignoring his shrewd gaze.
"Sit," he ordered once I finished setting the table.
I sighed, taking a seat. He placed a bowl of fried rice between us as he sat across from me. He was regarding me intently and I dropped my eyes, knowing too well he'd know within a second of looking at me.
"Is your phone broken?" he asked.
"No," I answered curtly, taking a small bite from my food just so he wouldn't have to tell me to.
"Then why couldn't I contact you?"
"The battery died."
He sighed, throwing his spoon on his plate as he leaned back and I closed my eyes briefly, preparing myself for his wrath.
"Look at me."
"Why?"
"Look. At. Me."
I lifted my head, regarding him coolly and we stared each other off, him glaring while I kept myself impassive. He was fuming. It might not be apparent through his calm façade but I knew he was.
"Did you drive home?" he finally asked.
"How do you think I got here?"
I caught his jaw tick at my remark. "What happened to your hands?"
"These?" I held up my hands, inspecting the dried wounds on my bare knuckles. "I went to the gym. Thought I should start doing kick boxing to let off some steam, you know?"
He lost it, slamming a fist down the table, the plates and spoons clamoring but I remained unfazed. "Get your bag," he said, his voice deathly calm.
I arched a brow and he glared some more. I raised my arms as I got to my feet and went to fetch my bag. He quickly snatched it from my hold, unzipping it and pouring the contents on the table. Three cans of Bud rolled out, the flask he'd gifted me, my notebooks, and a few trash along with my wallet.
He snatched the wallet, opening it and taking out the bills along with my cards and I just watched him, not batting an eye.
He threw the empty bag on the floor and wiped the table clean of my things before holding his palm up.
"Give me your keys."
"They're in my jacket."
"Then get them!" he snarled.
I sighed and did as I was bid, throwing the damn thing at him. He started going through the pockets too, throwing my cigarettes to the side along with my lighter and placing my phone on the table. He stilled when he found a joint in one of the pockets, glaring at me accusingly but I just shrugged.
"Strip," he ordered.
"What?"
"Your clothes. Take them off."
"Are you fucking serious?"
He merely gave me a flat look. I scoffed, pulling my boots off and throwing them at him before stripping my clothes off. He took my jeans, going through the pockets and shaking my boots. He fumed when a small plastic packet fell from my left boot. Too bad I'd already blown off most of it on my way home.
He looked up at me, his green eyes livid as he practically shook in fury. "From now on, you will not go anywhere without my permission. No parties, no chilling with the boys, no unannounced trips with Andrea, no hanging out at Mikey's. Just school."
"I manage Mikey's. I don't just hang out. I work."
"Then hire someone else to do it!"
"No. Mikey's counting on me."
He stood, kicking his chair. "Fine. You can keep working there but if I ever hear that you're doing anything out of line one more time, so help me God, little Angel, I will drag you to the nearest rehab facility kicking and screaming and I won't care if you hate me for it. Do you understand?" I nodded my head, indulging his whim. "Now sit the fuck down and eat your goddamn food."
I obliged, not offering one fuck to humor him.