From Dusk Till Dawn

!Authors note!

I really hope you enjoy this one!

TW:// PHYSICAL ABUSE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE

Note: To understand the timeline, consider the following:

her past is in italics

her present is in normal letters

My ears are ringing. I could feel the pain spreading through my body rapidly. The glass shards below me were piercing my skin, and even though I knew I was bleeding, I couldn’t move. 

My father had a job that required our family to move around a lot, so it came as no surprise to me the day he told me to pack up as we were out on the next flight that evening. I wondered often when I’d get the chance to make a longtime friend and have a park where I knew I could go running forever. I wondered throughout the flight, when I smelled the new city air, and when I returned to recreate whatever I could come up with as normal.

Sensing a migraine, I attempted to stand once more. This time, I didn’t fail. I fought with gravity as I tried to balance myself so as not to fall over because falling would take too much of what I had left. I need to move, I told myself, taking a painfully small step forward. I let out a heavy exhale and willed my body to move on. Gradually, my pace improved, though ignoring the limp I now carried was nothing short of easy.

In almost too little time, I’d reached the stairs. I couldn’t crawl down without the vision of a possible concussion coming into view, so I willed myself to take another step to  descend instead. As soon as my feet hit the carpeted step, I realized my feet hadn’t stopped bleeding. I looked back to see my bloody footprints tracing back to the bedroom. It looked like something from a horror movie, and I could feel my stomach churn as I knew I might be the character who wouldn’t survive. Wouldn’t escape.

With an almost inaudible whisper, I called out into the cold air of the dark house.

"Michael?" "Are you there?”

 Nothing. 

The ringing in my ears had stopped, so I listened closely for the sound of breathing or approaching footsteps. Nothing. 

“Michael?” 

Whether he couldn't hear me because I was barely speaking or because he wasn't here, I continued my descent, believing the latter. Eventually, I reached the kitchen. I looked around my favorite part of the house, feeling my stomach in my mouth as I looked at the now-destroyed room. Flashbacks from when I first started designing the room came to me, and I couldn’t help but feel the tears in my eyes. Blinking furiously, I looked for the supply closet. I wasn’t going to cry. Not now.

I hadn’t planned to speak with her much after she’d given me a tour of the school. She’d clearly moved in with a different circle of people than I did, and being attached to the new kid wasn’t considered cool. I was ok with that, mostly after being heavily experienced in the area. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she ended up bullying me as well. What surprised me was when she sat with me in the park after school and asked me about my hobbies and my favorite cartoons. It made me wary and nauseous to know that someone was willing to pay attention to me. I remember looking at her like she’d grown two heads, hoping she would think I was mute and walk away, but she sat there with a big, crooked smile on her face.

In about 2 weeks, we became best friends. She began joining me on my random runs in the afternoon, and she always played board games with me. It was exciting to try them with someone else, as I discovered when my heart warmed at her competitive glare and scrunched-up nose when we played. Soon enough, there was nothing she didn’t know about me, and vice versa. I truly felt that I had found my soulmate, and I was going to make sure it stayed that way.

Until she moved 4,500 miles away.

With my feet now bandaged and tucked away in running shoes, I hauled my backpack of supplies off the kitchen counter and made my way down the corridors to find the only thing I was still fighting for.

Celeste.

10 years down the line, I didn’t expect to see her in that store, looking at the vegetable section with such distaste in her eyes but bearing a large smile as she let a half-hearted laugh escape her lips as she conversed with women we both knew she despised. I didn’t expect her to make eye contact with me and for me to see the relief and regret in her eyes. I observed her movement as she moved away from her group and her body language as she approached me. She spoke to me quietly, as if she didn't want anyone to hear her melodious voice. 

Until she took my hand in hers and squeezed my fingers. At that moment, I knew there was still an us.

Stepping over more glass that filled that hallway, I took a deep breath, hoping for the love of God that I’d find my baby girl behind the door at the very end of the corridor.

What if she was gone?

With a forceful push, the door gave way, with the table used to hold it down being pushed aside in the process.

And there she was. My Celeste.

She was red in the face, and her open mouth indicated she’d been crying for a while. I approached her cot carefully, picked up the now-sleeping baby, and breathed in the strawberry hair shampoo we’d gotten for her. 

We.

After that, I saw Celeste more often. I made sure I did. Things were different, but there was nothing that could change her. Being with her again made me feel good, even if I felt like dying on the inside. Celeste always made me smile.

Celeste. Her name was so beautiful. It had been what I thought when we’d finally swapped numbers, and I saved her number on my phone and sat on the floor of my bed later that night trying to memorize it. She said, "Save it for when you need it." She always said things that made me feel like we would always be there for each other. “Name your daughter after me,” she had said once, and I had told her no as we burst into a fit of giggles.

With Celeste now carefully strapped to her baby seat, I sat in the driver’s seat, started the car, and made my way down the street. It was a pretty normal neighborhood, with normal houses and normal people. People like me also could not comprehend why we had such normal lives.

They knew why it was ok for our husbands to sleep with another woman and why it was ok to bear the scars caused by his hand. Why the best thing in our lives where on the account of rape.

Normal. That was normal, because if it weren’t the house I looked forward to every day after work, I wouldn’t be full of nasty memories of each time he’d strike me. It wouldn't be a painful reminder of the fact that I’d sleep next to him with a knife under my pillow. It wouldn’t have the secret door in the attic where I sat and removed the splinters from the chair he’d broken on me that one night. Today, it had been the vases we had gotten from his mother, the dining table he made love to me on, and the television we would watch rom-coms on.

I drove faster, my heart now racing, the thought of him not far behind scaring me—and maybe even Celeste. She’d seen him hit me. She’d seen it, and I’d heard her whimper. I couldn’t bear to think of my beautiful daughter ending up like me. It just can’t be.

Soon enough, I was passing trees, and I knew I'd soon get to my stop point. Noticing the red X mark on the tree, I stopped. I hauled our luggage out of the car and unstrapped Celeste. The sun was beginning to set, with dull orange rays illuminating the car. My lovely daughter's eyes are a light brown, her face caught in the path of the sun's rays.

“Hey.”

I turned around, smiling, to see the girl who’d saved my life—the girl who would never make me feel inadequate. The girl who would run with me until our lungs gave out but still wanted to go again.

My soulmate.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

“Yeah.”

The sun set with my past, and the moon shone with my new dawn.