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24
Alexis
Alexis,
Dad came home early. To this day I, don’t know why. We were certainly not expecting him, so when he walked into that bedroom, he saw things I wish he never did. I will never forget his scream of anguish. Sometimes when I’m on the cusp of sleep, that moment when you’re hovering between wakefulness and sleep, I hear it echo through my mind. Much of the following events are a bit blurred. What I can remember is how he stormed towards the bed and how I ran out of the room as fast as I could and hid in my cupboard.
I tried to block out everything, but the sounds of Mom screaming, Dad roaring, things crashing and breaking still penetrated even though my hands were squeezing my ears so tight I thought they’d bruise. I started humming. I can’t remember what song, only that it helped, and it seemed to make all the noise go away.
By the time the song was done, everything was quiet, and that scared me even more than the noise.
So still I hid. I hid until the sounds of sirens that I didn’t even realize I was hearing cut out. I hid through the pounding on the front door, loud voices, broken sobs.
They found me naked and cowering in the cupboard like the coward I was. They coaxed me out, and I guess I got dressed because the next thing I remember was being at the police station, a man asking me questions. I couldn’t understand anything he was saying and was later told that I was in shock. I just kept asking where Mom was. I wanted to know where Dad was, but I was scared he’d hurt me.
Nobody told me anything. My grandparents, from Dad’s side, flew in from Boston and took me to a hotel. The following days were crazy. My grandparents told me to keep quiet and not say anything, so I did. No matter how many questions were asked of me, I said nothing.
Turns out that while I was hiding in that cupboard, Dad had killed Mom, strangled her with his bare hands. He never explained why he did what he did. Never divulged what he had walked in on and got sentenced to life without parole. I can’t really describe what that time felt like. There are no words that would do it justice.
Let’s just say I wanted to die. I sometimes wished I was the one that died so I could just stop feeling and being. But I wasn’t dead, and I couldn’t stop feeling.
I wanted to say something, thinking surely if I did, if I admitted what had happened, his sentence would have been less, but I never did. My grandparents told me to say nothing, so between that and my shame, I didn’t.
They took me away to Boston with them, and I never got the chance to step a foot back in the house where I grew up, not that I really wanted to. I didn’t even get to pack any of my clothes or things or say goodbye to any of my friends. It was like they wanted to erase every part of my previous life. They never asked me what had happened that night, but I’m sure Dad told them because of the way they looked at me—revulsion, that’s the word that springs to mind when they looked at me. As it should have been. I mean, not only did I take their only child away from them, the things Mom and I did? Inexcusable, revolting, disgusting. I can carry on and on, but I won’t. I’m sure that’s how you think of me now.
So, there I was, far away from Forrest Hills, from everyone I knew. They enrolled me in a new school, and the official story was that my parents died in a car accident. It was a clean slate for me, and I tried, I really did.
My grandparents left me to my own devices. They didn’t want much to do with me. Not that I blamed them. I wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with me, either. But I missed home. Can you believe I even missed Mom? More than that, though, I missed Dad. I wanted to see him so I could apologize and beg him to forgive me.
Begging my grandparents did not help. I asked them to let me at least write him in prison, but that was also refused. They wouldn’t even tell me which prison he went to. They eventually ran out of patience because one day, Granddad snapped and told me my father did not want to see me. Ever.
I was devastated. That proved to me he blamed me and never wanted to see me again. So I stopped asking.
They say that one can’t run from their past, and for me that’s true. One thing the time with Mom had taught me was the art of pretending everything was okay. And fuck did I ever. To everyone else, I was happy. I got good grades, I played baseball, I ran with the popular kids, girls loved me, and I dated some of them. All good girls.
But as time went by, the darkness inside me grew and grew until I felt I would explode with the pressure of it. So I found myself an Alice, someone who would let me do dirty and depraved things to them. Just like my soul—dirty and depraved. That seemed to help a bit, release the pressure for a bit. But it would always return and soon, the Alice wasn’t enough, so I’d dump her in the worst possible way and get a new one. And so the cycle continued.
Then I went off to Uni, and I met you. I’ll never, for as long as I live forget that day. It was our second year, the first day of class, and you were standing outside the only one we shared. You were with your friend, and I could tell you were both excited about something. You were wearing a floaty skirt with this slit on the side that gave me glimpses of the most beautiful leg I’d ever seen every time you moved. I remember thinking your hair was so black, as black as my soul, but instead of it representing darkness, it made you mysterious, and I knew I just had to know you. It was a knowing that I felt down to the deepest part of my soul. It was as if everything about you could outshine the darkness in me, eclipse it in some way until mine disappeared.
Like you were my savior, not one of light, but one of darkness that was sent to me to make all my sins disappear. I know you must think I’m crazy because what the hell? And maybe I am, but I'm not a poet or a writer, and I'm struggling to find the right words to adequately convey my feelings. All I know is that it was everything about you.
I made sure that day to get a seat behind you, and for weeks I just stared at the back of your head. Remember I told you I was a coward? Well, I certainly was. Every day I wanted to go up to you, introduce myself, and look deep into your eyes, but every day I talked myself out of it. Till one day I couldn’t take it anymore. Well, you know what happened then.
We got to know each other, and just like that, you banished the darkness. It was like it had never been. For the first time in such a long time, I felt free, and I felt hope. That’s what you gave me, Alexis, freedom and hope. And love, let’s not forget that. I loved you then, but every day I spent with you, I loved you even more.
This is most probably where you’re saying it’s a crock of shit. If I loved you, how could I do this to you? The answer to that is a simple one, even if everything about it isn’t simple.
The darkness came back.
I know this next part will cause you pain, and for that, I am truly sorry. I never ever wanted to cause you any hurt, but to my everlasting shame, I did, and there is nothing I can do to change that. There is no taking it back, no matter how much I wish I could.
It started at that damn fucking block party. Anthony introduced me to Monica. Right away, I could sense that she wasn’t a good person. It was in her eyes, the way she looked at me. She wanted me, and I saw it, recognized it, and made sure I stayed away from her. Any moment she saw an opportunity, she was there, flirting with me, relentless in her pursuit. She knew you were my wife; she knew we were happy. Shit, anyone with eyes could see we were happy, but that didn’t deter her. I got madder and madder as the day wore on, till eventually, I snapped. I told her to fuck off, that I wasn’t interested in her and never in a million years would be.
That was the end of that, or so I thought. Days went by, and I couldn’t get rid of the anger. I couldn’t understand why I was so angry because she was certainly not the first woman to flirt with me.
Then it finally hit me. It wasn’t just harmless flirting. She tried to take something that didn’t belong to her, something she had no right to. Just like my mom.
With that realization, a little bit of the darkness I thought was gone escaped. About two weeks later, an envelope arrived. It was from a law firm in Boston. There were documents informing me that Dad had passed away, and inside this envelope was a letter from him addressed to me.
