Page 46 of Echoes From Within
My eyes fly open only for me to slam them shut.
“Why is it so bright?”
“You’ve been out a little over a day,” the smooth-talking, I mean, Travis says. “I’ve dimmed them a bit. Try again.”
Going much slower this time, I gently open my eyes.
That’s better.
“I’m not dead?” I ask, too afraid to look to where I can see the man in question sitting.
“You came close, baby,” he says, his voice filled with pain. “I almost lost you before I had you. You can’t do that again, Sophia. If you’re having issues then we’ll work through it together. You can’t do it alone.”
“I’m always alone,” I say. “Maybe not physically, but I’m always alone in here.”
I point to my head hoping he understands what I’m trying to say.
“I can’t move forward in this life because I feel like I’ve already died,” I continue, keeping my gaze locked on the clock on the wall. It says it’s five o'clock. I wonder if it’s in the morning or evening.
“I started to die the day they took me, Travis,” I say. “It took months, but I felt the moment my mind decided to no longer care. I started acting out, which is why I was always down in cellblock X with the punisher. I begged God to kill me. Or, at the very least, to take away my pain. And he did. I stopped feeling. I was nothing more than a robot causing as much trouble for those bastards as I could.”
Feeling a bit more courageous, I look over at Travis, but can’t find it in me to look any further than his chin. He has a shadow of a beard on his face where before he was clean-shaven. He said I was out for over a day. Has he gone home?
“I thought when I got free I would feel again,” I continue. “When nothing happened, I figured I just needed to feel safe. So, the only logical thing was to get rid of the ones making me scared. The guard, the doctor, and my rapist. I can’t find the guard, but the man who raped me died from a drug overdose a few months ago, and you have the doctor. But, even then, I’m lost. I felt something when you brought me home. Hope, maybe? But, when you left, you took that hope with you. I know it’s crazy since you told me you were coming back. But I just lost it. I don’t even remember doing what I did. All I know is that I could feel the moment that blade slid across my wrist.”
“We found older scars, baby,” he tells me. I watch his lips as they form each word. He has such pretty lips.
“They weren’t deep,” I admit. “Just enough to sting. Enough to hurt.”
“Enough to feel?” he asks.
I nod and the tears I’ve tried to keep down suddenly fall from my eyes.
“Oh, baby. Can I hold you?”
I’m dirty. I’ll have to tell him to take a shower afterward so he doesn’t get their touch on his skin. But, I really need to be held, I think.
Before I finish nodding, Travis is up on the bed with my upper half lying on his chest.
“I’m going to tell you a story,” he says against the top of my head. “It’s not an easy story for me to tell, and by the end, there’s a good chance that you’ll think I’m crazy. But I want you to understand that you’re not alone.”
“You don’t have to,” I say.
“Hush,” he says softly, kissing the top of my head. “When I was a young boy of five, I was playing on the living room floor just before bed when our front door was kicked in. Three men whom I’ve never met prior came in wearing these black ski masks and holding guns.”
I gasp but remain silent.
“They weren’t targeting my family but just chose a random house they could rob,” he continues. His hand is slowly rubbing up and down my back as if he’s trying to soothe us both. “When they saw that we were home, they attacked my father and had him tied up before he had a chance to get up off the couch. Then my mother came down the stairs. She was so scared, but she begged them to leave her son alone. The men made her a deal. They would leave my young self unharmed, but only after they raped her in front of me and my father.”
“Oh no.”
“She fought them with everything she had,” he says. “My father tried his best to save her, but they kept beating him. With his hands and feet tied, there wasn’t anything he could do but watch. When they pointed a gun at my head, my mother froze. I remember the look in her eyes. Absolute fear. But not because of what was happening to her. Because she was afraid for my life. I tried to get up and run. Even tried to close my eyes. But they wouldn’t let me. I was forced to sit there with my father while they spent over an hour taking turns with her. The entire time they kept reminding me that her being hurt and violated was my fault.”
“It wasn’t,” I whisper.
“Please, let me get this out,” he begs.
Cuddling in as close as I can, I silently wait.