Unrecognizable

All religions, arts and sciences are all branches of the same tree. I hope and wait for the different colors of the painting to come together as one. "Why do we subject ourselves to judgement and misconceptions?" I ask myself. I stand alone in this classroom, wondering what sets me apart from another. "Why am I ignored? Why am I ostracized?”. The back corner seat is my banishment, the illustration of my loneliness. If only they knew. If only they knew what it was like. People always just accept that the forest is empty, instead of wondering why it's empty. The bell rings and it's time for yet another check in with my guidance counselor. 

I walk into the office and speak to the secretary. “ Hey Liz, Ms Valaria is in her office waiting for you!” The secretary gestures for me to go down the hall into room 105. Ms.Valaria was the only person I felt I could talk to. When everything happened in the beginning of the year, word got out fast. I was the girl who had lost both her parents because they were too reckless. The girl who wasn't worth parenting. Having no one left, I moved in with my absent older cousin, who was reluctant in taking me in. Ms.Valaria has been there for me since it all went down. She always had her hair in loose curls and flowy pants and shirts and round circle framed glasses. Her bohemian office was surrounded with inspirational quotes with similar meanings. “To get the rainbow you need to go through the rain” or “ All you need is faith, trust and empathy”, I scoff at them but I know she means well. I walk in and can already smell her Eucalyptus and mint essential oils in her humidifier. 

“ Hey girl! Have a seat!” That's another thing, Ms.Valaria is very young in comparison to other counselors at this school. She honestly is more like a big sister. “ How have you been?” She asks as she pulls out all her snacks and candies. Ms. Valaria firmly believes that counselors should make talking about feelings and things revolving around that, as informal as possible. 

“ I have been good. How about you? How has school been?” I ask. Ms Valaria is taking online classes in English and Literature. 

“ School has been good, I just finished my second semester and am very excited to see what this can bring. And I am good, thank you for asking. How has work been?” I work at my brother’s ex-girlfriend's station. She is an ammature music producer. She was willing to give me the job, free of experience after hearing what had happened. A lot of people gave me pity, but I am eternally grateful for the opportunity. Despite me only getting coffee and drinks for everyone, It pays enough for me to maybe live on my own once I turn 18 in a few months. My brother Austin was my best friend. He always took care of me when our parents were fighting and when they would lash out on us. When he died, I felt an immense amount of guilt. If only I'd been there for him, If only I wasn’t so vulnerable, If only I was independent, If only I wasn't so selfish. Me and Tori bonded after he died. That's when she gave me the job, and I have been saving for 4 years now. I snapped back into what Ms Valaria and I were talking about. 

“Work has been okay, same old. It keeps me busy”. I cringe. There is so much I want to say, but I can’t. 

“I feel you” She chuckles slightly, “ How has school been? I know last time we were talking about how you find it hard to relate to the kids, how do you feel now?

“ About the same. I just feel like everyone knows about my situation, and yet no one reaches out. They never did. I am in no way saying I want the attention and pity from them, but some understanding and any sign that they cared would be nice” I stammer, and instantly feel selfish for what just came from my mouth. 

Ms.Valaria leans in, and asks, “ You know what human nature lacks?”

“What?” I responded. Ms. Valaria always ended up getting really philosophical during our meetings. 

“Empathy” She says as she gets up and goes to her humidifier. 

“Tell me about it. People are only tangled in their own lives, and forget about others” I say this and can't help but wonder, If only people know what goes on behind closed doors. Ms.Valaria cleans out the humidifier and replaces it with a drop of a different oil. As she turns it on I begin to smell the weird and peculiar smell. I can’t conclude what I think the smell is but it is strange, and different from anything I ever smelled.

 As Miss Valaria sits down she accidently kicks my foot. “ My bad! Sorry sweetie”, she pauses, “ How have things been at home, living with your cousin?”. She normally always asks me this, but her voice is shaky this time. 

        I crack my knuckles and twiddle with my fingers under the desk and respond. “ They are good, I don’t like living there. I really just want to be out on my own.”

“ I’ve been meaning to ask you, have your social workers said anything about foster care, or if your cousin is an adequate guardian?” My cousin is no different from my parents, but somehow every social worker deemed them as adequate. Why does a child only deserve a satisfactory or “good enough” guardian? If only people cared to ask the important questions. If only they could see the interior. 

  “ They think he is good, but they are doing a lot of background checks because his apartment is beat up.” If only these background checks can tell that he is just like my dad. How I am just an object to him. How I am just something to use. 

The bell rings and I leave her office, and in a long blink of an eye, the day is over and I go to work. And in another long blink of an eye, I slowly walk to my cousin’s and open the door to yet another girl in my cousin's shirt in the kitchen.

“Matt, who the hell is this?” The girl exclaims as I walk in. She is tall and has long, curly ginger hair, that is all tangled right now. I see empty bottles of booze scattered across the kitchen. My cousin Matt walks in from his room with his eyes all red, and his beard poorly maintained. 

` “ Ugh ignore her, that's just my cousin who lives here. She’s no harm, not a threat” He points at me and gestures that I’m that. Nothing but an object. I go to the kitchen and collect the bottles and throw them away. The girl reaches over and pulls the bottle out of my hand. In doing so I feel her clammy hands brush against mine. I jolt back. I am attacked with just a vision of someone's life. This isn’t my life. I see a family on the beach. I recognize the mother of the family, it is the girl. The girl and the father and their little boy are running in the water laughing. The vision is fading into a hospital. The little boy is lying on a bed, looking 3 times skinnier than he did before. The memory fades. I see the girl crying, in distress, my cousin walks in this memory. Then before I know it I am back in real time, looking at the girl, with her mascara surrounding her eyes like a racoon. Did I just see this girl’s life? The woman I see now is unrecognizable. 

“What’s the matter with you? It looked like you just saw a ghost” Matt scoffs. “Get outta here, go to your room, we will discuss this later”.

 I tear up. I make eye contact with the girl and can feel her concern. Matt pushes me in my empty room with just a bed, and slams the door. I bury my face in my pillow, and let out a muffled scream. I get up and go through my clothes and bundle up, I don't care if it is warm. I hear an indistinct argument bursting out from the kitchen followed by the front door being slammed open and then slammed shut. I run to the window and try to open it, but it's no use. I hear angry footsteps coming to my room like loud claps of thunder. My heart is racing, my legs can no longer hold the weight of my body and I collapse on the floor out of breath. My door swings open and my cousin approaches me. Tears run down my cheek. 

The rest is a long torturous blur that remains engraved in my mind. He leaves my room, slams the door. I curl up in a ball in the corner and weep. Why are people like this? Why is my vulnerability something that catches an eye to the wrong people? I go to bed and squeeze my eyes shut and try to sleep. A sleepless night again. 

I get up and get ready to walk to school. As I enter my first class I brush shoulders with one of my classmates. She is one of the popular girls, the girl everyone chooses to envy. Phoebe is the definition of beauty and perfection. And then It happens. Again. I see a memory that is not mine. Phoebe is trying on clothes with her mother. She walks out of the dressing room in a nice fitting dress with her strawberry blonde hair that perfectly cascades down her toned body. The memory is inaudible, but the mother’s face says it all. The mother cups her hands around her stomach, with the implication that it is too big and the dress shows it. I read the lips of her mother say “ You need to stop eating like garbage, if you lose weight your problems will melt away”. I see Phoebe hold back tears and play with the dress as she cringes in the mirror. She nods at her mom. The scene fades and cuts to her at lunch, with nothing but water in front of her. The scene fades, and I see Phoebe unrecognizable, in the bathroom with her head over the toilet and fingers down her throat. And just like that I was snapped back into normal time. I look at Phoebe, whose life I would envy, and I just want to hug her and ask her about all of this. But I can’t. Boy can she put up a front. I always categorized her as the type of girl to judge if you weren't up to her level of beauty, I was wrong.

School ends, and I go to work. I am interrupted by a message from my cousin. It reads “You snitched. You are going to pay”. I call him and he doesn’t answer. Tori hands me the phone and says Child Protective Services are on the line. I take the phone from her hand shakily. 

I hear a woman on the phone, “ Hello, am I speaking to Elizabeth Abrams?”

My voice shakes, “ Yes this is she, to what is this call referred to?”

“ We received a report from a school guidance counselor that there is a chance of abuse in your household, I need you to come to our facility immediately”

I am flooded with emotions as Tori drives me to the facility. She is bombarding me with questions and I am too paralysed to answer. I feel scared of what could happen next, but hopeful of a better future. How did Ms.Valaria know? Did I slip up and tell her? Did she see a bruise? Is this what happens when my interior is exposed?

We arrive at the facilities where I see my cousin. He charges at me and swings, but only part of his leg touches me as officers hold him back. And there it is. All of the pain I have endured the past 17 years. I see my cousin, a small little boy, hiding in the corner of his room. I see him sobbing in response to my brother’s suicide. I see him running to my parents hoping they are his rescue to a better life. I see him open the door to me with my bags. I see him enter my room in complete anger. I scream. 

A scream that has been harbored inside of me since I was 4 years old. A scream that wasn’t muffled by someone's hand, or my pillow. A scream that embodies my pain. It embodies my past, my loss. The high pitched frequency raced and pushed its way through my body and out of my mouth. I could see my life played out in front of me. I collapsed. People stop and stare at me, they rush to my attention as I am on the floor out of breath, shaking and crying. This scene fades. I woke up in a hospital bed.

I was told by nurses that I had a severe panic attack. I wake up and feel scattered. My thoughts are one big abstract painting with uncoordinated colors. I sit and bask in the ambience that is my mind. I see my thoughts as if they are being panned out in front of me. The picture comes together with a squint and a tilt of the head. I remember what Ms Valaria told me. “Human nature lacks empathy.” While there is some truth to it, it is wrong. . The division of humanity is not because we are different. It is because everyone is too small minded, and self centered, to see it the other way. We all come from the same tree, but we all sprout to be different branches, growing different leaves. Everyone, even the worst of the worst, at some point in their lives could do no wrong. People are inherently innocent. What we experience is what goes unseen, and what remains a mystery. People can drastically change their lives when facing loss. People can be a completely different person on the inside. People can conform to the way life treats them. Their disgraceful actions towards people remain inexcusable, but could have been avoided, if people were granted to look at someone's interior. Human Nature is the lack of empathy.