Looking out the window at the brick wall is how I feel when I view my own life. I try to look to the future, but I can’t see past this moment. I have no idea what’s going to happen, who I’ll live with, what will happen to Karen, if I’ll report what just happened. I can’t even venture a guess. It’s nothing but a solid wall between this moment and the next, without so much as a clue sprawled across it in spray paint.
For the past seventeen years, my life has been nothing but a brick wall separating the first few years from the rest. A solid block, separating my life as Sky from my life as Hope. I’ve heard about people somehow blocking out traumatic memories, but I always thought that maybe it was more of a choice. I literally, for the past thirteen years, have not had a single clue as to who I used to be. I know I was barely five when I was taken from that life, but even then I would assume I would have a few memories. I guess the moment I pulled away with Karen, I somehow made a conscious decision, at that young of an age, to never recall those memories. Once Karen began telling me stories of my “adoption,” it must have been easier for my mind to grasp the harmless lies than to remember my ugly truth.
I know I couldn’t explain at the time what my father was doing to me, because I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I hated it. When you aren’t sure what it is you hate or why you even hate it, it’s hard to hold on to the details...you just hold on to the feelings. I know I’ve never really been all that curious to delve up information about my past. I’ve never really been that curious to find out who my father was or why he “put me up for adoption.” Now I know it’s because somewhere in my mind, I still harbored hatred and fear for that man, so it was just easier to erect the brick wall and never look back.
I still do harbor hatred and fear for him, and he can’t even touch me anymore. I still hate him, and I’m still scared to death of him and I’m still devastated that he’s dead. I hate him for instilling awful things in my memory and somehow making me grieve for him in the midst of all the awful. I don’t want to grieve his loss. I want to rejoice in it, but it’s just not in me.
My jacket is being removed. I look away from the brick wall taunting me from outside the window and turn my head around to see Holder standing behind me. He lays my jacket across a chair, then takes off my blood-splattered shirt. A raw sadness consumes me, realizing I’m genetically linked to the lifeless blood now covering my clothes and face. Holder walks around to my front and reaches down to the button on my jeans and unbuttons them.
He’s in his boxer shorts. I never even noticed he took off his clothes. My eyes travel up to his face and he’s got specks of blood on his right cheek, the one that was exposed to the cowardliness of my father. His eyes are heavy, keeping them focused on my pants as he slides them down my legs.
“I need you to step out of them, baby,” he says softly when he reaches my feet. I grasp his shoulders with my hands and take one foot out of my jeans, then the other. I keep my hands on his shoulders and my eyes trained to the blood splattered in his hair. I mechanically reach over and slip my fingers over a strand of his hair, then pull my hand up to inspect it. I slide the blood around between my fingertips, but it’s thick. It’s thicker than blood should be.
That’s because it’s not only my father’s blood that’s all over us.
I begin wiping my fingers across my stomach, frantically trying to get it off of me, but I’m just smearing it everywhere. My throat closes up and I can’t scream. It’s like the dreams I’ve had where something is so terrifying, I lose any ability to vocalize sound. Holder looks up and I want to scream and yell and cry, but the only thing I can do is widen my eyes and shake my head and continue to wipe my hands across my body. When he sees me panicking, he stands straight up and lifts me into his arms, then swiftly carries me to the shower. He sets me down at the opposite end of the showerhead, then steps in with me and turns the water on. He closes the shower curtain once the water is warm, then he turns to face me and grabs my wrists that are still attempting to wipe the redness away. He pulls me to him and turns us both to where I’m standing under the warm stream of water. When the water splashes me in the eyes, I gasp and suck in a huge breath of air.
He reaches down to the side of the tub and grabs the bar of soap, tearing off the soaked paper packaging. He leans out of the shower and pulls back in, holding a washcloth. My whole body is shaking now, even though the water is warm. He rubs soap and water into the washcloth, then presses it to my cheek.
“Shh,” he whispers, staring into my panic stricken eyes. “I’m getting it off of you, okay?”
He begins gently wiping my face and I squeeze my eyes shut and nod. I keep my eyes closed because I don’t want to see the blood-tinted washcloth when he pulls it away from my face. I wrap my arms around myself and remain as still as possible under his hand, aside from the tremors still wracking my body. It takes him several minutes of wiping the blood away from my face and arms and stomach. Once he finishes that task, he reaches behind my head and removes my ponytail holder.
“Look at me, Sky.” I open my eyes and he places his fingers lightly on my shoulder. “I’m going to take off your bra now, okay? I need to wash your hair and I don’t want to get anything on it.”
Get anything on it?
When I realize he’s referring to what’s more than likely embedded throughout my hair, I begin to panic again and pull the straps of my bra down, then just pull the bra over my head.
“Get it out,” I say quietly and quickly, leaning my head back into the water, attempting to saturate my hair by running my fingers through it under the stream. “Just get it off me.” My voice is more panicky now.
He grabs my wrists again and pulls them away from my hair, then wraps them around his waist.