Page 67 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

Zachary takes me out of the room. His chest pushes and retracts against my body. Sometimes his breath touches my face, but mostly it doesn’t.

I sometimes hear voices, and sometimes just the steady thump of his feet. With every step, my body grows more and more numb.

My eyes closed moments after we left Miriam’s office. I can’t remember how to open them again, even when a door creaks and a strange darkness falls over me.

Zachary puts me down on something soft. On my side.

I think he lifts my skirt, but I’m not sure until something skims over my sensitive flesh. I whimper and try to move away from that touch.

“Shh,” he murmurs.

The surface under me dips.

A bed.

There’s the sound of a lid being opened. The strong menthol tickles my nose.

“This will hurt.”

I suck in a breath as frozen fire streaks over my tender skin and I try to move away but he grabs my hip to keep me in place. Every stroke is like hot air on coals, stoking the fire buried deep within. Bringing it to the surface. I’d have started sobbing, but I’m spent.

So I lay there and somehow endure the agony.

I wish I could pray.

I wish there was someone who would listen.

I know it wouldn’t change anything, but wouldn’t it be nice to know you’re not alone?

I’m alone.

Even here with this sadistic fuck of a man who watches while a girl is beaten black and blue and then carries her somewhere dark and secret to hurt her some more….

Even here, with him, I’m still alone.

The bed shifts.

His hand slips off the back of my neck. There’s the sound of a lighter flicking. I expect cigarette smoke. But this is something else.

Pungent. Foreign.

The bed dips again.

“Open.”

Something dry pokes at my lips. I part them. “Inhale.”

I’m past the point of fighting this. So I do what he says and hope this is the last of it because I can’t take anymore.

I’m broken and used. A grubby porcelain doll with a cracked face, left to rot in the debris of an abandoned building. Once a treasured toy, now a spider’s nest.

The smoke makes me cough. But I take another drag anyway. Then again. Again. The pain is still there, but it’s distant now. And fading.

No, that’s me.

I’mfading.

Fingers brush my temple. A stray curl tickles the side of my ear. I let out a long breath, and my body finally relaxes.

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