Page 17 of Dance With A Devil
A cold shiver rakes down my spine, burying itself in my bones. I pull the blanket up like that’ll do anything.
It doesn’t.
I’m still freezing.
I feel like a ghost trapped in my own body.
I don’t eat. I can’t. Everything tastes like ashes. Food turns to nausea the second it touches my lips. I’ve lost weight, probably more than I should, but who gives a fuck?
Every time I look in the mirror, I see a stranger. A girl who was built on lies. Raised in silence. Betrayed by the only person who was supposed to love her without question.
My chest tightens, painful, sharp. It’s hard to breathe. Like the air itself is rejecting me.
I press my palms to my face, dig my nails into the skin. Anything to ground myself. Nothing works. I’m just numb.
Time bleeds together in smudged colors. Days vanish. Nights stretch too long.
How is it already the end of the week?
I curl into myself, folding small beneath the covers. I whisper into the dark, “Just close your eyes, Athens. Nothing can happen in your dreams.”
Even that feels like a lie. A beautiful one. But a lie all the same.
Still… I shut my eyes.
Not because I believe it. But because I need the escape.
Even if the escape is laced with darkness. Even if sleep claws at me with bloody fingers and shows me the face of every truth I don’t want to see.
I let her take me anyway.
Because the pain of dreaming is still easier than being awake.
And as I slip under, into the murk and madness, the dreams rise up like they always do, not soft. Not safe. But sharp. Bleeding. Endless.
And that’s where I go.
To suffer in silence.
Where no one can find me.
“Aunt Josie?”
My voice cracks as I blink into the shadows, wiping sleep from my eyes while fragmented memories claw their way to the surface like bones rising through wet earth.
“Are you really my mother?”
The words barely leave my lips. A whisper. A wound. Part of me already knows the answer. That’s what makes it worse.
She rises from the chair and sits beside me on the edge of the bed, her expression soft but haunted. Like someone who’s loved me while hiding from the truth.
“Yes, baby. I am.” Her voice is barely there, regret in the shape of a lullaby.
“How?” It’s all I can manage.
How did we get here?
She sighs. “There’s so much you don’t know. So much I should’ve told you sooner. But I didn’t know where to begin.”
