Shattered Lies

"Stop!" I say out loud. Stop thinking about it. These memories are so real, and I can feel them slicing through my veins like the sharp end of a dagger, the taste of the salt tears on my lips. "Intrusive thoughts," I think to myself. Memories that I try to suppress but always find their way back when they are triggered.

I gripped on so tightly even though my palms were sore and burned. My nails dug deep onto the cushion beside me to give myself a better grasp to give myself with one more hope that I would succeed. But I failed. It costed my self-worth as it plunged me into the depths of my sorrows. It ignited a flame in me; a monstrous, obnoxious scream withheld me. All of what? Why did I do it? How could I have done that? It was a living, breathing piece of my heart; I sacrificed everything to call it my own. "Would you like to share the extensive details with me?" asked my psychiatrist inevitably. "I prefer best if you give me a solution to help me distinguish my conscience and leave the rest to me," I snapped back. She was just trying to help; who could blame her? She was my eighteenth doctor to resolve to. The rest of them just wrote off my case as incurable. Or was I just not ready to accept the face of reality? The question remains unknown. 

The first time I left my institution was when I was eighteen. Not that I graduated, I dropped out by choice. I got my own house, a loan of a few thousand dollars, and was left on my own to survive. It forced me to cut ties with my own blood entirely. I was no longer one of them. We just shared the same DNA, and I was an outcast, a stranger on the premises of my own house. All this was okay at first, and I was happy, kind of. But then there were long nights and days when Douglas was out for some sort of work that asked for his presence every single day regardless of Christmas, Thanksgiving, or even Easter. I didn't see or speak to anyone, and the loneliness was like screaming in my ears that kept me awake and drowned out music and books and TV and every other thought in my head. I started to drink, but drinking just made things worse. I would speak of the unspeakable in the silence of my empty house, hoping someone would hear my cries. I didn't ask for this. I never wanted this as long as I lived. I just couldn't do it. All my memories of the past started flooding in.

It went back to the time when I discovered that I was pregnant. Remorse consumed me; I couldn't even be one of those joyful women who are filled with tears of happiness upon realizing they are pregnant because I knew it wasn't the case here. I would be forced to abort because this wasn't part of Daniel's contract to be with me. He would leave me, and I would have nowhere to turn to. I lost my haven for this guy. I must deal with the consequences myself.

"I am home," yelled a deep, pitched voice across the hallway. I assumed it was Daniel. I only had enough time to hide the pregnancy test. I dumped it straight in the trash, hoping a while after the results would change. "Just a minute, honey, I'll be with you in a jiffy," I replied. When I was trying to get hold of my situation, I saw a shadow pacing its way through the narrow ends of our hallway. But something was off that didn't look like him. The face was unrecognizable and hideous. As he walked closer towards the hallway, the light shed on his physical features as they started to unravel. His hair appeared to be black and a little greasy, his soft grey glistening eyes protruded out of his mask. I could see his veins pop right out on the ends of his forehead, but the rest of his features remained unknown in the long velvet coat that covered his entire body.

Who was he, and what exactly does he want with me? He looked fifty years old, but he was actually closer to thirty. He seemed to be quite muscular, but wait, that's not all. 

Blood started dripping across the narrow ends of my hallway as I saw a pistol in his hand. I could hear dying screams from downstairs. I prayed it wasn't what I thought it was. Suddenly I froze. 

"Continue," replied my psychiatrist. He killed him, I replied. And I was next in line. "Killed who?" she asked. Killed my baby, Nate. It's why I left in the first place. I knew they wouldn't have ever accepted him as everyone wanted my first child to be a girl. It was tradition. Once I told them, I knew it was the last straw for him. Daniel was a murderer of his own kind; he was devastated by the embarrassment Nate as a boy, brought to the family; he never wanted him. Who the "them"?. The people I hesitate to call family to this very day. 

He was a detail-oriented planner. I had run away from home to become happier. Just as I nearly reached the end of my narrated story, my psychiatrist gets up in shock as she grabs the newspaper. She started turning pale, pointing at a snippet of the news she had carefully cut out and kept preserved for god knows how long. You are the lost princess who ran away. She sat right back and gasped with shock; 13 years later. I guess everyone presumed I was dead. I ran away from that life. I ran away from Daniel to be with Douglas. Who really loved me for who I am. Being in love can be painful if you aren't sure that the love is mirrored the same way in the one you love. The pain comes from fear and the need to feel loved, nurtured, and protected - as you wish to love, nurture and protect the one you love. You want to "come home," but you aren't sure that it is your home or can keep it as you feel the emotional need. Yet, the rewards of getting love right are significant. It is the reward of finding your own personal heaven on earth, a place from which you can become the best version of yourself and follow your dreams. I finally found my place, a place where I belonged after desperate years of trying to fit in.