Page 25 of Mila: The Godfather

All of that makes me stop dead in my tracks.

I don’t like germs, but I also don’t get triggered by them.

I can do this.

Making a decision I move towards the big, green metal box, but before I reach it, I hear it.

A sound I know all too well.

The sound of a fire machine going off.

Gus!

No.

No.

My friend.

Dropping to the ground, I cover my ears and lie there in a fetal position trying, to quiet the loud noise of guns around me and the whispers in my head, screaming at me for my mistake.

I just wanted to see my sister smile.

I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen.

I didn’t mean to cost my friend his life.

Feeling tears fall to my cheek, I rock myself like I do when the world is dark and sing to myself. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder where you are.”

I am so deep inside my head, in my safe place where no one can hurt me, that I don’t notice footsteps approaching. Perhaps Gus’s friend found me.

How wrong I was.

There’s a click sound just before a strange voice says in an ugly tone. “Found her. Yeah, she’s alive, but there’s something wrong with her.” The stranger pushes his boot on my back, and I whimper, afraid and in pain. “I think the bitch is retarded.”

Retarded.

Retarded.

Retarded.

I’ll take sticks and stones any day over these words. How hard is it to comprehend that cruel words do hurt and cut deep. They have the power to echo in your mind and stab your heart until all it’s left is a bleeding mess. They cut holes into your heart until you start believing them. Until you let them take control of you and they change you.

They change how you not only view others but how you look at the world too.

Then it was not enough for him to call me such an ugly and vile word, but the man went ahead and snatched my cap off my head before grabbing a fist full of my hair and pulling me up from the ground as if I weren’t human. As if it doesn’t chip away a part of my soul when someone looks down at me for the way my mind is wired.

He hurts me just like my father used to.

I try to pry his harsh hands off me, but my attempt is useless. He’s much stronger than I am. “Please. Let go of me. Please.” But the man does not release me. Instead, he pulls harder on my hair, and that’s what triggers my demons.

I lose myself to the painful memories, and I go under.

All I see is black.

I escaped to my safe place, back to the pages of my storybooks, away from everything scary.

Away from cruel men with black hearts.

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