Hair damp on my shoulders and smelling of my usual shampoo, I feel a little grounded. Not because anything has resolved in my mind, but because I took a break from all the chaos swarming there, if only for a few minutes. As soon as Mikhail closes the door behind him, though, everything comes knocking back, anxiety tingling down my limbs.
I pull my knees into myself, whimpering at the horrible images flashing before my eyes.
I don’t want this anymore. I want it to stop.
But it will never stop. This is my life now.
Tossing to the other side, I pick up my phone from the nightstand and open my contacts, thumb scrolling fast for Ms. Donatello’s number. I know she can’t fix me this time around, but I need her. I want her to try.
The phone rings twice in tandem with my heartbeat. Then, the call connects, and I hold my breath.
“Cecilia?”
“H-Hi,” I croak out. “I…um…I’m sorry for not calling you sooner. I didn’t know where we stood after the wedding and everything…”
“You’re crying. What’s wrong,cara?”
“Everything’s wrong.Everything…”
I sob, and the line goes quiet as I try to get a hold of myself.
“You remembered,” she says in that calm voice of hers.
She knows. Of course she knows. All those discussions about my nightmares, all the times she asked me to tell her if I’m still having them, she was trying to protect me from learning the truth.
“I’m so s-sorry.” My throat chokes on pain—thick and cruel. “I don’t understand. I l-loved her…”
“Oh, Cecilia…” She sighs, the sound of traffic coming through from her line. “I tried so hard to keep you from finding out. What happened that night was a terrible mistake. You were just a child.”
A mistake? How could that have been a mistake? A mistake is missing a key at the piano or messing up a chorus. But taking my parent’s life…that’s no accident. It cannot be.
“I tried to end it…” I confess. “I don’t know what else to do. I deserve to be in prison or in a mental facility. What is wrong with me? Do you know? Canyoutell me?”
“Nothing! Nothing is wrong with you,cara. It’s just…” She pauses. “A child shouldn’t grow up around guns and criminals. A lot was happening in your father’s business around that time, and you became overwhelmed by all the stress your parents carried. You snapped. You didn’t know how to handle all those strong emotions. No child does.”
Her words feel like an embrace from death—it’s warm and inviting, but it still doesn’t negate the facts. And the facts are, I got a hold of a knife and plunged it into the person I loved the most. Because Isnapped. If what she’s saying is true, what will happen the next time I’m overwhelmed again?
“I s-snapped?”
“You did,cara. Oh lord, I’m so sorry you are going through this…”
I shake my head. “I should visit my shrink or talk to my father. See what they think happened as well…”
“You can if you want, but…some truths don’t help us heal. What good would it do you to relive that awful past?”
I nod, digging my nails into my palm. The mere thought of admitting what I did to other people is enough to make me agree. It makes sense now that my father stopped loving me—that he became a stranger soon after my mother’s death. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for him to see me every day in that house, to pretend I was still his daughter.
“Why did you stay with me all those years?” I whisper.
“What kind of a friend would I have been to your mother if I had abandoned her only child when she needed me the most? I’m not scared of you, Cecilia, never have been. Not even when I found you after the fact. You were just a child, and you shouldn’t blame yourself for your father’s negligence.”
My chest tightens at her soft words, and something—maybe my self-preservation instincts—pulls me into her comforting version of the event. Maybe it wasn’t all my fault. Maybe being a child living with criminals does do something to your psyche.
“I don’t know what to do. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t function…” I croak out.
“You have to. Terrible things happen every day, and that’s life. Find something good to hold on to, and understand it wasn’t your fault.”
As if it were that simple…
