"Way down... way down... way down. ...They found you on the bathroom floor..." -Cemetery Drive by MCR.


"'Lena!"

His voice, rough from cigarettes and powders, sloppy, stomach-twisting from the slur of the alcoholic life. His breath sour - bitter - to my nose and broken-glass ragged in my ear.

He staggers toward me, about as balanced as a cat on its front two legs.

Snap out of it!
Curled in on myself on my bathroom, black-cherry kool-aid streaks on porcelain skin. My brain is fuzzy like the radio with poor reception. I keep sinking into memories, losing myself in them, and I can't stop it.

Maybe I cut too deep. Or perhaps I've just bled too much all these years, my body's giving up...

~~~

On my bedroom floor, stabbing words and excruciating violence...

Swinging fists and bent knees ready to send his black combats into my ribs. Pants dropped and baggy, secretive clothes ripped off. It wouldn't surprise me if the neighborhood heard my cries those first weeks.

Everything's fine now though - my mouth has been sewn shut... even if it was by punishments I didn't deserve.

Keep your eyes open!

Dark towel over my arm... I'm laying down on my side like the girls in the movies - still beautiful even in the face of tragedy, blood spotting white, hair somehow staying out of the mess, eyes gazing up... for now.

My eyes are foggy mornings dropping off the end of the earth, something thinner than rice paper covering it. They are dazed, not quite paying attention.

Philena!

That voice... I know that voice...

His locker was next to mine. I put a book away and the loose long sleeve slid back just enough to hint at a puke-and-mustard bruise at my forearm. He asked in a concerned, melted-chocolate-and-marshmallow smooth voice, and I hid it again, saying nothing, I fell.

He sat at my lunch table.

He sat diagonal to me in drama.

He stopped one of Alexa's lost puppy-dog boytoys from mauling and soiling me.

He handed me a pregnancy test.

He's housing me while Stepmonster is... in jail.

~~~

"Adam?" my lips move weakly and I'm not certain I even make a sound.

"You're going to be fine... they say I found you just in time."

My surroundings are a white blur and overly sterile.

The hospital.

I'll live, though I don't know yet what I think of that.