What will they do to us? What are they doing? What are they doing? No! Don’t touch me. Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!The other voices drowned out my own.
With the panic, I’d forgotten to breathe, so I put all my effort into it again, thinking it would be enough for me to gasp a big gulp of air, but it wasn’t. From the lack of air, a headache banged its way. In the meantime, fingers crawled into the hem of my underwear and pulled them down.What are you doing? What are you doing? Someone help me. Help me!
“Oh… he’s such a beautiful boy. You’ve been keeping him away from me for too long. I would have had him trained by now.”
“I’ll be outside. You have five minutes, then I’ll return.”
Five minutes to what? No! I can’t. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. The fingers undid the big buttons on my top. A cold breeze swept over my naked body.
A door opened then clicked closed.Uncle? Uncle Ricard? Don’t do this! “You’re perfect. We don’t have much time. So forgive me for not taking this slow. My beautiful boy.” My chest rose and collapsed over and over again, but I was barely getting air into my lungs as his hand—
“Uncleeeee!!!!! Somebody help me!”
Thewarmthofthesun on my face woke me. My forehead wrinkled when I slid my naked leg across the mattress, searching for the coolness.Wait a minute, I never go to bed naked.Even my underwear was gone. I turned over and found my pajamas and underwear neatly folded on top of the comforter at the opposite corner of the bed.What the hell happened?
As I climbed off, I massaged my chest, which was tighter than usual. I attempted to take deep breaths as I slowly continued toward the bathroom. The bones around my belly, thighs, and butt were all dislocated or at least that’s what it felt like. Every step sent a thunder of pain up my back. Drops trailed down my legs, but I had no idea what it was. In the bathroom, I turned on the shower, then waited for the water to heat up. With my hand on my chest, I leaned back against the wall, struggling to stay upright. The steam accumulated, helping to alleviate the tightness and numb all the pain. I guessed I’d caught a cold, but why was the water falling from my body reddish then pink?
“Killian?” Mum called from the other side of the door.
“Be right out.” Despite the extreme exhaustion making everystep a struggle, I hurried out with an oversized towel wrapped around my waist, and my hair dripping wet. At least, after such a hot shower, I felt clean. “Yeah, Mum?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, of course. Why?” I didn’t know why I felt I had just lied to her.
“You’re late for school. I was worried you were sick.”
Panic hit me. “Wait. I’m late? How late?” I scanned my room as if I could gain back the time I’d lost withherif I found it somewhere close.
She turned her wrist to look at her watch. “Two hours.”
“What the feck? Mum!” Her eyes widened a little, surprised at my reaction but I didn’t care. “I can’t miss school. Why didn’t you come sooner?” The idea of not seeing Magdalena on a Friday of all days, was so devastating that I couldn’t hide how worried I was. I rushed to my closet and grabbed the first thing I could find.
“What? It’s not that much of a big deal, Killian. It’s just one day. We can go somewhere nice just the two of us, like we did last year, remember?”
“I don’t want to go anywhere nice! I want to go to school!” I screamed while sinking my legs into some blackbristés, then saw the hurt in her eyes even though she tried to hide it. God, what did she expect from me? She’d mostly ignored my existence all year long and chose the worst day to do otherwise. Still, I hated hurting Mum, so I gathered my rage and panic and, in an almost inaudible volume, repeated, “I have to go to school, Mum. Okay?”
Her stare was blank and her mouth fell slightly open, but she eventually nodded. It was the fastest I’d ever dressed, then at full speed I ran past Mum with my backpack bouncing on my shoulders, down to the front of the house where the chauffeur would usually be, but he wasn’t. “Feck!” I cussed. Now howwould I get to see her? I paced, thinking I should run to the school, but it was a bit too far away for that.
I noticed too late that my breath was too slow and the dizziness it. Mum appeared at the door, dressed, holding keys and her purse when I was trying to catch my breath while leaning my back against the wall. “Let’s go,” she said. I almost asked her if she’d lost her mind since she’d never driven a car, but there wasn’t time for any of that.
We rushed to the garage. She turned on the first car that opened and drove slowly since she’d never driven in her life. I had to bite my tongue because I wished she’d drive ten times faster, but at the same time, she was trying to help me.
When she parked across from the school, I stared at the building, knowing Magdalena was in there waiting for me.I’m coming, my angel.A wave of relief swept over me. I turned to Mum. “Thank you.” I didn’t know what else I could say to erase the hurtful words I’d yelled at her earlier. God, it made me feel like crap.
“It’s okay, Killian.” She nodded. “Go ahead. Have fun.” I lifted my eyes to hers. “Really. I’m glad to see you looking forward to something, especially school of all things.”
“Maybe we should talk some day after school?” I proposed. It had been so long since I’d tried to get Mum’s attention or love. Her reaching out to me like that had become foreign. We hardly existed in the same universe.
“I’d love that,” she said, with a sadness that stabbed at my heart. Had I been wrong? Had I ultimately abandoned her?
“Bye, Mum.” I unlocked the door and peeked back at her.
“Bye, Killian.Je t'aime. Passe une bonne journée.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes at the French and responded to her in our language.“Is breá liom tú freisin.”
With the note I’d written for her crumbled in my fist, I walked through the space between the two rows of sitting students and placed it on her desk.
