Chapter 15 - clean clothes

Amelia's POV - the night after she found Zack: 

I sit alone in my bedroom, on the floor, back leant against my wooden bed frame. 

It's cold against my bare skin. I relish the cold, because that means I am here, that I am alive and free from him. I try to remind myself of that, because it's important.

 I tell myself over and over that it's important I know I'm safe, so that I can heal. But the problem is that I don't even believe myself at this point. How could you? After years of lying to yourself, tricking yourself into believing that you loved a person who could do such horrible things, be so horrible to you, how could you ever believe a single thing you think ever again?

I think it's the doubt that's the worst. The doubt and the memories. Both in your head, but the memories play out in day to day life. A smell, a sound, a texture. Someone breathing wrong, boots on stairs, rain on the shower tray. And I've tried to explain it to people before, because they think it's just a one flashback and you're out of it for the rest of the day. But it's all consuming. It ruins you; eating away at your survival methods, making everything something to avoid because it triggers you. You're always there; whether it's with that person, in that house, in those memories, even if you're away in a different country. You think of things he used to do, flinching inwardly because you don't want to be the strange girl who's boyfriend nearly killed her. 

As much as you try, to think about other things, to be another person, to have a different mindset, you're always there. It's like a labyrinth of emotions, you run and run until you feel like you're going to die, but there's nothing, more and more emptiness. And people who haven't been through it don't understand, because how could they? 

 I envy them so greatly. Obviously I wouldn't wish this on anyone, that's not what I'm saying. But for them to experience just one of the memories, just for one day, so they could stop with the fucking questions all the time. People will always feel they have a right to your life, that's what my mother always used to say to me when I was growing up. I used to laugh, and say yes mummy, like a good girl, not really understanding the gravity of that statement. She was saying that your life will never truly be your own; there will always be voices in your head that might have even been put their since childhood, weighing in even though the owner of the voice might be long dead. 

 I do not have tears, I supposed because from what I've been through this is nothing. There is no one abusing me but the own memories in my head, which rip open old wounds; blood pouring from them, spilling into my head and making me dizzy. My head feels so heavy, like the memories have an actual weight. I chuckle at that; I wonder how much it would cost to post my memories, they've got to be pretty heavy.

 I think about Zack for a moment. My sweet Zackary. 

 Zackary who loves me, and I love him. Zackary who kisses me like I'm not damaged or fragile. Zackary who respects me and I know would never purposefully hurt me.

 But now I can see my sweet Zackary on the floor. So much red, everywhere. It took me hours to clean up. Zackary's mum came to help me clean it, but I sent her away, closing the bathroom door behind me. She seemed so pure, and the red would sully her image of her sweet son. She kissed my hands, blood coating them, as if she was kissing her son. 

 Hours and hours, red down the drains. Red on the floor, red on the sink, red on the bath, red on a walls, red seeping under the door. It seemed to spread like a disease, covering me, clinging to me. I couldn't breathe when it was on me. I walked out of his flat, in his clean clothes, my hands cracked and sore from scrubbing them. I walked down the street. People stared at me as I walked, coated in Zackary like a sticky, cooling hug. And I think my heart broke, if it isn't already shattered, when I washed part of him away.