Listening to that monster rape and finally murder my best friend in the room next door. Her muffled, gagged screams. The sound of flesh slapping flesh.
I bolt from the kitchen, stumbling into the bathroom and lifting the toilet lid just in time to vomit.
The lightning storm in my head subsides a little then. I sink to the floor, breathing in and out unsteadily as I rest the back of my head against the tiled wall. My hair falls over my clammy face,but I don't brush it away, looking up at the ceiling through a haze of blonde and pink.
My hair’s been almost every color of the rainbow over the past seven years. Sometimes buzzed super short. Sometimes extra-long. The therapist I saw for a while at Oxford Hills Academy, over in England, told me my ever-changing hairstyle was a coping mechanism; a way to “take back control and autonomy over my body” after that psychopath shaved my head bald when he took us.
I mean,no shit, Sherlock.
Eventually I exhale and push the hair out of my eyes. Then I flush the toilet, stand, wash my hands, and splash cold water on my face.
I grab my laptop off the kitchen table and bring it upstairs to the sleeping loft with me. For a moment, after I undress, I glance at the reflection of my body in the full-length wall mirror.
The old me was obsessed with unrealistic beauty standards and the male gaze.
Since my trip to hell, I have a different outlook.
I mean, I know I’m pretty, even if the circles under my eyes are a little deeper these days. I’m in—real talk—insanelygood shape, thanks to a lifetime of ballet.
But while I don’t remember much from before the amnesia, I do rememberhatingany and every little blemish I’d find on my body. A pimple was cause for a meltdown. A bruise from dancing? Kill me now. End my suffering.
A wry smile curls my mouth as I look at myself.
I’m in ludicrously good shape. I’m toned, slender, strong…and yes, pretty.
But my body is also abattle reportof what it’s been through. Recent bruising from a fall at rehearsal purples the outside of my left thigh all the way up to the hip. Another one from a different tumble…Val and Ireallyneed to get that lift sorted out…swells on my right forearm.
The thin white lines, evenly spaced and all the same length across my thigh where it meets my hip.
I don’t cut much anymore. Hardly ever, really. But there was a time…
I shake my head, letting that part of me fall back into the shadows as I take stock of the rest of my wounds and marks that the old me would have crashed out to see.
The scar on my knee from the patellar impingement surgery I had when I was nineteen. The ones on my elbow, from when I was high as a kite and fell sideways through a plate glass door.
The burn marks on my back, one of my shoulders and my right hand, from the fire and explosion that knocked away my memory the night I was rescued.
Tattoos—some still beloved, others that make me cringe. Scars from other accidents. My fucked-up feet and the hidden track marks there.
I smile quietly, turning, really looking at my body without trying for the best angle or the most flattering light.
Everything might be spiraling out of control right now, but at least I don’t hate myself like I used to. I might notlikemyself all the time, but I’ve learned to put away the hate.
Mostly.
And that’s something to be proud of. That took fuckingwork, and time, and tears, and falling over and over before I could stand on my own again.
I frown a little, thinking about my time at OHA, and then at the slightly less prestigious Manchester Prep after I was “encouraged to leave” the former.
Suddenly being an outcast.
Trying to remember who I was, hoping the memories would come back. Screaming in terror when they did.
I think—no, Iknow—that’s why I tried heroin that first time, at Oxford Hills University. Those memories, returning after being lost in the ether, were a literal walking nightmare from which I couldn't wake. And once they did come back, nothing could keep them away.
Nothing except heroin.
It's ludicrous, I know: an aspiring ballet dancer doingheroin? But shooting up was the warmest hug I’d ever felt. The great escape from the monsters rampaging through my head. Better than any high, any emotion, any elation.
