“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Don’t want to or are ashamed to.”
She says nothing and turns her head away to the side. Her chest rising and I step back, giving her a moment, not saying anything, waiting for her to come to me instead.
CHAPTER 20
TIFFANY
It’s as if I am alone. I can no longer hear him, but I’m aware that he’s here. He’s close, and I’m comforted by that.
As I relax on the bench, my mind is the only company I am keeping. He ceases to exist; it’s just me and my demons as he calls them.
It’s why I want to be in the convent. I’m not alone there. Why I need my sisters, anybody really, so I’m not alone with my mind.
My breathing intensifies as the memories swirl. Even now, Morgan is plotting my downfall. I have no idea what evidence she is holding to prove I murdered my father, but I’m guessing she has a convincing story to tell. It’s what she does. What she did when my father was alive. She fed me lies and told lies about me until I couldn’t tell what was real anymore.
She messed with my mind, and she still is, and I sob, reluctant to let her in here but accepting she never left.
I’m not certain how long I lie here for, falling deeper down the black hole that is my mind, conscious that this time I’m not alone. Joesph is here. Can he help me? He says he can, and somehow, I trust him.
“Joseph,” I whisper, my words sounding hollow in the silence, and he reaches for my fingers that are hanging in chains.
“I’m here, angel.”
“I hate her.”
“I know.”
He laces his fingers with mine and I speak as if no one is listening.
“I was her favorite. She told me.”
I laugh without humor. “It was another lie. She merely wanted to mold me into her pet. To do her bidding. To spy on my sisters.”
The fact that I’m restrained doesn’t bother me now. It’s as if I have nowhere to go anyway except the dark place in my mind.
“She called me her slave. Where she gave my sisters jobs around the house, I was locked in her room where she would…”
I break off, my breathing heavy, and only the gentle pressure of Joseph’s fingers reminding me I am not alone.
“She would slap me, bite me, pinch me, and throw shoes at me if I did one thing she didn’t like. Many times she locked me in her closet until I couldn’t breathe. She cut off my hair and pretended I had done it, and my father was so angry he slapped me hard around the face. He did that a lot. Because of her and her lies.”
Anger is replacing fear as the memories burn.
“One day he was away on a business trip, and she locked me in her closet for the day. I was ten years old. I heard things. As if she were in pain, and when I edged to the slats in the wood, I saw her with a man.”
I grip Joseph’s fingers. “I realize what they were doing, and as they fucked against the closet door, I placed my hands over my ears and attempted to block it out. Then she opened the door.”
I swallow hard, desperately searching for something to cling onto to get the words out. I have never voiced them before, but it’s as if I am the only one here and Joseph, of course.
“They were naked. I looked away, and she grabbed me around the neck and forced me to stare at the man. She told me that if I breathed one word to anyone, he would do the same to me. I was terrified. The man was staring at me with a strange expression, and I didn’t like it. He–”
I swallow hard, shame washing over me as I falter, “He told her to strip me, that he wanted to look at me and I made to scream and she slammed her hand over my mouth and whispered, ‘Next time, little doll. If you do anything to anger me, I will give you to him to play with like the little doll you are.’ She told the man to leave, and as soon as he was gone, she ordered me to clean up after them and tell nobody what I saw. If I did, she would carry out her threat, and I never did.”
Tears slide down my face as years of mental abuse resurface, my sobs taking over as I let it all out. I can’t even brush them away. I can’t move at all and for some reason it is strangely liberating.
