Chapter Five

Warning: Mentions of abuse ahead, please take care of yourself first, and don't read if this is potentially something that could trigger you.

I stared at the women that had raised me, that had nurtured me, the women who I called mother. She was aiding this man, the man I had believed to be my father in hurting me? How could they? Parents were supposed to care for their children, nurture them, not restrain them like they were animals. I knew well enough that not all parents were like this, but my parents were. They had always tried their best to be there for my brother and me, they had played games with us when we were little and had comforted us when we felt bad. What happened to make them do this to us?

I looked my mother in the eyes, trying to see a motive, a reason, anything that would explain this. I was looking at her so intensely that I didn't even see the long needle held in her hand until it was right in front of me. I started to thrash more and more. She knew that I was terrified of needles, and yet here she was ready to stab me with one.

I let out a more heartbreaking scream as the needle entered my body...

" Keyln! Keyln wake up!" shouted someone instantly waking me up from the horrible nightmare. I panted as I tried to recover from what I saw. Sweat ran down my shaking arms making me feel like I was in the Sahara desert, melting underneath the harsh heat. I turned to look at the person who had rescued me and found myself staring at him. I immediately scooted back, my heart rate beating even faster as I stared at him. His name was Conner. Conner Tanner, and he was often the reason why I was found crying.

Ever since I entered middle school, he had been there ready to torment me. Sometimes, it was verbal and he only commented, other times it got physical. He would punch me, or slam my head into the wall. But all those were better than the online comments because those were public, and other people joined. They would message me saying how ugly I look, or that I should kill myself. It was a joke to them, making someone fall into the deep pits of depression.

I remember how horrible that time was for me, as I had genuinely started to believe the toxic and hurtful messages. I remember going into my bathroom, and staring at myself when I saw the trickle of red go down my arm. I remember thinking that I deserved this, that I deserved the pain that I was bringing to myself. I remember pretending to act perfectly fine in front of everyone else. I remember feeling like an animal in front of a hunter, only the hunter was me as well. This is what Conner Tanner and the rest of the people in this wretched school did to me.

I am a lot better now, and I am in a much better position. But those scars, both mentally and physically never fade away. So, when I woke up and found Conner Tanner staring back at me, it all came rushing back.

My hands shook, as I wrapped them around myself as if giving myself a layer of protection. I stared at him, my whole body shaking, it felt like I had just woken up to a more horrible nightmare. I was terrified of him; it was a definite emotion, one that I knew I was sure of. He just stared at me for a second, smirked and he left, closing the door behind him with a bang. I closed my eyes, unsure of what to view the encounter as.

I stayed up the rest of the night, unable to sleep because of the nightmares in my sleep and in real life. I was so scared that he would come back.

I found myself glancing in a mirror at 5:00 in the morning and saw myself staring at someone I felt pity for. It was a girl that looked exactly like me, but the way she held herself made her seem like a completely different person. She had red eyes with dark bags underneath them; her hair was extremely messy with strands going in every direction; her clothes were disheveled and rumpled, but the feature that stood out the most was her lips. Instead of them being in a wide smile, they were in a deep frown. What had happened to this girl? What made her change from a happy, and full-of-life young girl to the messy and terrified girl that stood in front of me.

That night I rediscovered myself, for the first time in a while I thought about myself, what made me happy. I thought about how often I would get lost in my thoughts, were those just a distraction for me? Something that helps me run away from the problems that consume me in real life? I thought about what I like to do, and I mean really like, not something I do to please other people. Do I really like to take science classes, my parents, sign me up for? Or, is it just a way for me to make them happy? These questions came to me as I paced along the length of the hotel room. I don't know what it was about the nightmare or even the interaction with Conner, but it felt like I had been resurrected. It seemed like I was asleep with another person being in control of my body. Something inside me woke that faithful night, and I would be damned if I let it disappear again.