Page 10 of Something New

“Good.” He touches my face. “I love you.”

His words are nothing to me, empty noise. I am so numb. “I - I love you.” I can’t deal with him right now. I’m going to cry again. I want to scream and claw at my chest because the pain is unbearable. I want to run and jump off a cliff and fall to my death so that I can be with my mom.

I know I don’t want to die.

But I wish I could stop hurting so much.

I wish I could have her back.

Tuomo takes my hand and opens my fingers. He puts something into my hand and then closes my fingers around it. “Next time I see you, I will give you a diamond.” He says.

I look down at my hand and the small plastic toy inside it.

A bird.

A little plastic bird.

Because he calls me little bird.

I sigh, not sure what to say. His gift doesn’t break through the numbness, it’s just a bird in my hand.

“Thank you, Tuomo.”

That was the last time I saw Tuomo, the next morning before the sun came up, they gathered my things and loaded me into a car. All of my belongings in a few bags. My life reduced to almost nothing at all.

I didn’t even care, when they drove me away from that house.

I was numb. Numb to everything. I had been hurting so much that I didn’t have enough energy in me to be afraid of where they were sending me.

I just wanted to get there and think about something else. Anything else.

You will be closer to your school.

I sigh as they drive me towards the other side of the city away from their wealthy neighborhood, to my new life.

I guess I will do what I have always done, focus on my studies. Ignore the world around me, get good grades and be the best that I can be. I will do anything and everything I can to make sure that I become someone my mother would be proud of. This is a chance to be more, to make her dreams for me come true, and I need to make the most of it.

It only takes thirty minutes to get to the house I will stay in. Thirty minutes, but my old life feels so far away, like is it on another planet.

Everything and everyone in the Vece mansion disappears from my thoughts as I walk up the steps into my new home.

I will be cleaning here, and going to school, and studying. That is all I need to focus on.

Everything is going to be ok, Nerissa. I tell myself.

I do my best not to cry during the day when there are people around me, but for months I cry myself to sleep. It is only after I graduate high school, I start to feel like myself. I find my feet again.

Instead of crying at night I talk to my mom. I tell her about my day and what I learned and who I met and that I have new friends.

Slowly, the pain starts to ease and even though I miss her, I focus on other things.

When I am granted a scholarship to a local university, I’m overjoyed, my life isn’t over. I still have something beautiful waiting for me in my future.

CHAPTER FIVE

Tuomo

It’s been almost six years since I spoke to Nerissa.

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