Page 6 of Bound by Affliction
2
Leah
Present
The ceiling fanabove me spins effortlessly, around and around. The motor makes a soft grind every fifth rotation of the blades, the same way it always has for as far back as I can remember. When I was young, I would lay in this exact spot planning out my life. I had so many dreams, hopes, and wishes. The love of my life would show up while I was in college, and we’d meet out of pure coincidence. It would be this instant thing that would just be known and bind us together. While life may not always be easy between us, we would be easy together—we would simply fit. We’d marry and have three children and adog.
I’ve always wanted a dog, but my parents would never let me have pets. It would be one of those special things that I could have under my roof with my man and my own family. I’d get my degree in early childhood education and teach youngsters how to count and read or business, who knows. My life would be happy, pure, and honest. I’d get up every morning and usher my kids off to school, then kiss my husband goodbye only to go off and do my thing. I would be completely surrounded by love and be fulfilled in every way possible. We’d come home where I’d cook a meal, and everyone would sit around the table together talking about ourday.
My best friend, Bristyl, would call me, and we’d do lunch or have a playdate with our kids in tow. Everything would beperfect.
But what isperfection?
My mind swirls with so many thoughts, and my heart painfully beats with emotions I can’t lock down. Physically, I feel my body fight to stay alive while my mind dances between life and submitting to the darkness ofdeath.
Whatever my plans were, they will never be. All of it was lost the moment I stepped into my parents’ home to surprise them. A happy moment shattered, and nothing will ever be the same again. Now, there is nothing. Empty. Void. My body doesn’t even feel like myown.
What do you do when drowning insideyourself?
There is nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape the hell I have found myselfin.
Teetering. I’m on the brink of fallingapart.
Yet, as I lay here fighting a losing battle, I can’t help but grieve the loss of my hopes and dreams. All of it under the same ceiling fan where I once believed in a happily everafter.
Fear is one of those emotions that has so many levels that one never knows the depth of the despair until it hits, crushing you in its path. Then it’s at your doorstep threatening your very existence, falling around you in a pile of ash and soot. It’s only then that you realize the swirling darkness has sucked you in, drowning yoursoul.
As I lay in the bed, my wrists tied with a coarse rope that bites into my skin which is attached to the bedpost and my ankles the same, the words to describe the level of fear I have won’t process. It’s beyond my comprehension only being matched by thepain.
My insides burn everywhere. Every millimeter of my body is onfire.
I once heard that the human body has the ability to shut off the pain when it’s so intense that you go numb. I’ve been waiting for that, and it hasn’t come. Instead, I’m inagony.
It’s like someone stuck a hot poker in a burning campfire and touched every part of my body, searing me and branding me only to repeat the process over and over again until my body wants to shut down, but can’t quite getthere.
Branding. My mind is forever marked by this day. My dying moments will be seared with all the things they have done tome.
Each breath is difficult almost like there are holes in my lungs making them unable to hold the oxygen. With each short inhale, the pressure in my chest grows worse and worse. The weight of a brick building rests on it making each intake harder and harder, almost as if I’m drowning under the water and unable to catch mybreath.
Blood runs down my torso sticking to what’s left of my clothes on my body. Each one of those bludgeoned marks a reminder of my time here—in this place, with these three men. The metallic smell in the air assaults my nostrils like I need another reminder of the blood I’m losing on my childhood bedroomfloor.
Three men attacked me in my parents’ home. The very place I’m supposed to be safe no longer feels it. Three men who really didn’t want me, but instead wanted my best friend, Bristyl, and got me as a runner-up. Three men who feed off myfear.
They’ll take what they can get, that’s what they keep telling me. I’m the warm-up to the show they plan to have with her. It makes me want tovomit.
I’m so damn conflicted because it should be Bristyl laying here helpless, in pain and scared. I have to fight back the weed of hate that wants to take root in my heart toward her, wanting to blame her for this. I know better, but the selfish piece of me screams this is on her even when it’snot.
Even though it was supposed to be Bristyl, this is something she’d never want for me. She wouldn’t want three strange men touching me, hurting me, and assaulting me. No, Bristyl would do anything and everything to keep these assholes away from me. And I know without a shadow of a doubt if she could take my place shewould.
Therefore, as broken as I am, I can only hope she doesn’t find me so she won’t have to endure any ofthis.
They’ve talked, hell they won’t shut up, about what they want to do to my best friend. While I hope they don’t get her, from their words, I fear they will. Their words are worse than what they’ve done to me, and that can’t happen. No one deserves this, especially the woman I consider asister.
In truth, which is hard to bare, this is my fault for going on that dating site and bringing Nick and his cronies into our lives. I have to own my part in all of this. If I wouldn’t have been so desperate for love, attention, or whatever I was really seeking, then none of this would havehappened.
Shiny silver reflects from the light and I close my eyes wanting to block it out, not wanting to see my blood dripping off its tip like some sick game these three are having way too much funplaying.
People fear the unknown. Right now, I fear what I know. It’s the pain, the agony, and the way they keep me on the brink of death without allowing me to topple over into the dark abyss just to continue to toy withme.
