"What do you fear, Laura? How come you aren't afraid of anything?" It is as though he can read right through me, as though I was a sandcastle built on the water line, and a huge wave came crashing down and destroyed me. Becoming aware of every square inch my body took up in that room, I start to go through my head, untangling my thoughts and attempting to figure out any answer. Something that would protect him from the truth, shielding him from what's really inside my head. I tentatively begin to talk, my words shaking slightly, unsure if I would be able to finish.
"Wyatt, I was adopted when I was 9. My parents, not the ones who gave birth to me, but the ones who raised me, are my everything." Word vomit. I know that once I start this, it's not going to end. I've always wanted to just let it out to someone, every detail, and put it on them, thinking it could make me feel better. I can't stop. Pausing for a moment, I lift my chin up and look up at him, and he reaches for my hands and holds them, signaling through touch that I was safe. My voice begins to shake as I continue. "It took time for us to really love each other. It's a relationship that needed to be worked on-you love the idea of a child, but you don't actually 'love' a child, or anyone for that matter, until you learn all about them. It went the same way with my parents. We didn't know anything about each other, except that we both needed each other. It took a long time, 9 years to be exact, for me to realize exactly what a a real family was. I had it for 9 years, but didn't realize it, didn't appreciate my parents the way that I should have. My parents were there for the 6 years that I actively battled with depression. Six years of severe ups and downs that I didn't think I would make it through."
I pause for a few moments, and I can feel that he's still watching me, still waiting. Unsure of how to continue, I lock eyes with him, and we hold ourselves there for a few moments. He's trying to ask me something, I can tell, from the tightening of his hands around mine and the tilt of his head, eyebrows raised. The thoughts are coming so quickly into my head, crippling any capability of understanding him. I finally tell him that I don't understand, and holding my hands a little closer together, he asks a question I've been waiting to hear for a very long time.
"Do you feel safe here?"
I squeeze his hands tighter, out of instinct, knowing that the tears were about to come out. I don't cry in front of people, what is wrong with me? Do I feel safe enough in this room to continue? I could give him just a generalization of what happened in my nightmares, he wants to know, he should know. Wyatt should know. I do feel safe here, I know he won't think of me differently. But do I truly feel safe here, in the relationship that the two of us have? Will I be okay?
This is the first time that he has asked me how I feel and truly wanted to know how I felt. The first thing that I am about to openly admit to him is my plague, the thoughts that kill me late at night.
"Yes."
I try to gather my thoughts, try to think of where to start and what to possibly leave out. He reads my face, contemplating possibilities, and tells me to start from the beginning, and tell me exactly how they are. This is when I know he is patient, able read right through me, knowing if what's coming out is a lie. I take a deep breath in and begin.
"My father, he was an abuser of all kinds. I didn't realize that it was abuse until years later when we learned at school that people weren't supposed to touch you in your private areas. Just because he was my dad didn't mean it was okay for it to happen. When I've had a bad day, or I smell something that reminds me of my father, I'll have the night terrors. The memories that I try to keep buried deep inside, the raw thoughts that cut me, on the inside and the outside."
Time passes in silence. It could be an minute or an hour passing and I wouldn't know. The words keep coming, thoughts slowly escaping my lips.
"I remember hearing the slow rattle of the door handle and the squeak of the door as it opened, and immediately my body becomes glued to the bed. I didn't know that it wasn't right at the time, but I didn't like it, not one bit. It hurt me, and daddies don't hurt their little girls, they protect her. I remember at first it was just touching. He just touched and looked at me naked, saying he was "searching for ticks" in the middle of a Connecticut winter or when I wasn't outside that day. Then he took his hands to my skin."
The words come out garbled through tears and heaving sobs.
"The first time that my own father raped me is a pain that can not be replicated. I've went through a spinal fusion and that didn't hurt half as bad as this. While you can't remember pain, I just remember that it hurt and I couldn't move. And my body became paralyzed when it happened, unable to fight him off or tell him to stop. He was my daddy, and daddies don't hurt little girls. What hurts more than that physical pain are the emotions that flood and drown my memories, my dreams, making me forget the line between reality and the past."
Time stops. The only sounds heard are the hum of the refrigerator and me, crying, happy this was out, but too stuck in my head to recognize that I am no longer in that room with my father, but sitting on the floor rocking back and forth. The flashbacks come easy and won't leave without a fight, and some days it's easier to fight the battle. When I couldn't emotionally fight the battle, I would lay myself in the bathtub naked and take the razor blade in my hand. Often times, I was too mentally exhausted to realize what I was actually doing, too numb to realize that I was inflicting more pain upon myself. I took the razor and would quickly glide it back and forth against the skin on my inner calf, thigh, tummy, and wrist. I only cut the wrist when everywhere else was butchered, I sure as hell didn't want people to know I was sad. When I couldn't fight my demons, I had the craving to feel the tug of the razor at my skin, to get the feeling running through my veins to help me feel human again. Some days, the razor was pressed harder against my skin, other days they barely bled. The days that I made myself bleed more, I would let the blood drip down my legs or arms and form puddles, then fill up the bathtub and watch in a paralyzed awe as the water turned a light red color. After I let myself feel the pull of the razor and the burn of the water as it saturated my wounds, I would drag myself to bed and wake up the next morning as though nothing ha ever happened. Different triggers cause me to relive certain memories that I've kept bottled up. Looking at Hawaiin Punch reminds me of the bath water. Tweety Bird reminds me of my father. I try and force myself to stop thinking. Speaking of birds, the ones outside are chirping, and it brings me slowly out of the haze. Time passes and reality comes to life as I open my eyes and look up at Wyatt. He tells me I am doing great.
Great according to who, him? He doesn't know me. Oh wait, yes he actually DOES know. Why did we even begin this conversation, why am crying?
I realize that none of this matters. It happened, he knows. He knows the one thing that I've never told a single soul, not my parents, not my best friends, and not my parents. And then, I know that his question can finally be answered. I knew the answer all along, just needed to talk myself through it, to give someone else the context for the biggest reason I'm truly not afraid.
"The reason for this is why I'm not afraid to fall, because the only battle that is harder than the one of my father that I'll have to fight is the one that leads me to my death. Six years of nightmares almost every night paralyzed my happiness and left me hopeless and bleeding on the bathroom floor. I was once so sad, unsure of where I was going to go, and the only thing that I could be afraid of is something killing me. But then, I would have another adventure - to explore what happens after death. We are all okay, and the things that make us afraid are what cause us to miss out on our lives."
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