Miracle In The Flesh

((TW: the story contains domestic abuse and sexual assualt))

Lacey was a sharp woman in her mid twenties. Up until now, she felt like her life had been meaningless and futile. Not many experiences she could recall were positive ones. She sat at her desk, racking her brains for words that wouldn't come. No matter how hard she tried to make headway with her novel she just couldn't manage to make any significant progress. How was she supposed to put the words together for her story to make sense when she couldnt even straighten out the things happening in her head that were completely unrelated? She snapped shut her laptop out of frustration and got up to stretch her legs.

No matter how many counseling appointments she went to, friends she talked to, or how hard she tried to bury everything that happened over the years; it all still hung like a dark cloud over her head. One traumatic scenario after another, lived over and over again each day since they happened.

She ran hot water in the bathtub hoping that a good, fragrant soak would help relax her mind and body. Lacey stripped down and climbed into the bubbly lavender and chamomile brew. The water felt good on her skin. She let out a sigh of relief as the majority of what had been weighing her down melted away. She was never free. Something distant always held her captive. Over time she had grown used to the constant barrage of pain in her minds eye. Sometimes she could shut out things, but not all at once.

As she was beginning to prune, a flashback struck her as if it were a bolt of lightning. Images came flooding back of a time when she was five and her mother's boyfriend had come into the bathroom while she was in the tub. He had a sinister, crooked grin plastered across his face. He was drunk and she was naked. Her gut told her something was very wrong with the situation; but she stayed put, afraid to run or scream for help. He made his advances until his hand was in the water with her. Tears streamed down her innocent face as he touched her hard and unforgiving. His lips curled more around his face, making him look like some sort of monster from a horror flick. He yanked her from the tub and pinned her to the floor. She fought hard, but that only seemed to excite him even more. Her legs were trapped under the weight of his body. One hand gripped her wrists together, while the other fumbled to unfasten his pants. He forced himself on her, covering her mouth and nose to keep her from shrieking. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention to the situation.

Lacey came back to reality, shaking and scared. She knew she was safe, but those moments where her past became the present for a moment always startled her. She wiped the tears from her face and clambered out of the soapy mixture to wrap herself in a large fluffy towel. Her hands trembled with her movements. She didnt trust her legs much to carry her to her destination, so she took a moment to get her bearings clinging to the sink and steadying her breaths. Once she felt stable enough, she made her way to her bedroom. Once through the door she was hit by another flashback.

This one was of her mother's, sister's husband. She refused to call him her uncle after the despicable things he'd done. She was brought back to the early age of two years old when the first horrendous act had been executed at her expense. Her mother's sister took her to her bedroom, leaving Lacey alone with her husband. She didnt remember as much as she did about the other instance, but what she did remember was just as traumatic. He ripped her clothes from her body and threw her on the bed. Her innocence was stolen from her in that moment. She screamed bloody murder, but nobody came to her rescue. He had his way with her, leaving her a bloody and broken mess in the end. When she came back to present day, Lacey was in a ball on her floor. Her body trembled, as she heaved air in and out of her lungs. She was hyperventilating. Her knees were to her chest and her arms gripped them as close as possible. She begged God to help her. Once they started, the visions and waking nightmares were so difficult to stop. Typically one would trigger a chain reaction. This was just the beginning. She braced herself for the next, but it didnt come. After a long time on the floor, she forced herself to get up and put clothes on since she still only had a towel around her.

Once in her livingroom, she hesitated to turn on the television. She wasn't going to watch the news. That never helped anything. Instead she decided on an action movie, hoping that it would be enough to keep her head busy. Instead a scene causes the next flashback that she was no longer prepared for.

She was older now, maybe seven. Her father was drunk and fighting with his girlfriend. She and her little brother had been jumping on their beds making a lot of noise. Their father had come in several times to tell them to go to sleep. The most recent emergence of him throught the door, Lacey had caught the wild and deranged look in his eyes. She begged her brother to go to sleep. She hoped for the best but prepared for the worst. Her brother kept up his shenanigans and before she knew it her father was there again. Without warning he had caught her brothers ankle in his hand and lifted the dangling boy to a height he could easily spank him. This was no ordinary spanking. It was excessive and harsh. She could hear his girlfriend on the phone with the police, pleading for their help. Her brother wailed, causing her father to strike him more. By the time he left the room, Lacey was still frozen in fear. Once she could move she rushed to her brother's side. She knew the broken despair he was feeling just then. Her biggest regret was not being able to protect him from the abuse that ensued. She coddled the boy in her lap, trying to soothe him however she could. The police eventually showed up, arresting their father. They took photos of her brothers black and purple bottom. After that they were taken into custody to be placed in foster homes. That was just the beginning of a lifetime of pain. On that day she promised herself she would never let anything bad happen to her baby brother again. She was all he had in the world to love and protect him. As the eldest it was her responsibility to do right by him, particularly because nobody else would.

The movie credits rolled on the screen when she realized she was in her apartment. Her chest was caving in on itself, her fingers clinging to to the fabric and stuffing of her sofa. To her that memory was worse than the other two that had visited her that day. Yes the others were tragic, but at least she was the one that got hurt. She felt guilty for what happened to her brother. That one always destroyed any mental and emotional stability that she managed to build. She focused on her breathing, in through her nose and out through her mouth. She could take the pills prescribed by her doctor to ease moments like this, but she hated even taking ibuprofen for a migraine. Instead she chose to work through them with the techniques that she learned from her counselor. They helped, even if it took a while sometimes.

She thought about a more recent part of her life. Her brother had come to the hospital every day to see her after her accident. When she was admitted the doctors pulled him into a small, quiet room to tell them that Lacey only had a five percent chance of living. They were essentially preparing him for her inevitable death. She had a laundry list of injuries. They had asked her brother when she had her gallbladder removed, his response being that she had never had anything removed. They couldnt find it, and the only explanation they had, was that it disintegrated on impact. Lacey fell asleep on her way home from work. The emergency response team that pulled her from the vehicle estimated she hit the two trees doing about fifty five miles per hour. Part of her still felt pinned in the truck, covered in blood, and screaming for help. She broke her left collarbone and wrist, most of her ribs, and shattered the left side of her pelvis along with the top of her femur. She had a collapsed lung, complications with one of her kidneys, liver lacerated in half, lacerated spleen, and had to have a large amount of damaged tissue removed from below her knee. Her body was scarred from the neck down on her left hand side. She spent two months in the hospital, had five surgeries while she was there, and was admitted to inpatient physical rehabilitation. It took her years to be able to walk relatively normal again. She honestly didnt think she was going to be able to do that ever again after what had happened to her. The doctors and nurses all saw her as a living miracle. She should have been dead, and frequently wondered why she was still alive to begin with. She believed whole heartedly in the mantra that everything happens for a reason. When all hope was lost she would chant it to herself until her feelings of doubt passed.

To this day Lacey didnt understand why God kept her here in this world of pain and suffering, but she did believe she had a purpose. In the end that's what kept her going each and every day. She used her writing as an outlet for some of what she had been through. Some things were too difficult and personal to put into words, but she tried to anyway. A lot of times those segments would be backspaced and left to haunt her. She took a deep breath and flipped her computer open again. Her face was taut and sober as she continued with her literary work. She was determined to submit the novel for review, typing words as though her fingers were knives cutting those who destroyed her. The joke was on them, because she had never been more satisfied with the woman she had become through the flames that burned her. Soon their indiscretion would be in print for all the world to see. There would be nowhere for them to hide from the truth.